This afternoon I used Priceline.com online travel booking for the first time. With all the travel reservations I book, I'm surprised I never used them before and I'm not even sure why. I've been pretty loyal to Expedia and Travelocity for years. The only reason I pick Travelocity over Expedia on occasion is because they allow you to pick your seat assignments. Not sure why Expedia doesn't do that, but Expedia allows you to save an itinerary before you officially book it (and, of course, Travelocity doesn't). So it seems you can't get everything you want in one place, but there are times when one thing is more important than the other.
Then a few years ago I discovered Hotwire and they really rock for scoring good deals. They offer amazing rates, but the catch is that you don't know which airline or which hotel you'll be getting. As you can imagine this is not always convenient. Actually, it's very rarely acceptable, but in the few times that it was we scored great hotels on the cheap. And the closer you are to your travel dates, the better the deals -- like when I needed to book a hotel for the following night in Brussels. We got a really nice place for an amazing price. All I cared about was having a bed to sleep in and location wasn't a big concern. So far all of our hotels we booked with Hotwire have been better than we expected and I wish I could use them more.
Tonight I ventured into uncharted territory and decided to give PriceLine a try. I only needed a rental car so the commitment was very low and I couldn't care less between one car rental agency over another. The deal with PriceLine is that you can "name your own price." Essentially you bid on what you want to pay and then submit an offer. You must enter all your credit card information with your offer and if it gets accepted, you are committed. But like I said, this was a very low commitment as I was only reserving a car for one night. A great chance to test drive this site.
The cheapest economy car I could find in Ft. Lauderdale was $50+ per day plus taxes and fees, bringing the total to just over $70. So I bid a max of $25/day and was met with the unfriendly message of, "It is highly unlikely your bid will be accepted." That didn't stop me from keeping that bid. What did I have to lose? So I went ahead and entered all my info and what do you know? It got accepted and I instantly saved over $30 on the rental. There is no doubt that I will be giving PriceLine a try again in the future.
1 comment:
Alanna, just yesterday, mentioned you as the go-to person for travel info. you don't disappoint.
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