Hi,

I've searched on this here and on BetterBidding and BiddingForTravel, but haven't been able to find a definite answer. Does PL's algorithm care whether you're bidding on multiple rooms? I need several rooms and am wondering whether I can underbid what I would bid if I were just looking for a single room. i.e. if I would start at $50 for 4* 1-room, should I start bidding at $50 for 4* multiple rooms, or can I start at $45). Does PL's hotel chart ever have rooms at different prices based on the number of rooms you want?
Thanks!

In my experiences I have found that it doesn't make any difference in most occasions. Some people like to think that a hotel might have allocated 50 rooms to priceline and they break them down like this:

2 rooms at $30
4 rooms at $32
4 rooms at $37 and so on .....

so that if you are first one in the door, you could bid for 3 rooms, and not get them unless you bid at $32 where you could save money bidding 2 rooms at $30 then 1 room at $32 (I know I have made this really simple and we are probably talking about bigger intervals.

What I have found is that the hotel with 50 priceline rooms might be something like this:

25 rooms at $30 and
25 rooms at $50

so if you needed 2 rooms, it would only make a difference if the first room you bought happened to be #25 or #50.

This has been my experience, I travel with a group who bids on a block of rooms, then tries to go back and add rooms and it makes me believe the second example is true, until someone proves it otherwise.

Obviously it's going to vary, but does anyone know some typical Priceline allotments for hotels? For example, do some hotels allow only X% of their rooms to go on Priceline, regardless of how high their vacancy rates are? Are there any hotels which rely mostly on Priceline bookings? How about Hotwire? Does this relate to the hotels' general tendencies to book in bulk (like through tour groups)? Anecdotes welcome.

Thanks, that makes sense, I was just hoping someone knew more than I did! ^