Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - priceline from canada?

Some time ago, there was advice about how to get priceline rooms from a non-US address. I think I must have forgotten how to do it, if it is still possible.

Can anyone refresh my memory?

Try this:Priceline Tips for Canadians (http://www.betterbidding.com/show.php/act/ST/f/173/t/503)

Just remember not to use a CIBC Aerogold. For some reason, they seem not to work.

(I re-confirmed this just a few days ago.) http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/biggrin.gif

My CIBC CC only works on Priceline's HK site...

the booking fee is marginally higher, but it you know your HKD/USD exchange rate, you can get almost the same rate as on Priceline USA. I use the HK site for all my trips to LAX - no problem at the hotels. Plus right now the HK site has a 4 nights for the price of 3 deal...
http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/biggrin.gif

Forgot to mention: there is one upside to having a Canadian CC... on the Priceline USA site you can basically bid your heart out until the site comes back with a "card not valid" screen instead of a "bid not accepted" screen and you know you've hit paydirt, then go over to the HK site and bid accordingly.

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I did try to use my CIBC Aerogold card:

I checked out Priceline Tips for Canadians and saw that the strategy that I used (the only time I used Priceline) is still correct, will just use a different card:

How can you "bid your heart out"? they want a valid card before they'll tell you if the offer's accepted. How does this work?

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In my experience, PL will not try to charge your card unless your bid is successful. As long as your CIBC card has a valid Visa number, your bid will be considered by the site.

It appears that the PL bid consideration system is a two-part process: first it sees if any hotel in your zone/star level will take your price, then, and only then, will it move on and attempt to charge your card. If your bid is too low, the site will come back with a "Sorry, bid too low" message. If the bid is accepted by the hotel, Priceline will attempt to charge the card, but will not be able to because it is not US-issued, resulting in a "bad CC" screen. If you get the "bad CC" screen, you can deduce that the bid would have been accepted had you had a US-issued card.

A "bad CC" screen, as far as I can tell, does not exhuast any of your re-bids, allowing you to adjust your bid after every rejection. So you can make an unlimited number of would-be successful bids at no penalty.

If you know which star level/zone you want, and are acquainted with the ballpark prices for each property, you can start a strategy of bidding a bit higher than you think you should be paying and then bid down until your bid is not accepted, revealing the lowest accepted bid.

Then you can take your findings, head over to Priceline HK bid accordingly.

(Edited to remove some potentially confusing terms)

[This message has been edited by YYZC2 (edited 10-30-2003).]

YYZC2, that's a great strategy.

Thanks!