Originally Posted by
sylvia hennesy
We have 3 computers that we use, and 3 different accounts/passwords; helps to figure out what will be accepted by PL, and bid through the process again without waiting.
(I personally think the 24 hour thing is ridiculous; if you want my business, and there's a price out there that will get it, and I'm willing to pay it...why be coy?)
The rule is necessary for the process to be logical for Priceline. They want you to make a bid you consider reasonable and they consider acceptable. If there were no restrictions about rebidding, anyone would simply start low and keep raising by $1 until it was accepted - every time. Now, under the rules, you can use free rebids to do some of that or start well in advance and rebid every 24 hours at the higher price. But most people are not interested in seeing how low they can go - just that they get what they consider a good deal and both sides win. In your revised version of Priceline, they would allow a lot of bids with no restrictions. But then they would have to simply stick in a margin above their cost that would equal what they would have received from average accepted bids - the best deals couldn't be as good as they are now. The reason you can get away with the low bid that gets accepted is because others for whatever reason bid higher than the minimum and everyone keeps coming back for more. Presenting ways to go outside the rules by hiding your identity or deliberately invalidating a bid (not that anyone would do such a thing) might amount to disclosing how to invalidate the contract you enter into by bidding in the first place. While there is some satisfaction in getting the lowest bid of anyone accepted fortunately there is no Olympic sport yet for low bidding on Priceline, so no one needs to know.