Originally Posted by
baliktad
1) After you submit a bid, Priceline compiles a list of all hotels in the zone(s) requested at the desired star level and above.
2) Priceline RANDOMLY selects a hotel from that list to see if it offers a rate at or below what you bid. If so, you win. If not, continue on.
3) If the hotel does not have an available rate, Priceline chooses another hotel from the list NON-RANDOMLY. The next hotel picked is the one which responded most often with a winning rate in Step 2 (for recent requests by other bidders). Again, if that hotel has a rate at or below what you bid, you win.
4) If a winning bid is still not accepted, repeat step 3 until the list of hotels is exhausted.
I'm not disputing those steps in any way, but has the random nature of step 2 been discussed before? I don't recall seeing word of any sort of random selection process before (and not that I'm complaining either, I think it's great for all involved).
Originally Posted by
baliktad
So the data collected and published by coolwulf is valuable indeed, particularly in cases where one hotel consistently has lower rates (and thus more awarded wins) than others in the zone/star level. Of course it will not tell you which hotel you will win on a given date, as this is influenced by both the hotel's rates/availability for the dates selected as well as literal random chance. However, on an aggregate scale, the data can provide you with helpful insight. Combined with Hotwire's published opaque rates, you have an excellent chance of predicting both the property and lowest available rate in any given zone.
Maybe I'm not being clear in what I'm asking to clear up the confusion of the value of this service, so let me phrase it this way:
Currently, if I'm looking to stay cheaply in a certain city and I want to bid on Priceline, I go to Hotwire and get their price on a comparable-quality (not same-quality, since we know that the quality levels are different between the two sites) property. I then go to Priceline and try to undercut that amount by a certain amount (depending on how many rebids I have available, I could undercut a lot or just a little). I go through the free rebidding process on Priceline until I either end up with a winning bid or end up purchasing the hotel on Hotwire.
Now, if those are my steps, how exactly is the information on coolwulf's website helpful to me? Or is the assumption that the probability would affect whether or not I actually ATTEMPT to try to get a hotel on Priceline?