lilazncanadian

I was just introduced to this tool by a fellow FTer - just wanted to say that I love it!!

jackal

I just used BT again for a family member on a cross-country road trip who needed a room in Amarillo. I was sure that only two free rebids were possible, but BT showed me that there were actually four possible bids. The algorithm works!

I wanted to report that the ActiveX auto-bid control seems broken, though. After clicking "Bid automatically," the ActiveX control would load (I had installed it many months ago), and I could see the Priceline pages loading in the background (behind the translucent ActiveX layer). However, when the Priceline page got to the one that shows "We're ready to book your room" (or similar verbiage), it stalled out, and nothing further loaded. A yellow caution triangle was displayed in the bottom status bar in IE. (I'm using WinXP SP3 with IE8.) I don't know if it's on my end or not; maybe the PL interface has changed and the ActiveX control hasn't been updated to understand the new interface, or maybe something's broken on my machine (I didn't try uninstalling and reinstalling the ActiveX control or anything like that). Still, thought I'd just point it out here.

The manual bidding process is time-consuming; I really appreciated the auto-bid process--which is the most compelling reason to use BT.

Also, I was counter-offered twice, and I noticed the BT algorithm still hasn't really been updated to take counter-offers into consideration. It'd be nice if it suggested something like "You've been given a counter-offer; we recommend changing your bidding strategy to XXX to increase the chances of winning" or something like that. As it is, I ended up losing all of my bids and had to rebid using one of the other traveler's accounts with a bidding strategy more in line with the counter-offer. I would have changed my bidding strategy earlier had your site suggested it, which would have let me win on the first series of bids.

Sheryl

jackal, why did you have to violate Priceline's rules by using a different identitiy? Taking advantage of your free re-bids is one thing but violating Priceline's rules is another. Hopefully you are not promoting that behavior so a website will go out of business and deny you the great deals they offer. Think about it.

Keflyer

Wow! Just came upon this thread and love that step by step guide for someone like me who learn better with guided steps.

burmans

Great site, better than another I won't name with a grumpy admin.

Kidz

it's become apparent to me that biddingtraveler's website does not always update information automatically a soon as it receives new info from a user. in addition, their winning bids info seems rather out dated sometimes relative to some other message boards (where the moment a user posts information it is immediately available for all to see).

of course, i still contribute to the other message boards (always good to have, encourage, and support competition), but i find biddingtraveler's website so very easy to use and so very easy to share my winning bids on. it is a fantastic website...provided that the information that they provide is updated REGULARLY based on its users' input.

i recently shared a few of my winning bids that i did last week (i don't always use their website when placing the bids as it is sometimes cumbersome to use especially when i have a different free re-bid strategy from them...and i sometimes choose to spread the referral wealth to the other message boards). the problem is that my winning bids input has yet to show up on biddingtaveler's website. one of my winning bids actually involves a new hotel that hasn't been documented yet and that is very important information for users to have.

so, biddingtraveler, please let us know your updating process? it has become clear to me that you do not automatically take into account all of the information provided by your users. i think a full disclaimer is important here because seasoned users are your most valuable "informants" but also your most discerning consumers...and it is most important for us to know how reliable (and up-to-date) your information is.

cordelli

Love this part of the website

Your Final Offer - The Most You're Willing To Pay
Recommended final offer for a 3 star in selected areas is $9999

Nope, don't think I'm gonna bid that high, sorry.

biddingtraveler

Hey everyone, been a while since I posted on this thread. To answer the question about the lag between new data getting posted and data visibility, the answer is that it should be immediate. There was a bug related to this but we've since fixed it.

About that $9999 recommendation, I'm hoping that was for a small, less popular city??? Please tell me you didn't find that in a major city. $9999 means there's no data... we should just remove the recommendation entirely.. chalk that one up to developer laziness

And jackal.. I know you want that counteroffer optimization.. but we've been heads down on something else cooler, sorry. Should have an update "when it's done.."

Kidz

I see that a couple of the winning bids that I submitted have become visible and incorporated into the site, but at least one has still not posted. I don't care about my particular post (and understandably if there was a bug it might be difficult to claw back retroactively)... but, fellow Flyertalkers, it might make sense to keep a running thread as to wether or not your winning bid information becomes visible on the site or not. Need a bit of checks and balances so that we have a good assessment of how reliable the site is.

Again, biddingtraveler is an amazing site! I love it and use it often. But we as users must be proactive to ensure that the site is effective. If something goes wrong (or right I suppose) please post about it... at the very least, biddingtraveler will be notified of the problem and will hopefully go about fixing it as was the case with me.

Kidz

I just rechecked one of my missing winning posts. It turns out that when you click on the actual hotel in Step 2 it does provide information about the winning bid. But on the bidding strategy in Step 3 the information is very outdated.

biddingtraveler opts to make only three "recently" failed and three "recently" accepted bids readily viewable in Step 3. Those pickings are anything but recent.

1) Fix the bug so that Step 3 displays truly the most recent bids.
2) Try to include a bias to show weekend data for weekend bids and weekday data for weekday bids.
3) How about expanding it to 5 or 6 of the most recent successes and failures so that a user can quickly see more than just 3.

Until it is fixed, users should be aware that there is much more recent information about winning bids when you click one by one on each of the individual hotels. Very cumbersome of course, but well worth your while for the wealth of information that you can extract.

cordelli

I figured that, it's a city none of the bidding sites have any winning bids on, I'm assuming there is probably one priceline bid a month on the one hotel they use there. It's like when an airline posts a price of $250,000, just pretty funny.

Kidz

biddingtraveler, thanks for fixing all the bugs!

now, can we get you to expand the number of rejected and accepted bids that you display in Step 3 from the current 3 of each to maybe 6 of each

keep it up!

JadedTraveler

What he said, (about bug fixes, showing 6 of each, and keep it up).

You have a great site.

P.S: In case you didn't notice, your site was mentioned in the NY Times Travel Section a few weeks ago: 19 Web Sites for Travel Savings in 2012

QuietLion

I've been using it regularly and successfully, but I still think the text should read "choose the minimum star level you're willing to accept."

QL

Jamoldo

I also use Bidding Traveler whenever possible and recommend it to anyone. The only weakness is lack of data points (relatively).

Bumping this thread up so more will see it. The more failed bids, the more data points and the closer the user (and others) can get to bidding the right price.

Full Disclosure: I am in no way, shape or form affiliated with Bidding Traveler except that I like to use it!