jacquesrules

Hi,
I've been looking for hotels inSan Juan, PR and found some 50$ a night 4 stars hotels through Name Your Own Price ( In January). Is that even possible? Will the room be of good quality? Do I have chances hitting a Hilton or Sheraton? I'm just wondering if there's something fishy.....
thanks for your help!

lo2e

Could you explain what you mean by "found" the rate through NYOP? Did you see it on a message board, or is this what you actually bid and got accepted? If you bid this and got accepted, it should be telling you what hotel you got.

By the way, the Hilton is a Resort level hotel, the Sheraton is a 3* hotel, so bidding 4* you would get neither.

jacquesrules

I've submitted an offer for 50$ for a 4 star hotel. It was accepted, and showed me a total price of x$ including taxes and fees, then asking me to input payment info (I stopped there). I assume this is what I'll be paying for this unknown yet hotel right? It just occurs to me that this price is ridiculously low, is there a trap?

ludocdoc

Priceline doesn't accept bids without you already inputting your payment method. Are you saying your card got declined and it asked for a different payment method?

edit:
OOOOHHHHHH

It never processed your bid. If your bid was accepted, it would tell you the hotel on the same page. You have to name your price, then there is a confirmation screen where it tells you what the total price would be -- including the fee and taxes, then you tell it to go ahead and search. Usually you have an account and you're logged in. If you don't/aren't, it asks for the credit card info. THEN it searches. Then it tells you "yes, you got the XXX hotel," or "No, try again... etc" my best guess : it hasn't searched. You've learned nothing about whether $50 will get you anything. There is a website that goes into excruciating detail over how to do bid strategy. There's also this forum with some tips.

9Benua

I guess this is your first time using priceline. Your offer is not yet accepted, They just give you the total you should pay if you have won with your bid. You can do what you did with $10 offer but it meant nothing since priceline did not yet approved or denied your offer. To get the decision whether your offer accepted or denied, you have to put your payment info first and once your offer accepted, there's no backing out.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Yeah, you agree to buy the hotel room ahead of time without first being told the name of the property. There are no refunds. I have gotten some awesome $50 deals on PL, so it is not out of the question. Also, most of the time the star rating has been what I would expect. PL tries to properly assign the star rating accordingly. In other words, a four star won't be the Econolodge.

WalruSara

Without knowing your actual dates and what area you want to stay in, it's difficult to know whether or not $50 is reasonable or not for a 4* hotel. I certainly wouldn't go any lower than that, but that's just me. 4*/Resort hotels in Puerto Rico will probably include the Marriott/Renaissance, Intercontinental, and Hilton resort properties. I would check the prices on those hotels, then determine what to bid.

You do have to put in your payment information before you are allowed to proceed with the search. If they find a hotel that will accept your price, then they will make the non-refundable reservation and tell you the name of it.

Good luck!

jacquesrules

hahah, sorry for being such a newb :-)
I figured out the way it works. and I've got the Holiday Inn Express 2* for 105$ a night for jan 1st to jan 3rd.
Thanks for all your help !

B1

I've gotten excellent hotels for $40 on Priceline and had to pay four times that as well. In each case it was a good deal - just better at the lower price. The price has little to do with the quality - it's really supply and demand. Priceline has high standards - their 4* properties in North America are as good as you're going to get. They are not the ultra-luxe (Four Seasons is not on their list - but Omni is). If the hotel needs to fill rooms they lower the price for bids. But there is no honest way to know what level bid is going to work until you commit to paying. Using bad credit card information is fraud.

swag

PL advertises "save up to 50% on hotels", but this is really very inaccurate. At times, I've seen savings of 80%, either very last minute or during very slow times for hotels; other times, during peak periods and special events, savings may be 20% or less, or PL may not have any name-your-own-price rooms available at all. You never can know until you try (although betterbidding and biddingfortravel may give some indications).

mbstone

Yes, you are a newb, $105 is far higher than most recent, successful 4* Name Your Own Price bids for San Juan, Puerto Rico. Sounds like you used PL's rack-rate Shop and Compare service instead.

Don't give up, your PL skills will improve with practice and you'll never ever pay more than $50 for a room anywhere.

thenewbie

Just to add:

You can check betterbidding.com and biddingfortravel.com to see recently accepted bid amounts. This should give you an idea for how much it will take and what hotels participate. You can also learn how to use "free rebids" in certain areas to increase your bid without having to wait 24 hours. If you want to ask questions for bidding assistance, use BB and not BFT.

rmiller774

You badly need to go to the Priceline site and read their "Terms and Conditions". It will take you some time to do this but it is well worth the effort. Secondly, go to Biddingfortravel.com and read their "Hotel FAQ's". This review is enlightening. Then check out BFTs recently updated extensive listing of winning and failed hotel bids, including recent activity at San Juan, for example.These steps will start you on the path to saving money using Priceline.

jrsmooth

$105 for a 2*???

You better be kidding, right? I got a 4* at San Francisco last week for $123. I simply can't imaging Hotels are that busy in Jan. 1-3 there.

rupert_s

The normal rate is US$180 inc tax for the same period for the HIX - so not that bad.