Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - PL taxes charges on multiple nights

I'm trying to figure out if I'm shooting myself in the foot by placing individual bids for a multi night stay (i.e. M-F doing 4 individual bids rather than one bid encompassing the entire week). Will Priceline charge me more (service fees) for 4 individual stays rather than 1 week long stay? All the taxes and fees are lumped together so I have no idea. Any thoughts?

Each booking will incur a booking fee that is comprised of local taxes and a varrying PL fee.

So, yes, by making 4 bookings for a 4 night stay you'll end up paying 4 x the PL Fee instead of only one. Note: the PL fee is varried with each booking approx. $10-$12 per booking.

.e. M-F doing 4 individual bids rather than one bid encompassing the entire week

You may end up with 4 different hotels whcih will then increase cost for travel etc.

This is odd, considering that Priceline gives you the option of winning a bid for for Night 1, and then getting a free bid to extend the stay for Nights 2, 3 and 4 with only one additional PL fee.

???

What was this strategy supposed to accomplish?

It can sometimes be useful to split your bid. In order for a Priceline bid to be successful, there must be a hotel that has inventory for all of your nights at the bid price. The fewer nights in your bid, the higher the odds this is the case. (Simplifying somewhat.) Sometimes the Priceline rate for one night of the stay is higher than the other nights. So you can bid for some nights at a low rate, and some nights at a high rate.

The Add a Night feature doesn't always work with Priceline. The hotel has to have inventory and has to participate with that program. Sometimes when it does work Priceline comes back with a significantly higher price for that extra night (you can refuse that higher price of course).

The only time I've found it helpful to split nights is to get a bonus, or if I'm not sure what hotel I'm getting. The old $5.95 or $6.95 booking fee wasn't bad if I was getting $15 in eBay points, but at the lower level of bonuses, it's not worth it.

I'm aware of splitting your bid as in your example, but I still don't know why you would do it for all 4 nights. I would think that the extra $30 or so you are paying in fees could negate most or all of your savings, plus add to the hassle of changing properties every night.

Yeah - but you end up with more eBay points...

Only if you get the ebay points! My last 2 stays they haven't come through and for the last one I have now emailed them 4! times but have yet to get an answer in over 2 weeks :confused: :mad: Before this the ebay points usually posted about 2 days after the winnig bid(s)