This post is a little off topic for CDF networks, but it should be useful when you are traveling for conferences or just vacation. I have been using this technique now for about 8 years and have saved a TON of money on hotels. Here is how to game Priceline, using their own system.
Background:
I’ll assume you are familiar with the bidding model that PL uses on their site and get right to it. PL wants you to bid as high as possible. To make you do this, they have set bidding limits so that when your bid is rejected you can’t bid on the same zone and star level for 24 hours. In this way they prevent someone from starting at $1, then incrementing until they hit a winning bid. They want the winning bid price to be a secret and force you to make your best offer first. But what if there was a way to get around that 1 bid rule do some incrementing of bids to find the best price?
The trick:
There is a way to get around the bid rule, its called free re-bidding. Free re-bidding means you make a change to your bid offer by adding another zone than you know does not contain any hotels of the star level you are requesting. Making that change allows you to increase your bid price immediately on the zone your really are intending to stay in. Confused? Check out the example.
Example:
Say you want to stay at a 4 star in San Diego, downtown zone. You bid $60 on your first try, and its rejected. Rather than playing Priceline’s game and waiting 24 hours to try a bid of $65, use a free-rebid. But how do you find the free re-bids? Simple. Just check another zone in the same area you are searching, then look at the star levels that are offered below. If there are none of the hotels available in that area, that star level is greyed out. You have just found yourself a free re-bid zone. Now just raise your bid a bit using the original zone you really wanted, and the new free rebid zone. The free rebid zone allows the new bid to go through, but the system only looks at your original zone because thats where the hotels with the 4 star level are located.
Click to expand
In this example for San Diego there are 10 free re-bids you could use for a 4 star hotel in this area. That should allow you to increment your bids slowly enough to hit almost the exact lowest price for a hotel. Enjoy!
Holy crap, that’s awesome!
There is an entire message board focused on using this technique with Priceline.
http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com
Thats a great find, thanks.
Better, use permutation to get even more free re-bids. If you got 4 free re-bid zones (as explained above), don’t just bid on zone A (the one you want), then AB, ABC, ABCD, ABCDE etc. Instead, bid on A, then AB, then AC, followed by AD and AE. Start over with ABC, ABD, ABE, then again with ABCD, ABCE and finally ABCDE.
That way you are pretty much guaranteed to get the cheapest price possible
Way to copy off of slickdeals.net!!!1
GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE… CHAD!
I have no idea what you are talking about. Like I said I have been using this for about 8 years now.
Nice trick. Thanks.
That’s a awesome trick. I’ll try it out when i go to pubcon vegas this year.
Thanks!
[...] I travel a lot and hotels can get pretty expensive. Fortunately, CDF Network has a way for you to be evil and game Priceline for some cheap hotels. It’s call free re-bidding. Check it out. [...]
thanks for the heads up! This will come in handy during tournaments!
Do you have to provide a credit card number before you can start bidding?
Yes
Great post. I love you blog and read it all the time… one of the few. Could automate this pretty easy I think using virtual credit cards and proxies. Make a nice service for the lowest price travel on the internet. Truely the lowest prices! I think the Westin for ASE was going to like $300-350 a night and I know a couple guys that got it for $100 using this technique.
Smaxor
Wow… That is a really awesome.
Thanks for the tip.
[...] Check it out at CDF networks [...]
I just used the system when I had to go on my last business trip… it was great except for the airplanes flying overhead every 15 minutes! I probably saved $50 a night - I can live with a few airplanes for that discount.
bidding travel…
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[...] I travel a lot and hotels can get pretty expensive. Fortunately, CDF Network has a way for you to be evil and game Priceline for some cheap hotels. It’s call free re-bidding. Check it out. [...]
[...] There is a way to get around the bid rule, its called free re-bidding. Free re-bidding means you make a change to your bid offer by adding another zone than you know does not contain any hotels of the star level you are requesting. Making that change allows you to increase your bid price immediately on the zone your really are intending to stay in. Confused? Check out the example. Continue Reading … [...]