Beckles

Those familiar with Priceline should be familiar with the Counteroffer, but I've noticed that its behavior has changed a little recently and I've seen some bad information on Flyertalk about its behavior, so I wanted to provide some insight based on my experience over dozens, if not hundreds, of successful hotel bids.

If you make a first-time hotel bid and do not bid enough to win a hotel, but are within a certain amount of a hotel that would accept your bid, Priceline will give you a Counteroffer for a "one time" chance to increase your bid by a certain amount (or more) (see this example if you don't know what I'm talking about). By first-time hotel bid I mean that it is a new bid and not a previous bid that an option was changed on (e.g., new zone added, date changed, or star level added). In my experience you will not receive a Counteroffer on bids that are not first-time bids regardless of how close you may be to an acceptable bid.

Over the years the parameters of the Counteroffer have been tweaked in terms of how close you need to be to be given a Counteroffer and how much they require you raise a bid for the Counteroffer.

What would be useful for those of us who use Priceline is to determine how close you need to be to given a Counteroffer so that one can minimize the time bidding by maximizing the bid increments until a Counteroffer. For example, if you have a first-time bid of $60 and do not receive a Counteroffer, your next bid should not be $65, if you could have won a hotel for $65 you would have been given a Counteroffer.

So, what I will do is start collecting information on my winning bids to help determine what the parameters are that Priceline is now using for their Counteroffer, the information I believe we need is:

Lowest Bid receiving Counteroffer - Counteroffer Amount - Highest Unsuccessful Bid - Winning Bid

Unfortunately I don't keep notes from my past bids or I could have started with a pretty nice set of data already, but I do have the information from a bid I just did this morning:

$60 - $75 - $68 - $69

So, I had a $60 bid and received a Counteroffer for $75, I was bidding in $1 increments and was unsuccessful up to $68, and received a hotel at $69.

Note that the Counteroffer increment was $15 at $60, but it can be higher than that at higher bid amounts (I'm not sure if they have an increment lower than $15), for instance I know by $68 it was a $20 increment, so I had gotten a Counteroffer for $88 on my $68 bid.

What this tells me is that if I bid $60 and don't get a Counteroffer, I can safely bid $70 for my next bid with no fear of having overbid. Note that I believe this is a change from previous Counteroffer behavior, I don't recall ever having to add that much to an offer after a Counteroffer until recently (the past few months). I say this because I've seen statements in various threads on Flyertalk in the past such as "you should just half the Counteroffer increment and you'll get a hotel" or "$3 added will almost always get a hotel".

So, I will add to this list as I accumulate more data for various price points by my own bidding or information provided by others in this thread:

Lowest Bid receiving Counteroffer - Counteroffer Amount - Highest Unsuccessful Bid - Winning Bid

$38 $53 $43 $44 (1/24/11) (Post)
$40 $55 $46 $47 (1/21/11) (Post)
$44 $59 $50 $51 (1/28/11) (Post)
$50 $65 $52 $53 (Post)
$59 $76 $67 $68 (Post)
$60 $77 $64 $65 (Post)
$60 $75 $68 $69 (1/4/11) (Post)
$63 $80 $73 $74 (Post)
$66 $86 $69 $70 (1/12/11) (Post)
$68 $88 $78 $79 (1/17/11) (Post)
$72 $87 $82 $83 (Post)
$88 $110 $96 $98 (Post)
$104 $129 $115 $116 (1/24/11) (Post)
$150 $185 $170 $180 (Post)

CalItalian

I am going to throw a monkey wrench into your theories.

I bid on Priceline almost daily for friends and myself. I can tell you that I don't always get a counteroffer on a first time, new bid even if the lowest accepted bid is just $1 higher (I have never seen a counteroffer if you use bonus money, btw). I have also received counteroffers of $7-$25 (depends on the star class and on rare occasions even much more than $25) more when the accepted lowest bid is just $1 higher. On rare occasions, I have received counteroffers after a rebid (by adding an additional zone or bidding on a lower hotel class, for example). This has been very rare and not recently.

Beckles

In the distant past I can recall not receiving a Counteroffer and having a subsequent bid accepted within the window where I would expected to have receive a Counteroffer. In the past year, except for a couple of accepted first bids (i.e., my very first bid was accepted) and one time where I was bidding a high increment, I do not recall a single time I did not receive a Counteroffer before a successful bid. Despite your statement otherwise (and I know you are well versed in using Priceline), I still strongly believe based on my own experience that you will always receive a Counteroffer on the current site if you are using the appropriate bid increments and you start with a new bid each time, it will take me not receving a Counteroffer on such a bid to believe otherwise.
That is not contrary to what I said. In the bid I have posted, the hotel could have come up for $61 instead of $69, saving me several rebids, but it would not have provided me useful information on what increment I can use in the future if I placed a $60 bid and did not receive a Counteroffer.
Then we agree that one can not count on a Counteroffer from a changed bid. I don't recall the last time I ever saw one.

I believe the Counteroffer behavior is consistent and repeatable, and not random (though the overall behavior does get modified by Priceline from time to time).

CalItalian

Sorry, but your theory is not correct 100% of the time (or even close to it) and I can prove it as of just HOURS AGO. I just had an accepted bid for the 3* Residence Inn by Marriott in Manhattan Beach, California for this coming weekend for $41. I received NO counteroffer on my first bid of $39 yet when I added Westwood-Brentwood at $41, it was accepted in the original zone. I bid this low due to what I was seeing on Priceline vacation packages pages (I also had an accepted bid in this zone for this past weekend for $31 plus $10 bonus).

There is NO consistant behavior in my book. I have 12+ years of Priceline bidding experience and my knowledge of the Priceline site is quite extensive (I was the OP of the $25 La Quinta Resort deal reposted here).

Beckles

I do trust your credentials, I know you were a very active contributor at biddingfortravel back in the day.

My experience in the past few years has been that the Counteroffer behavior is 100% consistent, and that's over several dozen successful wins with hundreds of total bids (my one bid for the $69 hotel mentioned above included 13 bids, 6 of which resulted in Counteroffers), so I'm really surprised that yours is so much different that you believe the behavior is nowhere near 100%. I wouldn't vouch for it beyond the past few years, I do seem to recall it being less reliable in the distant past. The thing is, if it were nowhere near 100% consistent, as you believe, then I would have gotten caught by it at some point since I do rely on it in my bidding strategy or I'm just incredibly lucky (I better remember to buy some MegaMillions tickets after work then!).

So, the question in my mind is why is your experience so much different? My first thought is that it has to do with the link you are using to get to Priceline, I would assume you go through some site or another's referral link? I use FatWallet these days, though I have used Ebates in the recent past as well. I open a new window with each bid (though I do not completely close my browser between bids, I just close the window for my last bid, then click through from FatWallet to open a new window).

CalItalian

I may have more bidding going on than you to make the conslusions of my observations. I had 27 accepted bids last month alone...for my friends and myself...

The counteroffer hasn't always been around.

I would say around 90% of the time I do get a counteroffer and 1 to 8 dollars more normally will result in an accepted bid...BUT I would say about 10% of the time, I don't get any kind of counteroffer at all on a new bid, yet that same $1 to $8 additional will yield an accepted bid.

I also use FW. So we're the same there. I'm not using any other affiliate or any other kind of link (other than when I've had bonus money from Priceline such as that from Entertainment books or a special priceline promo but I've already stated that I don't ever get counteroffers with bonus money bidding and I don't count that as part of the 10% of the time I don't get a counteroffer).

Off topic but still on Priceline: I had an interesting observation the other day while using my friends credit card which was declined. The email came back for a Los Angeles airport bid saying that it was declined for "El Segundo" yet the zone is named Los Angeles Airport (LAX). I expected the hotel to be the 3* Doubletree Hotel El Segundo - based on my research - and after using another credit card it was. I was surprised they put El Segundo in the credit card decline email before the bid was paid for.

cordelli

The counteroffer has been a part of Priceline since at least 1999. It was used extensively in it's mortgage and auto product, and quickly moved to rental cars and hotels.

It has in fact pretty much been around since the very beginning.

ranman1973

I love this thread. As a frequent Priceline user, creator of HotelDealsRevealed.com, and somewhat mathematical guy, this really fascinates me.

I would be onboard to try and crack the Counteroffer algorithm. I agree that it appears to be very inconsistent but there are patterns... we just don't have enough data to figure out what they are -- yet.

rmiller774

I wonder if your differing experiences could be caused by the amount of your respective bids. One bids at low amounts ($31 and $39) while the other lists a bid at $60 and bids up to $68, around twice as much. I would expect to receive many fewer Counteroffers at those very low bid amounts but would expect an increasing number at the higher bid levels. Perhaps there is a bid amount below which PL feels that Counteroffers represent such a large percentage of the bid itself that they don't make sense. I have only curiosity to offer.

I would like to see this theory tested and will track it closely if that happens.

CalItalian

The counteroffer has not been used as extensively or for every hotel class until the recent past few years. I know. I bid all the time. I have since 1998.

CalItalian

It doesn't seem to matter. I've had plenty of counteroffers on low priced bids as well as higher priced bids. The one thing that does seem to increase, however, is the amount the counteroffer is based on hotel class. I had one bid accepted for a 5*hotel in Las Vegas where the counteroffer was $35 more but it only took $1 more to get an accepted bid.

CalItalian

I do have one question. I've noticed recently that if priceline says my bid is too low (for a specific zone as I haven't tested this over multiple zone bids), that it won't be accepted (I've tested this many times recently and never get a counteroffer on these bids either). This has not been true in the past. What are your most recent experiences?

cordelli

Of course you are the only source of priceline information available.

I'm simply saying that the counteroffer has been around for a decade. There are threads from 2001 here on Flyertalk discussing it and threads on Bidding for Travel from 2000 discussing it. It's described in some detail in their 1999 federal filings.

Your statement that it hasn't always been around is not true. Period.

Sure, now you will say instead of just making up stuff you meant to say it has not been around on seven star hotels on the moon on Tuesdays when bid six days before for fourteen dollars, but the fact remains, counteroffers have been a part of pretty much all the priceline services, car buying, mortgages, airline tickets, car rentals, and hotels since pretty much day one.

I know, you bid at least seven million times a day and have for at least sixty years, but that doesn't change the fact, Priceline has offered counteroffers since at least 1999. It has always been around.

CalItalian

Priceline has been around since 1998. I bid on it during their second day of existance. The counteroffer for hotels (we are not discussing morgages, gasoline, yard sales, groceries, long distance internet or car buying bidding in this thread) has NOT always been around. My statement is 100% correct and you are wrong. You've already stated as such. Get over the fact I know more about priceline than you do. Always is not 1999 when speaking of Priceline, btw. Get your facts in order. So far you're not doing too great (and you're contradicting yourself in your own posts...silly).

cordelli

I use the toilet every day.

That does not make me a sanitation engineer.

If your defense is that for the first few months they did not offer counter offers on your bids and for a dozen years after that they did and that's what you were referring to when you said they were not always offered, so be it, but the fact remains for counteroffers were part of Priceline from very close to the very beginning.