Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - Priceline & Euro holders - Where to book ?

I have been using Priceline for a couple of years in order to book hotels troughout the world.

Generally, I have been using the regional website for the region I was interested in (.com in the US, .co.uk in Europe & .co.hk in Asia), believing there might be more inventory available on the local site.

However, since the Euro has recently risen signifantly compared to the USD, I have been wondering which site would be the most interesting in terms of value.

Has anyone compared rates offered on the 3 websites to find out which is the cheapest for the same product when converting to Euros ?

Thanks.

Don't ask me how I confirm it but the other sites seem to offer the same rates in USD. All you really have to do is convert currency at the spot rate. The U.S. site does have the lowest rate for single room bookings though.

For the sake of argument, I made a quick comparison based on the best results for BKK hotel bids found on the three boards.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">5* Bangkok/Sukhumvit - JW Marriott Hotel 12/27-1/3 £23+10 ~ 46.9782 EUR
5* Sukhumvit JW Marriott Apr. 4-5 $350 HK ~ 39.9023 EUR

*5 Bangkok/Sukhumvit/Westin/HKD380/12-13MARCH ~ 43.3226 EUR
5* Bangkok/Sukummvit, Westin, 30/4-5/5, £26+10 ~ 51.2489 EUR
5* Bangkok Westin Grande May 5-7 $55 ~ 48.9021 EUR

4* Marriott Bangkok Resort & Spa 11/16-11/22 $45 ~ 40.0108 EUR
4* Bangkok/Riverside-Silom - Marriott Resort 8/6-10 £18+10 ~ 39.8603 EUR

4* Bangkok/Sukhumvit - Novotel Lotus 8/29-30 £15+10 ~ 35.5895 EUR
4* Novotel Lotus Sukhumvit Soi 33 April $300 or $320 HK ~ 34.2021 or 36.4822 EUR
</font>

This seems to show, although the sample size definitely is too small and it all depends on the posters' ability to get the lowest rates, that bids on the UK & US websites are pretty much equivalent, whereas the HK site might be a little less expensive(for BKK at least).

Not much of a conclusion, I know. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif

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[This message has been edited by yann (edited 08-16-2003).]

The differences could be due to the exchange rates the various Priceline sites are using as well as due to rounding off.

We will only know if you are prepared to make many bids concurrently!