Hot Bidding Tip #1: If your bid is rejected, you may not bid again on the same travel deal for a period 72 hours. And just changing the price slightly higher most likely won't work. However, a technique that may yield success for you is to select different quality levels and lodging locations in your trip plans, and then raise your next offer slightly higher- make sure you do raise your bid, even if only slightly, or the next bid will be rejected automatically and thus, wasted. For instance, after a rejected hotel bid, you may experience luck on your next bid with Priceline, by selecting new lodging zones (a slightly different area of the city) and changing the level of stars required for the lodging. In other words, lets say your bid of $59 for a room in Miami was rejected. The Priceline system asks you to input a minimum of two areas (zones) in the city when you bid, and lets suppose you originally chose Miami Downtown and Coral Gables. Try changing your two location options to South Beach or Miami Beach. If this doesn't work, try raising the price of your offer and changing the number of rating stars of the room from four stars to three stars, or from three stars to two. Be careful though, about hotels with only one and two star ratings in certain areas of major cities- yikes! Most importantly, bid based on your required comfort or luxury level, as bids cannot be retracted once placed. Remember, you are guaranteeing your contract (that's what a bid is, after all) with a credit card.. Their are definitely differences between say, the upscale South Beach Marriott on Ocean Drive, and a flea-bag motel just 15 minutes north on the interstate. Be sure you know which is which and do your homework before making an offer. Otherwise, your dream filled vacation or mandatory business trip could be more of a nightmare than a getaway. Fortunately, Priceline.com has a link next to each zone called 'Area Details.' Clicking it will show you a close-up map of your zone, so you know what areas of the city are included when you make a selection. It also helps to stick to zones you know well (if you've been there before) or ask a friend or colleague whose lived or traveled in that area, and see what they know about that part of town. The Priceline site's other booking areas work in similar ways; For example, when you use the  Rental Car Itinerary Link, you'll need to select one of six buttons of automobile type, from 'Economy' through 'Full Size.' At the bottom of the selector, there is a hyperlink which allows you to see additional details for each class of car (the resulting pop-up box can expand to show all levels of car quality at once for comparison). Here you'll see information about each car class, including a few examples of make and model of the vehicle you can reasonably expect to receive when you rent. You'll also see specifics about the auto you'll be getting such as: number of persons and bags the car will hold comfortably, whether the car has AC, power steering, automatic transmission, AM-FM or CD, leather seats, etc. Hot Bidding Tip #2: You can't name your price right or choose your hotel, right? Well, hang on. A little known fact about Priceline, for those who've never actually used it, is that you can control certain aspects about your deal and price with Priceline. You may know that when you place a really low bid, before you go on to finalize it, you get a little message from Priceline, letting you know the chances of your offer being accepted at that price. They also give you some recommendations of other prices you should consider and will let you know say what your chances are. For instance, they might say your offer on an air & room package to San Francisco may have a 'Fair chance' of being accepted at $1086 and a 'Good Chance' at $1105. Great, so maybe you knew this right? Well, here's the tip: You CAN bid on specific hotels in the area your traveling to (as opposed to making an offer and having one selected for you) if you use certain links. \Now it's simple. Because you are looking at package deal prices, you are getting more bang from your buck so to speak, and Priceline gives you the price range to expect for bidding AND lets you choose the EXACT hotel or resort you want to stay in. You are getting info on an eight night deal, the exact lodging of your choice (with how many stars and details indicated and spelled out) and it includes round trip airfare for 2 adults. So you don't want a package deal? Well, OK, no problem. You can still check this part of the site for deals- since you don't even have to use a credit card to get all this FREE info, you can do a little math based on how many people are traveling, the exact nights you want, etc. and plug all this in to one of the regular 'hotel-only' or 'air-only' areas of the site, and then make an educated guess on your bids... But, suppose you are going on a week long vacation and you have a ski-slope and resort in mind. Or maybe you aren't really sure of the details yet- You just know you want to go get away to some, warm paradise with a white beach for a week or so and be pampered. Then why on on earth would you want to do all the extra work, and not go for the package? Even if you know you are only traveling one night, you have to at least check it out to see what we mean, because it may help you out with your trip research. Plus, you just might be amazed at what you find: we input details for our supposed trip to San Francisco, and selected a 4 star hotel of a major (and luxurious) chain. Before we ever had to put in a credit card, we clicked the 'price help' button next to where a bid would be lodged. And voila! This humble editor thought it must be a mistake... The prices they suggested we consider as a bid, for an eight day trip to San Francisco for TWO people in a 4 star hotel with round trip air, were LESS than we expected to pay for 1 person traveling for a weekend trip to the same spot. This could mean that a bid near that price or slightly above might have a pretty good shot. Incredible! Seriously- check it out for yourself. Your results may vary, of course, but we think you'll like what you see. We got all that info, and never put in a credit card, simply by clicking the link. Incredible. I think a person in this company and his significant other may be flying to San Francisco soon, and writing a review of that instead next time. Bottom line: You may not be able to select the exact brand of car, hotel or airline you'll get with Priceline, but our experience has been that you can get a great deal on a quality trip if you try and make educated, reasonable bids. To see all travel auctions reviewed: click here. | 
