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Quote:
Originally Posted by 808Pants
Hoping to book a trip to Manila/Philippines, I found this site while looking for more affordable fares from HNL - MNL (plus maybe a hotel for a few nites in Manila, but really more for airfare.) The closed 'coolwulf' thread ends with a suggestion of two alternative bid-help sites (betterbidding.com and biddingfortravel.yuku.com).
<snip>
Is it worth posting there, or is there a better tree for me to be barking up to get me on that plane? Very flexible with my travel dates, but had hoped to do it around Xmas (yeah, I know...)
Quite a few FTers are familiar with the other sites and had posted good tips. After reading other threads, you may consider starting your own thread seeking help.
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Tom,
I would assume that Priceline would still be profitable if every person bid the rock bottom price and won. They have set the minimum they will accept... and I assume it is not set for a loss. In addition, they only pay the taxes on what they pay... not what I paid... so they have some margin there. In addition, their fee guarantees profit for them. So, I am not concerned that they are going out of business tomorrow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tom911
Do you think Priceline's business model would be at risk if everyone bid the rock bottom lowest price every time? Could they sustain that and remain profitable in future years? Right now there's only a handful of buyers hitting that rock bottom price, so probably not even a blip on their radar, but suppose you got into thousands of buyers buying at rock bottom? Think they'd notice something was going on?
Couldn't you also say his agenda was to put Bidding for Travel and Better Bidding out of business? Now that his site is not running, aren't we all more dependent on those two long-term sites more than ever? Suppose they had shut down along with his site? Where would you go then?
Personally, I don't think that he was trying to put BFT and BB out of business. Actually, in order to use his service in the most beneficial way to the bidder, you needed to do your homework and look at BFT and/or BB to find the ballpark prices for each star level in the zone/city you wanted to bid in. Several people asked coolwulf for a 4* hotel in XXX zone in YYY city but then when they found out what the winning bid would be, they asked for a 3* as well. Perhaps if they did some homework at BFT or BB, they would have known more closely what a 4* hotel would have gone for (approximately of course) and asked from the outset for a 3* price.
John
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wharvey
Tom,
I would assume that Priceline would still be profitable if every person bid the rock bottom price and won. They have set the minimum they will accept... and I assume it is not set for a loss. In addition, they only pay the taxes on what they pay... not what I paid... so they have some margin there. In addition, their fee guarantees profit for them. So, I am not concerned that they are going out of business tomorrow.
Agreed. The idea that coolwulf would somehow put Priceline out of business with his service is ludicrous.
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When you look at BB and BFT, they serve two purposes to the customer. They give an idea of the ballpark amount to bid, and give an idea of what hotel you'll get (in some cases, a pretty certain idea). Both would seem to help Priceline's business. Successful bids mean happy, repeat customers, but since the bid amounts aren't usually whittled down to an exact amount, still leave some overbid excess to pad PL's profit.
PL obviously supports (or at least accepts) these sites, or else the affiliate agreements would be terminated. The hotels, on the other hand, do not like these sites. It is their business that is damaged, as direct bookings diminish if it's known to be available on an opaque site. If you recall, when BFT first started, that site itself contained the affiliate links. The hotels complained to Priceline, and the compromise was that the links had to be relegated to a "partner" website, not on BFT itself (ditto with BB).
Coolwulf's service differs. It does not reveal the hotel, but it does purport to reveal an exact bidding amount. If accurate, that means that Priceline's excess profit from overbidding goes away. That wouldn't put PL out of business, but it would hurt the bottom line. If I were PL, I would do my best to see the service shut down, or at least, not support them in any way. Perhaps that's why CW adopted a pay-per-request business model, not an affiliate model: I doubt there's any way that PL would accept his site as an affiliate.
I have pondered the mechanism behind the info that Coolwulf provides. Some ideas, many have been discussed here:
1) Access to the reservation system, either via a computer hack or an employee on the inside with access.
2) Bidding with fake, invalid, underfunded, or stolen credit card numbers.
3) Discovery of something on the page (HTML code?) that reveals the amount.
4) Discovery of something available during the bid process that reveals the amount (e.g. suggested rebid amounts).
5) Analysis of prior results. This seems unlikely, since history shows past performance has not been an exact projector of future results.
Besides being illegal, 1 & 2 also differ from the others in that coolwulf would know not only the bid amount but also the hotel that will result. That info would also be very valuable to bidders. He could probably charge even more for his service if he could inform of not only the price but the hotel name.
So, coolwulf is either unable to provide the info, or has decided not to. My guess would be he's unable to; since he's already running a business PL must dislike, there would be no reason for him not to offer the hotel name, if he could.
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I only arrived on this forum in Coolwulf's wake, and it seems like I missed that party. Hoping to book a trip to Manila/Philippines, I found this site while looking for more affordable fares from HNL - MNL (plus maybe a hotel for a few nites in Manila, but really more for airfare.) The closed 'coolwulf' thread ends with a suggestion of two alternative bid-help sites (betterbidding.com and biddingfortravel.yuku.com).
biddingfortravel.yuku.com 's "All Other International Routings" page is where I would hope to find info to get me to Manila, but it's a ghost-town, more or less - and it looks like the site in general is more about hotels, and primarily USA-domestic oriented.
betterbidding.com just confuses me - appears on some level that the purpose is to build a database of member's successful bids, not so much to respond to inquiries - and there's little to do with travel to the Philippines that I could find, either - though there are of course responses to help with bidding on Priceline/Hotwire in more general strategy-terms.
Is it worth posting there, or is there a better tree for me to be barking up to get me on that plane? Very flexible with my travel dates, but had hoped to do it around Xmas (yeah, I know...)
Mahalo,
Dave
First off, Mahalo, and welcome to FlyerTalk.
If it's air fare tips you're looking for, then no, BFT and BB sites don't deal a lot in that area. Remember, these are sites that deal almost exclusively with Priceline and Hotwire bidding/purchasing for hotels. IMO the primary reason there is not a lot of air discussion is because the Priceline/Hotwire air products are not near as advantageous as they were several years ago. In the early 2000's, and following 9/11, you could score some terrific air fare deals via Priceline's bid model. But, today, airlines are simply running enough of their own specials and promotions that one doesn't need to go the opaque Priceline route as there is little to no savings (there are always isolated exceptions to the rule, however). With regard to your comment about the lack of response to inquiries at BetterBidding, you will generally find good response and helpful suggestions, again, if you're dealing with US-based hotels, as that is where the bulk of their traffic is centered around. If Priceline/Hotwire's opaque air products were more of an advantage to use, then you'd see more discussion in that area.
I think you've come to the right place, FlyerTalk, if you're looking for assistance with air fares. Again, welcome.
... Some ideas, many have been discussed here:
1) Access to the reservation system, either via a computer hack or an employee on the inside with access.
2) Bidding with fake, invalid, underfunded, or stolen credit card numbers.
3) Discovery of something on the page (HTML code?) that reveals the amount.
4) Discovery of something available during the bid process that reveals the amount (e.g. suggested rebid amounts).
5) Analysis of prior results. This seems unlikely, since history shows past performance has not been an exact projector of future results.
Besides being illegal, 1 & 2 also differ from the others in that coolwulf would know not only the bid amount but also the hotel that will result. That info would also be very valuable to bidders. He could probably charge even more for his service if he could inform of not only the price but the hotel name.
So, coolwulf is either unable to provide the info, or has decided not to. My guess would be he's unable to; since he's already running a business PL must dislike, there would be no reason for him not to offer the hotel name, if he could.
Using an expired credit card will only confirm a price, not reveal the lowest. And it is a deliberate fraud. There is no information on the page that reveals the lowest bid as there is quite a delay and a response from the central server. In an apparent attempt at credibility, the site in question had a hyperlink to Priceline and a logo at the bottom of the page, but anyone could create a hyperlink with the image from another site. As for revealing the hotel, the Priceline computer system rotates successful bids among hotels that meet the price and star level threshold, so no one can tell you what hotel you will get until after the bid is made (unless the zone is limited and you can figure it yourself). Minor correction: BB has direct revenue links to Priceline and Hotwire on its pages.
You can analyze the JavaScript to figure out when Priceline triggers warning or guidance messages. That is easy enough. Go to the bid page with the zones, and view source. I'm not exactly sure of their significance, however.
Swag, I think its a sound analysis and mostly agree with it. Two more aspects I would add:
- In a request I gave him, his quite was $122. When I made a bidding for about $105 and got a counter offer for $135. The $122 being 10% off the counter offer. The manual search for the results may support this method, which, coupled with #2 (Invalid CC) puts him on zero risk on one hand, but also signals that in most cases his original offer is low enough to avoid the charge at all, to the benefit of both sides. That's also why no hotel name is usually revealed.
- Revealing the right hotel name would indicate to Priceline that 'something' is clearly wrong and they would do everything they can to stop this guy from working. Guessing the price right can be past winnings + market data + some luck (one can get to a good range of the prices with the first two, and with luck to the exact price in few cases) - but guessing the winning hotel as well is too much luck and too clear of indication, so better avoid it.
I would go with Swag's #1 option - access to the reservation system. How else would Coolwulf be able to state that an automatic upgrade would occur as mentioned in his response here:
Oct 2, 09, 1:20 am #318
coolwulf
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 279
Quote:
Originally Posted by <snip>
Thanks for the quick reply.
Do you mind checking for a 3 and a 3.5 star hotel.
Thank you very much
Thank you for using BestBidding services. We found your best bidding price for 3 star hotel with 1 room at Niagara Falls, Ontario in zone 1 with check in date 10/02/09, check out date 10/04/09 will be $55, please bid ASAP at priceline.com!
3.5 star will be the same price as 4*. PL will automatically upgrade the request to a 4* hotel
I don't believe that using any of the various methods suggested earlier (invalid cc, past results, PL triggering etc.) could have unearthed that upgrade information. Seems to me that would have to come from inside PL.
Last edited by rmiller774; Nov 2, 09 at 8:54 pm.
Reason: compacting
That's the harshest of assumptions, but one thing we should keep in mind is that other than a notion that the price quotes were generally on target, we don't know if any of his relating statements were true. Was anyone upgraded when told so, or was denied a room at any price 'because no rooms are available'?
The only way for us to measure that is to compare his quotes with users feedbacks. Priceline can of course know which statements are true and which ones are not.
Pl hotels load one (or more) private rates into the GDS system. JMO but it looks like CW knew whatever code/password that's required to display those rates. Kind of like typing AAA into the promotion field to display AAA rates.
It's possible it's quicker to search for the lowest rate then also checking for the hotel name. It's also possible more then one hotel has the lowest PL rate. Promising the name of the hotel might lead to many mistakes.
PL doesn't have to accept a "bid" exactly equal to the hotel rate. Occasionally they'll accept a little less ($1-$2). Basically PL subsidizes the bid out of their margin. I suspect this was CWs point, it's possible PL is less likely to subsidize bids made through affiliate sites.
PL is allowed to, but all evidence suggests they don't, add an additional markup to the hotel's rate. The value of CWs number would be less if PL would randomly require $1-$3 more then the hotel's price in considering a bid.
I don't think any of us were surprised CWs service had a short shelf life.
I sure looked like his information was spot on. There is a lag time between the time CW posted and the customer places a bid. It's probably that occassionaly the rate posted by CW would have been booked by another PL "bidder". It's even possible the hotel changed inventory.
Quote:
Originally Posted by swag
When you look at BB and BFT, they serve two purposes to the customer. They give an idea of the ballpark amount to bid, and give an idea of what hotel you'll get (in some cases, a pretty certain idea). Both would seem to help Priceline's business. Successful bids mean happy, repeat customers, but since the bid amounts aren't usually whittled down to an exact amount, still leave some overbid excess to pad PL's profit.
PL obviously supports (or at least accepts) these sites, or else the affiliate agreements would be terminated. The hotels, on the other hand, do not like these sites. It is their business that is damaged, as direct bookings diminish if it's known to be available on an opaque site. If you recall, when BFT first started, that site itself contained the affiliate links. The hotels complained to Priceline, and the compromise was that the links had to be relegated to a "partner" website, not on BFT itself (ditto with BB).
Coolwulf's service differs. It does not reveal the hotel, but it does purport to reveal an exact bidding amount. If accurate, that means that Priceline's excess profit from overbidding goes away. That wouldn't put PL out of business, but it would hurt the bottom line. If I were PL, I would do my best to see the service shut down, or at least, not support them in any way. Perhaps that's why CW adopted a pay-per-request business model, not an affiliate model: I doubt there's any way that PL would accept his site as an affiliate.
I have pondered the mechanism behind the info that Coolwulf provides. Some ideas, many have been discussed here:
1) Access to the reservation system, either via a computer hack or an employee on the inside with access.
2) Bidding with fake, invalid, underfunded, or stolen credit card numbers.
3) Discovery of something on the page (HTML code?) that reveals the amount.
4) Discovery of something available during the bid process that reveals the amount (e.g. suggested rebid amounts).
5) Analysis of prior results. This seems unlikely, since history shows past performance has not been an exact projector of future results.
Besides being illegal, 1 & 2 also differ from the others in that coolwulf would know not only the bid amount but also the hotel that will result. That info would also be very valuable to bidders. He could probably charge even more for his service if he could inform of not only the price but the hotel name.
So, coolwulf is either unable to provide the info, or has decided not to. My guess would be he's unable to; since he's already running a business PL must dislike, there would be no reason for him not to offer the hotel name, if he could.
Pl hotels load one (or more) private rates into the GDS system. JMO but it looks like CW knew whatever code/password that's required to display those rates. Kind of like typing AAA into the promotion field to display AAA rates.
It's possible it's quicker to search for the lowest rate then also checking for the hotel name. It's also possible more then one hotel has the lowest PL rate. Promising the name of the hotel might lead to many mistakes.
PL doesn't have to accept a "bid" exactly equal to the hotel rate. Occasionally they'll accept a little less ($1-$2). Basically PL subsidizes the bid out of their margin. I suspect this was CWs point, it's possible PL is less likely to subsidize bids made through affiliate sites.
PL is allowed to, but all evidence suggests they don't, add an additional markup to the hotel's rate. The value of CWs number would be less if PL would randomly require $1-$3 more then the hotel's price in considering a bid.
My opinions mirror yours on this subject. There were times CW was very quick with replies to bid requests. That to me suggests he was able to quickly access PL's system, locate the target bid price and post a reply. Not enough time, IMO, for him to attempt several bids on his own by various methods suggested here.
And I also agree it would have been dangerous for him to go the extra mile in naming the hotel (along with the target bid price) for fear of too many mistakes (ie: two hotels with the same price). I believe most experienced PL bidders were happy enough to find out the target bid price without the added bonus of knowing the identity of the hotel going into the bid. If knowing the identity of hotel was accessible (in additon to the bid price), CW played that smart and limited his info to the bid price.
My two other opinions to support he had direct access to pricing were the incidents where the zone, date and star level requested was sold out and the few times he predicted an upgrade was going to occur.
Again, these are only my opinions. And if wrong, I have no problem admitting to it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lewisc
I don't think any of us were surprised CWs service had a short shelf life.
For what it's worth, Coolwulf did respond on one occasion to the question re whether he could supply the name of "the hotel".
Originally Posted by <snip>
Thanks for the offer Coolwulf!
Detroit
Zone 3
4*
9/25
9/26
1
Also.....
Detroit
zone3
3 1/2*
9/25
9/26
1
I'm also curious .... if you know the price, do you also know what hotel it is? Thanks again for the help!
..........
Here you are:
We found your best bidding price for 3.5 star hotel with 1 room at Detroit in zone 3 with check in date 09/25/09, check out date 09/26/09 will be $55, please bid ASAP at priceline.com!
We found your best bidding price for 4 star hotel with 1 room at Detroit in zone 3 with check in date 09/25/09, check out date 09/26/09 will be $80, please bid ASAP at priceline.com!
(No. I can't tell you exactly which hotel you will get, but maybe in the future I can tell you the chances of which hotel you might get and that's another project we're working on...)
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You could easily write a script to produce a couple fake bids with expired/invalid CC's that would locate a possible accepting price. The service speed in its self doesn't really suggest that he necessarily had access to the reservation system.
When I was bidding on PL a few years ago I accidently made a mistake entering my CC (think I mixed up the CVV code or something) I got bid rejections (standard we cant accept your offer page) as I was re-bidding than when I hit the target price I got another page informing me my CC didn't go through. The page didn't state that my offer was accepted, but after I entered my correct details my offer was accepted. If the system still behaves in a similar fashion it would be quite easy to get bidding prices for hotels. Only a certain number of such bids can honestly be mistakes, and if you sent 1000 of them in a day I'm sure PL would be unhappy.
