Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - biddingfortravel.com & Priceline

If you need help with Priceline, biddingfortravel.com is the place to go.
You must read the FQA frist our they will
will not help you. It is like this forum
but only priceline topics.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by dcanada:
If you need help with Priceline, biddingfortravel.com is the place to go.
You must read the FQA frist our they will
will not help you. It is like this forum
but only priceline topics. </font>

May I suggest that you read through all the posts in this particular forum before you make some advertising? Try to increase date number for the message stored... to 90 days. You will see A LOT already being talked about that particular board.

The bottom line is... once you get to know the people there, you will understand why we don't want to post there any more.

I am new to Priceline and to BFT . Now I have
read alot more Post on this forum and the other. One good thing is that I found this Forum from a post one BFT. I will try not to
make any more uninformed post anymore.
Thank you MoreMilles for the help

------------------

Dcanada
Welcome to FT!

As much as I look at BFT to get a price range that may be accepted on PL, I proudly say that I have never posted there nor have I ever used one of those links that are pushed so obnoxiously hard.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MoreMiles:
May I suggest that you read through all the posts in this particular forum before you make some advertising? Try to increase date number for the message stored... to 90 days. You will see A LOT already being talked about that particular board.

The bottom line is... once you get to know the people there, you will understand why we don't want to post there any more.</font>



[This message has been edited by TrojanHorse (edited 08-19-2002).]

I value the board, so I use their links. Of course, I could be getting 2% back via ebates, but I'm saving so much more because of what that site has taught me...

I know there are alot of skirmishes over the way that board is run. Simple: take it or leave it. Sheryl owns it, clearly. Play by her rules or don't play. (The latter being a perfectly acceptable choice, of course.)

------------------
"Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an
infinitive, d*** it, I split it so that it will stay split."
- Raymond Chandler, to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1947

More Room Throughout Coach: the Website of Free Miles and Free Markets (http://neat.blogspot.com)

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by gleff:
I value the board, so I use their links. Of course, I could be getting 2% back via ebates, but I'm saving so much more because of what that site has taught me...

I know there are alot of skirmishes over the way that board is run. Simple: take it or leave it. Sheryl owns it, clearly. Play by her rules or don't play. (The latter being a perfectly acceptable choice, of course.)

</font>

Gleff, I have to agree with you. I have my secretary book hotel rooms for me and some others using the above data. It has saved us a lot and for that I am thankful in a year that had our clients paying us late (but at least paying us).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">...Play by the moderator's rules or don't play at all.</font>

In theory, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

In practice (and financial interest issues aside), some people have apparently found it challenging to play be the rules, try though they may. More than one participant has been told to become more familiar with the BFT FAQ, which seems to me to be reasonable enough.

In defense of those who had not fully "familiarized" themselves with the BFT FAQs, those documents are not especially compact. A quick scan of BFT's hotel FAQ, for example, shows that it's got roughly 3,178 words -- that's 12 times more than the Gettyburg Address (265 words), more than double the Declaration of Independence (1,324), and even more than all of the Amendments to the U.S. Constitution (3.101 words).

So I guess if you're a Constitutional lawyer, you haven't much of an excuse.

Wideman, the Bidding For Travel FAQ are not like reading a judicial opinion. It reads like an oral conversation. It took me about 10 or 15 minutes to read it.

If you were a Bidding For Travel moderator, wouldn't you rather ask people to read the FAQ than answer the same questions over and over and over?

The problem is there are so many of them, and each of them direct you to read something else.

You have to read the:

1. Main FAQ, then the
2. Category FAQ (for the type of bidding - hotel, car rental, or airfare), then read
3. Priceline's FAQ, then read the
4. Posting FAQ.

Still with us? There are 3 different
5 - 7. Announcement Forums that you should read, then there are generally 2 or 3
8 - 9. Thumbtacked Threads at the top of every one of the 100 or so forums that you should read to avoid being yelled at.

Feel ready to post? Nope! You've only now learned the rules for what exact information you must provide. Now you have to do your research. You need to:

10 - 13. visit 3 - 4 hotel sites, and
14. Do some research on Priceline to find the right zones, etc.

So, there's no way that in 15 minutes you are anywhere near qualified to post on that board!

Don't get me wrong, the site is very valuable, will save you money, and will teach you how to use priceline, but it's not remotely user-friendly.

It would be a much better site if it wasn't totally run on ezboard. It really needs to be a regular HTML site that focuses totally on education, with an accompanying message board for use afterwards.

She would have lots more freedom on how to lay out her educational material into clear steps, organized like education should be, instead of trying to twist it into a message board format, which is too free-form for her purposes.

[This message has been edited by robb (edited 08-27-2002).]

It much easier to use a pre-made forum website. The problem is that, as you pointed out, it becomes very user unfriendly. Her personality certainly did not improve this technological limitation. It just made it much worse.

[Note: This message has been edited by flyertalk]

[This message has been edited by MoreMiles (edited 09-07-2002).]

MoreMiles, I'm not sure what you edited the first time around, but the kind of generalization you left in your first paragraph is really inappropriate, and I hope you'll edit it.

Moremiles
Shame on you. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/thumbsdown.gif

Keeping on topic, it does seem that some of you have found this other Web site to be valuable in helping book travel via Priceline. Comments about the strengths and weaknesses of the Web site are certainly helpful to others - but as a reminder, let's not make it personal. Have a nice day.

Robb: I agree completely with your evaluation above. I enjoy using the biddingfortravel.com site as a reference tool, but I don't contribute as much as I could due to the site's lack of user-friendliness. (It's also painfully slow.)

If anyone knows a better, more organized web site for information on Priceline bidding, please point us to it. Or step up to the plate and create it. Until then, I will gratefully use Sheryl's site, which has now probably saved me literally thousands of dollars. I, too, have been edited, snipped, and somewhat sniped at by Sheryl, but if she keeps saving me this kind of money she can come over to my house and smack me over the head with a rolled-up newspaper, as far as I'm concerned.

I monitor the BFT site to learn how everyday people help other everyday people save money. It's that simple. Given the continued lack of professional management, there is no other reason to be there.

Unfortunately I have won some nice bids (and lost some bids too) that I would love to have posted for others to use and see. However I will not use the website due to the way posters are treated on the website which in turn hurts the over all amount of information posted there. I would be willing to bet that I'm not the only one who uses the information there but does not post on the board. That said, if there is another site that I can post to, I will gladly post all my winning and losing bids there.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TrojanHorse:
Unfortunately I have won some nice bids (and lost some bids too) that I would love to have posted for others to use and see. However I will not use the website due to the way posters are treated on the website which in turn hurts the over all amount of information posted there.
</font>

My observation is that if you just post your winning bids (with minimal history) you're less likely to get scolded. At worst with full history you may be informed that had you been more skillful in your opening bid or rebids you could have saved some $. The adminstration seems to reserve the "most personal attention" for people who ask for advice without following the guidelines for posting such queries.

IMO posting your successful bids on BFT might help someone else get the information htey need without having to ask (and face the consequences).

I too am a former user of bft. I have had some great luck with priceline, but will not post there for a few reasons. One, I do not like seeing other people being treated poorly, and I can't help but stick up for them. Second, I don't appreciate being scolded, threatened and emailed with comments that treat me like I am stupid.

PDHenry, I understand the part about providing useful information to others, I would gladly publish all my wins and losses at another website but like the poster below my prior post stated, I don't like being scolded and watching others be needlessly scolded for trying to be helpful or being inquisitive, I don't like reading it and don't want to participate in it.

If there is another place to post my wins and losses, I will gladly do that, just not on that site.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, its a shame too as it could be a really much more beneficial site.
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by pdhenry:
My observation is that if you just post your winning bids (with minimal history) you're less likely to get scolded. At worst with full history you may be informed that had you been more skillful in your opening bid or rebids you could have saved some $. The adminstration seems to reserve the "most personal attention" for people who ask for advice without following the guidelines for posting such queries.

IMO posting your successful bids on BFT might help someone else get the information htey need without having to ask (and face the consequences).</font>

Why not at least post your winning bids here, if you won't do so at BFT.com?

------------------
"Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an
infinitive, d*** it, I split it so that it will stay split."
- Raymond Chandler, to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1947

More Room Throughout Coach: the Website of Free Miles and Free Markets (http://neat.blogspot.com)

I post at BFT.com, and I've been blasted a couple times for making very simple errors/omissions or for going *slightly* off-topic with a post. It is a very high-flame, user-unfriendly place BUT the site has saved me a lot of hotel and rental car coin, so I can't complain too much. The moderator of that site is very nasty IMHO, but hey - that's the moderator's right.

Every time I am involved in a bit of dialogue on that board beyond a simple bid post, I think about how lucky we are that THIS board exists. FTers are good people with good content in a user-friendly (low-flame!) forum.

A gentle reminder..

Randy P (who owns this board) has politely and specifically asked us not to slag the BFT board's owners/moderators, and I think it would be a good thing to honor Randy's request.

hence the only way to slag Her (not sure what slag means) is to not post on her site which is what I'm not doing.. posting of BFT

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by wideman:
A gentle reminder..

Randy P (who owns this board) has politely and specifically asked us not to slag the BFT board's owners/moderators, and I think it would be a good thing to honor Randy's request.</font>

Hello,

I have also found BFT to be an incredible money saver, despite the drawbacks already discussed. There are 2 other similar boards on ezboard.com, except that one focuses on Europe and the other on Asia.

However, I have not been able to view any of the three for about a week. Can anyone else access the boards? I am traveling through Vietnam, so perhaps the problem has to do with the old computers or internet connections at the internet cafes.

Thanks

Harold

Just tried to go there and got a message that said that thread has been locked down due to copywrite issues.

Many of us (and I'm sure many others) have made our choice to not contribute to BFT. I agree with Randy that there's no need to personally attack it's owner,there's enough info in this forum for someone to search and find out why we don't post our results there. I am in total agreement that as helpful as it is,it will never reach it's potential without a change in attitude.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Marysunshine:
Just tried to go there and got a message that said that thread has been locked down due to copywrite issues.</font>

All 3 working fine for me a minute ago and all of this week whever I checked.

Hey, to continue the theme, I am also an ex-poster on the BFT site and average between 20 to 30 successful priceline hotel bids a year. If someone comes up with a good substitute, I'd be happy to contribute.

Yesterday I got Raleigh NC 3 star Hilton North for $40, first bid.

Last week downtown Montreal 2 star Quality Hotel for $30, after unsuccessful $25 bid.

Thanks for checking if the boards are working. Must be a problem within Vietnam.

Thanks

Harold

I have just spent an exasperating half hour trying to register with BFT (I am pretty sure I am already registered but BFT could not find me). It would act like it took but then when I tried to post, it would not accept my name and password and shunted me off to EZBoard. I gave up. The site has been enormously helpful to me and I would like to participate so I can give good info to someone else but I have no idea how 12,000 people got registered and I can't get on. I guess I am destined to be a lurker!!

Is there anything that's preventing us from posting winning and losing bids on FT? If this of course is fine w Randy why wouldn't we start such forum. I have several recent bids I can post... I too have never posted on BFT but have used it heavily.

I would second this motion

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Delta141:
Is there anything that's preventing us from posting winning and losing bids on FT? If this of course is fine w Randy why wouldn't we start such forum. I have several recent bids I can post... I too have never posted on BFT but have used it heavily.</font>