Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - counter offer question

When one is offered a counter offer,can we re-bid immediately( even if we only re=bid half the amount of the counter offer) or must we wait another 24 hours or use the a-b alternate zone plan to re-bid immediately?
Joe

If you decline the counteroffer, it would be as if your bid was just flat-out rejected, which would mean exactly what you said, either waiting 24 hours or using a free rebid of some kind.

I would open a new window for your browser if you decide to use a free rebid and bid again. Sometimes you won't be accepted at half the difference and you can usually go back to the original counteroffer window and accept it after placing another bid.

I almost always reject counteroffers unless it is a very last-minute bid. I have bid half the difference, $1 more than my original bid and sometimes bid up to the original counteroffer and not been accepted. It just depends on availability and probably other factors.

John

Quick Q:

If you accept a counter offer, does it guarantee that your bid will be accepted?

Quick Q: If you accept a counter offer, does it guarantee that your bid will be accepted?Yes. The presence of the counter-offer means that at least one hotel in the zone and star rank that you specified has given Priceline access to sell at least one room.

Yes. The presence of the counter-offer means that at least one hotel in the zone and star rank that you specified has given Priceline access to sell at least one room.

Just to clarify, if you are bidding on more than one room and receive a counteroffer, it would mean Priceline has access to the number of rooms that you are bidding on.

Just to clarify, if you are bidding on more than one room and receive a counteroffer, it would mean Priceline has access to the number of rooms that you are bidding on.Thanks for the catch! (It's not too hard to tell that none of my hundreds of PL bids have ever been for more than one room :o )

Yes. The presence of the counter-offer means that at least one hotel in the zone and star rank that you specified has given Priceline access to sell at least one room.
While this is true immediately, the counteroffer can expire in a matter of minutes. I have been in that situation but all I had to do was wait until I was eligible to bid in that zone again. Should you want to try a free rebid to undercut the counteroffer, all you have to do is decline the offer and this resets you to the bid screen. Everything on Priceline is a matter of statistics and not certainties, like gambling, but with better odds and losing is variable. When you win, you get a hotel or car or flight at a price you consider excellent. Having a bid fail is not really losing - you can have another chance. You only lose when you pay more than you would have without bidding or when you fail to make the trip you paid for since PL is nonrefundable.

jsohmer

I hope you are familiar with the concept of the "free rebid"? Quick answer is that you can add another zone you haven't already bid that does NOT have availability at the star level you are bidding or higher. There is extensive discussion on the subject in www.biddingfortravel.com and/or www.betterbidding.com.

A particularly good example is Seattle, were there are only a couple zones that have 3* and up availability, but there are a whole bunch of zones that have only 2* and lower. You can add these and keep bidding within the same 24 hour period. Rome at the 5* level is another example with only Central and The Vatican actually having 5* offerings so you can use all the other zones as free rebids if you happen to be able to afford 5* places in Rome.

And if you want to get even more sophisticated, there is the concept of "permutations" where you can use several rebid zones to get a whole lot more bids. This is one of the ways people work up $1 at a time.

Romelle