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[Priceline Bidding] New site for Priceline hotel bidding help

[Priceline Bidding] New site for Priceline hotel bidding help

Old Jan 31, 2011, 7:55 pm
  #91  
 
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http://www.biddingtraveler.com worked great!

Finally used biddingtraveler.com last week. It worked perfectly and saved a lot of time in PHX where there are many zones and rebid opportunities.

I could have obtained about the same result with manual bidding but this saves time.

congrats to the people that built this!
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 8:31 am
  #92  
 
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I've never used Priceline before and want to do a dry run before actually making a booking.

Is it possible to test it without having a successful bid charge on your card?
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 9:33 am
  #93  
 
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Originally Posted by Spex
I've never used Priceline before and want to do a dry run before actually making a booking.
That defeats their entire business model. No such thing as a free lunch.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 2:00 pm
  #94  
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Originally Posted by Spex
I've never used Priceline before and want to do a dry run before actually making a booking.

Is it possible to test it without having a successful bid charge on your card?
Sure, just bid an obscenely low amount for a 1-night stay at a 4* hotel in your hometown (eg $25). You won't win but you'll get a feel for how the process works. Winning is just the same as losing, except you find out the name of the hotel at the end along with your confirmation number.

On the bizarre off-chance you do win, hey, you'll get to spend a night on the town for $25.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 2:27 pm
  #95  
 
Join Date: May 2009
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Thumbs up Very Smart!

As a priceline enthusiast who does the whole re-bid thing, this tool is a real time saver, expecially in terms of RESEARCH. No more digging through pages of bids to find one for your dates and zone. However, there is one thing that I do not see that would greatly enhance it's value. While you do show rejected bids you do not give the DATES that the rejected bids were for. Not the date they were rejected on, but the date of the visit. For instance i bid up to $145 for Westminister zone in London yesterday, but it was not accepted. I am considering other zones, but really would like to know if there are rejected bids for my dates as there are no accepted bids for my dates yet so it is still a stab in the dark. I do think this tool will be awesome in a year or so after it catches on and more people use it, but right now it is pretty limited. Please consider adding the dates that the rejected bids were for (ie on Jan 18th $145 was rejected for stay of 3/13/11 to 3/19/11. The words Weekend bid are just not very helpful without the month and date. Thank you so much for this ingenious program. You really are a genius in my book. I hope you contine to work that mind of yours to make it even better.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 2:56 pm
  #96  
 
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Originally Posted by baliktad
Sure, just bid an obscenely low amount for a 1-night stay at a 4* hotel in your hometown (eg $25). You won't win but you'll get a feel for how the process works. Winning is just the same as losing, except you find out the name of the hotel at the end along with your confirmation number.

On the bizarre off-chance you do win, hey, you'll get to spend a night on the town for $25.
Thanks.

Yeah, I'm not looking to get a free peek at a "winning" hotel, I'm just curious about the bidding process and the response from Priceline.

Thanks
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 2:59 pm
  #97  
 
Join Date: May 2009
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Originally Posted by hermanos
Hi,
used the tool first time today and got Westin O'Hare @ 59USD ex tax (75USD gross) for one night mon/tue. 192USD is the lowest I found on other sites, so a 117USD discount. I guess OK?? I am happy

Tip for non-US users: I do not have US credit card nor address so need to use priceline.co.uk. I used two IE windows: one with bidder steps on a US PL site and the other with UK PL where I made the real bid. When bidder tells you to restart by clicking "Hotels" you will notice that UK site has a different setup, you just need to go back to UK PL home page and start all over.

M.
Hermanos, are you saying this tool will work with priceline UK? Also do you think you get a better deal bidding for London hotels using the UK priceline site than the US priceline site? Just wondering if it would make any difference in bids getting accepted. Thanks for an advice or opinions.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 7:28 pm
  #98  
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Originally Posted by Spex
Thanks.

Yeah, I'm not looking to get a free peek at a "winning" hotel, I'm just curious about the bidding process and the response from Priceline.

Thanks
Bidding is a relatively straightforward process; the first time I bid on Priceline was when I was actually looking to stay somewhere, and I encountered no problems. I wouldn't worry about doing a "dry run."

If you're wanting to get a feel for the more advanced rebid process that this tool automates, then yes, you might want to "practice" on an absurdly low rate in your hometown. Even still, the manual bidding process this tool uses (either when using an unsupported browser like FF or via the "Manual" link that apparently appears if you're using IE) would be enough of an introduction that I'd just recommend just using the manual mode when you're working on your next hotel stay.
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Old Feb 1, 2011, 7:29 pm
  #99  
 
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Bid $1 dollar for a 4* hotel in any major city and it's 99% doubtful you'll win.
This will allow the exercise of learning the tools which seems to have limited success in a few cities I have checked.




Originally Posted by baliktad
Sure, just bid an obscenely low amount for a 1-night stay at a 4* hotel in your hometown (eg $25). You won't win but you'll get a feel for how the process works. Winning is just the same as losing, except you find out the name of the hotel at the end along with your confirmation number.

On the bizarre off-chance you do win, hey, you'll get to spend a night on the town for $25.

Last edited by euromannn; Feb 1, 2011 at 7:36 pm
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Old Feb 4, 2011, 4:41 pm
  #100  
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Originally Posted by DIAFlyer
I got a response to a message sent via the contact link through the site within a day addressing an issue I had when Priceline responds with the "We're Still Working On Your Request" page instead of either acceptance or rejection. I did notice in the autobidding session I tried that you can sort of see what Priceline's site is doing in the background behind the autobidding screen. Any delays I've seen, other than the one I reported, are a result of the speed of Priceline's responding to all the data.
We actually just now released a fix to address these issues. Yes, during an AutoBid, if Priceline is slow in responding, the software can sit there waiting and timeout. Even though the communication is directly between the user and Priceline, that's of no comfort to the user.. it used to take just one slow response, and the bidding would stop, which is frustrating if you're midway through a bid.

And yes, the "we're still working on your request" is annoying too.

However, that's all been fixed. Now, if you encounter the "we're still working on your request" page or Priceline stops responding you'll now be given the opportunity to restart the AutoBid exactly where it left off, after you've had a chance to take a look at everything.
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Old Feb 4, 2011, 5:17 pm
  #101  
 
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It is still confusing on several cities in US and Canada that you have winning bids listed LOWER than the starting low bid in your tool.

Why?

If BT "hangs during autobid is there now a formal response to reinitialize your bid or does it just continue to just say "loading"?

Would be nice if the OP could respond more than once a week since showed great interest initially on FT feedback.

Originally Posted by biddingtraveler
We actually just now released a fix to address these issues. Yes, during an AutoBid, if Priceline is slow in responding, the software can sit there waiting and timeout. Even though the communication is directly between the user and Priceline, that's of no comfort to the user.. it used to take just one slow response, and the bidding would stop, which is frustrating if you're midway through a bid.

And yes, the "we're still working on your request" is annoying too.

However, that's all been fixed. Now, if you encounter the "we're still working on your request" page or Priceline stops responding you'll now be given the opportunity to restart the AutoBid exactly where it left off, after you've had a chance to take a look at everything.
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Old Feb 4, 2011, 9:59 pm
  #102  
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Originally Posted by euromannn
It is still confusing on several cities in US and Canada that you have winning bids listed LOWER than the starting low bid in your tool.

I'm sure that there will always be the odd data point here and there that doesn't always fit an algorithm. That's just the nature of hotel pricing. It could be seasonality. It could be the bid was too old to be considered. It could be that some recent information was more relevant to the user's search and displaced something else. The idea is to get a general idea of where you should start and stop bidding; but by all means, if you know the market, go with your own bidding ranges.

Originally Posted by euromannn
If BT "hangs during autobid is there now a formal response to reinitialize your bid or does it just continue to just say "loading"?
I should be clear here: the bidding happens between your computer and PL, so if something is slow or not responding, it's not the software. Normally you'd just click the stop button or click the link again, but when everything is automatic, you can't. Nevertheless, to answer your question, yes, there's a formal acknowledgement that AutoBid cannot continue, you can inspect what happened, and restart it when you're ready.

Originally Posted by euromannn
Would be nice if the OP could respond more than once a week since showed great interest initially on FT feedback.
We absolutely read everything posted here and at other blogs or forums. The answer is just that given the choice between making excuses for all of our faults on a daily basis, or going heads down for a few days and just fixing them, we'll choose the latter every time. So just know that every complaint from the grumpy veterans here eventually goes into the work queue.
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Old Feb 4, 2011, 11:37 pm
  #103  
 
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Excellent tool

Really good tool, worked perfectly for me. Auto bid is working even as I am typing this message and trying to get a room for me. I have been trying this search manually for a few days now on a daily basis so really appreciating the time this tool is saving.

Had no issues setting up and using this for the first time.

Good work guys!
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Old Feb 5, 2011, 2:29 am
  #104  
 
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Could you give the details on your successful bid criteria?
1. Browser used and version
2. Hotel city, rating, zone, and dates
3. Low/high bid amounts entered
4. Number of auto rebids

I'd like to find a criteria that works efficiently. Auto rebid function seems inconsistent so knowing your data points to test would be appreciated.

As the OP notes there are still problems with the algorithm as BT continues to show many winning bids lower than the suggested starting low bid price. The tool has outsmarted itself as it should reference at a minimum the starting low bid price based on the previous winning bid criteria. I have noticed this in a few cities for the same weekend dates as I attempted bids.



Originally Posted by anuj12
Really good tool, worked perfectly for me. Auto bid is working even as I am typing this message and trying to get a room for me. I have been trying this search manually for a few days now on a daily basis so really appreciating the time this tool is saving.

Had no issues setting up and using this for the first time.

Good work guys!
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Old Feb 5, 2011, 4:10 am
  #105  
 
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I have looked at three cities recently San Diego, San Francisco, and Vancouver, Ca (downtown zones, 3*, 4* hotels, weekends). In each of these scenarios I saw winning bids from BT lower than the suggested starting low bid price for the same weekend. BT fails to show specific dates of winning or rejected bids.

On consecutive days I will see the suggested low bid price of these cities go HIGHER for the same weekend dates even when new winning bids posted by BT are lower for the same weekend. Very strange algorithm that when inconsistencies occur BT just assumes it's not a coding algorithm issue and doesn't identify the inconsistencies in the algorithm.

Beta testing requires exhaustive hours to get accuracy and the inability to track details for the complaints and then fix hinder the BT tool's accuracy.

Regarding the market: I do cross reference winning bids on BFT which is limited but seems more accurate based on my winning bids in the past. BFT and BB both provide specific dates of bids

Could you update BT posted data to show the specific dates of rejected/winning and not just a general comment "weekend"?

Again it appears to be a database issue not tracking specific dates and then correlating those bids to the low/high suggested bid ranges.


Originally Posted by biddingtraveler
I'm sure that there will always be the odd data point here and there that doesn't always fit an algorithm. That's just the nature of hotel pricing. It could be seasonality. It could be the bid was too old to be considered. It could be that some recent information was more relevant to the user's search and displaced something else. The idea is to get a general idea of where you should start and stop bidding; but by all means, if you know the market, go with your own bidding ranges.



I should be clear here: the bidding happens between your computer and PL, so if something is slow or not responding, it's not the software. Normally you'd just click the stop button or click the link again, but when everything is automatic, you can't. Nevertheless, to answer your question, yes, there's a formal acknowledgement that AutoBid cannot continue, you can inspect what happened, and restart it when you're ready.



We absolutely read everything posted here and at other blogs or forums. The answer is just that given the choice between making excuses for all of our faults on a daily basis, or going heads down for a few days and just fixing them, we'll choose the latter every time. So just know that every complaint from the grumpy veterans here eventually goes into the work queue.

Last edited by euromannn; Feb 5, 2011 at 5:12 pm
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