FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - [Priceline Bidding] New site for Priceline hotel bidding help
Old Dec 17, 2010, 1:12 pm
  #8  
biddingtraveler
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Posts: 36
Some answers

Hey, thanks for the comments and the feedback. I'm writing a reply in a timely manner, but it'll be awhile before you see it, since I'm still under moderation.

Anyway, by the time my original reply to cordelli gets posted this will just be a reiteration, but.. yes, the site automatically calculates the entire bidding strategy and does it within minutes. Waiting 24 hours would suck. People won't want to use software that sucks.

Also, what is probably not clear and that we need to message more clearly is that the bidding is actually done by your own computer (it's just driven by some automation software we wrote). So there's no issue of personal information getting stored on our servers.. all we do is set it up so that your own computer can do it. This makes it safer for everyone, since we don't have to store credit card numbers -- everything goes between you and Priceline. Unfortunately, we've been struggling on how to tell users through the web page. The standard reaction is "why would I give these unknown guys my credit card".. doesn't matter what you say, habits are hard to break!

To generally answer your questions, this site is pretty algorithmic (we're all from a very quant/software background). All the stuff shown to you - recent bids, rejected bids, the hotel popups, the bid data.. it's all been specifically tailored for your query.

Let's use an example. One thing that annoys me about seeing raw winning bid info or hotel lists is that there's no guidance behind that information. Say you see that someone won the Venetian in Vegas for $49 a night. But then if you look closely you'll see that they won on a Wednesday. Then what sucks is that the reader thinks that information is useful and goes to bid $49 (or worse, $45) for a 5 star on a SATURDAY night. So in this case the past information was actually harmful... both for Priceline, who doesn't sell the room, and the user, who goes away frustrated. In contrast, we've built statistical profiles for your query, which vary by day of week, and other factors, and present directly relevant information. A particularly interesting sidenote is that there are areas which suffer from the inverse problem (high weekday rates, low weekend rates), particularly business-centric areas. We identify them algorithmically and show only information which will help you.

Now, regarding the bid increments, this has been something of a dilemna. Yes, if you did a 5 star in Vegas, or another area where you theoretically have thousands of bids at your disposal, and you could theoretically start a bid at zero and walk it up a dollar at a time until you hit the target. But this will just piss off the user, who has to wait, and Priceline, who sees useless bids clog the system.

Being somewhat of a data guy I believe the solution lies in the data itself. What I mean is that once we crunch enough numbers for you and present you relevant information, we distill for you a market value of what an opaque hotel costs at a particular moment in time. At that point, the permutation bidding is really just a crutch -- wiggle room, if you will -- to just get a little more precise... since you should know approximately what it's going to cost, already! So given all the inputs: zones you've selected, past wins, rejected bids, what you've decided your lowball and final offers are -- the software calculates the sweet spot for what each bid should be. And by sweet spot I mean sweet enough for both parties: Priceline, who sells the room, and the user, who does not grossly overpay and gets a damn good deal. Put another way, we're just trying to help the bidding along. It does no good to anybody if you waste time bidding far under market value, and you feel really like a sucker if you overpaid by $50. There's a happy medium in there somewhere!

Hope that addresses some of your concerns. Now if only you can see my replies as I write them...
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