Of the twenty-eight nights in hotels for this trip, I booked twenty of them through Priceline. Checking the forums on BiddingForTravel gave me an idea of what winning bids were like for a given area, rather than blindly trying to figure out where to start the bids.
In addition, their FAQ about bidding gave valuable advice about how to use the zones in an area to bid and rebid. I didn’t use their advice feature on this trip – where you can post information about where you want to stay and they’ll advise you on a bidding strategy to get the best price. On some future trips when I know exactly when I’ll be in each area I’ll give that a try.
We got some awesome deals on this trip, averaging 50% off the list price for the hotels booked through Priceline, which was over $1400 in savings.
The average cost per night was $70 for the Priceline bookings.
In addition, Priceline and BiddingForTravel saved us almost $500 in real money on the nights purchased through Priceline.
“Real” money being what was paid in comparison to what I’d budgeted (different than the list price of the hotel). A good portion of that savings was eaten up by more expensive stays where I didn’t use Priceline – those stays were often more than I’d budgeted, so I shudder at the thought of what would have happened to the budget if I hadn’t used Priceline.
The biggest impact Priceline and BiddingForTravel had on the trip, though, I can’t stress enough – upgrading from the motels I’d originally planned on made things a lot more comfortable and enjoyable. Staying at Courtyards and Crowne Plazas is a lot different than Motel 6 and Super 8.
There were only five stops during the trip where we didn’t use Priceline to book the hotel:
| Grand Canyon | All the hotels with 2.5-stars or better were above my budget ($160+), so I had to head down to 1-stars. At that level, I wanted to be able to pick the room, rather than wind up with one queen bed. |
| Seattle | Not really Seattle, since where we needed to stay was far north of the city (about an hour). Since I didn’t know the area, I didn’t want to commit to a hotel.
It turned out to be a good decision, because the area I originally made a reservation for was too far north and we wound up about midway between Seattle and Anacortes (where the ferry was). |
| West Yellowstone | This was a sudden change of plans – had planned to go back to Bozeman for the night, but coming out of the park and facing a 1.5-hour drive we decided to just pay the extra to stay just outside the park.
It should be noted that the savings we’d already achieved through Priceline let us make that decision, save three hours of driving, and have a much nicer second day in Yellowstone. |
| Rapid City, SD | This was a long driving day and we weren’t sure how far we’d make it. I tried late in the evening to get a good deal in Rapid City when it looked like we’d make it there, but there were none available. A major fire in South Dakota had firefighters from all over the country flying in, so rooms were at a premium. |
| Grand Forks, ND | With only one zone, this is an area you need to try booking earlier than the day before to find a deal. With time and patience, I’d have been able to get a deal here, but didn’t have the time. |
Overall, the time spent researching rates on BiddingForTravel and bidding on Priceline is well worth the effort. They’ll be my first stop for all future hotel stays.
