When is a good time for Priceline?

[chrisann]

We need a night for our trip in October, when is a good time to do priceline?

 

[A Mickeyfan]

check out this site www.biddingfortravel.com & read the Q&A section. there is lots of good info in it for you. Anytime you try, it is a gamble. You may be trying too far out now, you may want to wait a while. Then again, if you start now& stick to your price, by the time October comes, you should have gotten something (as long as your bidding price was reasonable).. like I said, go onto that site & read read read... good luck...

 

[spiceycat]

I won't even start until Sept - but that is me.

 

[opharbour]

We need a night for our trip in October, when is a good time to do priceline?

The first thing I would recommend is making a reservation that you can cancel. I use orbitz to search for a good rate and hotel, but make my reservations directly with the hotel through the hotel website so that I can cancel it usually before 6 pm the day of travel (each hotel's cancellation policies will vary).

Next, as others have suggested, monitor the biddingfortravel or betterbidding websites to see what other people have successfully bid for a hotel. If you see a rate and quality that you like, go ahead and bid it following the bidding strategies that are thoroughly explained on the website.

What you'll notice is a trend. For example, $36 - $38 seems to be the going Priceline rate for a 2.5* near WDW. So, if your interested in the 2.5* hotel and you're happy with the $36 rate, seeing that your trip isn't until October, I'd try to make a Priceline bid at $36 for your date and see if its accepted. If its not, you can try again every 24 hours and get more aggressive with your bidding as you get closer to your October trip.

Is it better to bid closer to your date? I'm sure that supply and demand does play a factor in the likelihood of your bid being accepted. As you get closer to your departure date, if there's a lot of supply, the participating Priceline hotels will probably be more willing to accept your bid.

One last thing to remember is that you are pre-paying for the hotel and it's non-refundable. I don't think I'd risk pre-paying for a 7 night stay 5 months in advance since it's a lot of money to be forfeited if some unforseen event would occur to cancel your travel plans.

 

[MyGoofy26]

I never book anything until pretty much the last minute - usually a couple weeks before. I've never tried months in advance, so I don't know what the availability is like. If I know well in advance I'm going somewhere, I watch for regular deals and if nothing spectacular comes along I Priceline at the last minute. Usually though my trips are planned last minute - my friends and I like to travel to see our favorite bands and it's usually someone finding an opening in their schedule that happens to coincide with a string of shows and off we go, LOL. So we end up taking last minute trips and staying in nice hotels.

Back in October we went to Toronto to see one of our bands and I can't even remember which hotel it was, but it was nice - spotless room, beds you didn't want to leave, great location, great view. We ended up stuck at the club for awhile chatting with the guys from the band and one asked us where we were staying. We told him and he just sorta tucked his tail between his legs and mumbled, "yeah. . . we're at the Travelodge" We've tried to teach them about Priceline. . . they just won't listen!