Finding a good deal is all about competition. Prices go down when multiple companies sell the same thing. Whether it’s 
Tips when using Priceline to get the best hotel deals
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I am sure that you are pretty familiar with Priceline.com. Priceline offers deals on a number of travel related products including hotels, airline fights, and car rentals. While Priceline is a money saving website, there are a few things that you need to know about using the company’s website if you want to get the best deal on your next hotel stay.
Getting The Best Hotel Prices on Priceline
Do a hotel search
The first thing that you should do on Priceline is run a hotel search. A search will tell you the price per night for a hotel stay in a city and give you a cap as to how much you should be willing to pay for a hotel.
Bid close to previous winning bid prices
You can save yourself a lot of time and money by bidding at a price that is low enough that you will save money and high enough that you will win the bidding. Use previous winning bids as a frame of reference and cast your bid around this price. Entering unrealistic bids can cause Priceline to ban you from the bidding process.
Get a package deal
The best prices on Priceline are given to those that buy a package deal on the website. You can save money booking a hotel alone but you will save more money by booking a hotel and your plane flight together. Combination packages have the deepest savings because you are buying multiple products. You can qualify for extremely low hotel pricing by booking your flight and car rental at the same time.
Book a last minute hotel deal
Priceline allows its customer to book hotel rooms up to 11pm at night for 60% off of normal pricing. If your flight does not get in until that evening, there is no use for paying for a full day’s stay at a hotel when you are only going to be using it for a few hours. You can get cheap pricing at a posh hotel by taking advantage of these last minute deals.
Options To Look For
Highly rated hotels with low winning bids
You can get a good deal on a hotel rated 3 stars and above so avoid booking deals for 2 star and 1 star rated hotels. One and two start hotels have poor guest reviews despite many of them costing as much or more than higher rated hotels.
Use the Hotel Guide
You can use the hotel guide to get an idea of the quality of the hotel that you will be booking. Look through hotels with similar star ratings as the one that you are bidding on. This way you will already be familiar with the types of amenities and level of service that you will receive.
Change your dates and times
The rates can change dramatically depending upon the date and time of year that you are traveling. It’s important to be flexible. Changing the dates of your stay can result in substantially reduced rates to what you would have to pay if the hotel was fully occupied during your stay.
Booking The Best Price on Priceline
- Use the Name Your Own Price feature
- Enter the City and State
- Place a bid on the hotel by clicking Bid Now.
- Enter your name, personal information, date of stay, and credit card information.
- You will receive an email informing you if your bid was accepted.
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