You are Going to Love this One

April 22, 2011 - Rick

I just got a Private Message in my FT account from a newbie that wants to tell me how he got 125K miles in his account with three phone calls.

Catch this: He wants me to pay him for the information.

“125k points with 3 phone calls…want my story?

Hey FTG, wanted to know if you were interested.I’m hesitant to release this on the messageboards but I just got 125k points with 3 quick phone calls. Would like to share my story with you, prob help you in the referral dept. Wondering if you have anything to offer. Perhaps points dropped into my aeroplan acct? Let me know.”

So this is what it is coming to?? We are paying for information on a free community forum??

This poster has truly distinguished himself with this one.

Dale M.

Great write up for Priceline bidding. Very appropriate that it comes after some nice Vegas tips. It should be noted that the hotels in Vegas are famous for adding fees such as a ‘resort fee’. I recently stayed at the Aria for a decent rate booked on Priceline – only to have the edge taken off a bit with a $20/night ‘resort fee’ + 2.25 tax ($44.50 total). I went back and forth with Priceline customer service for about a week. They would not budge and kept pointing to the fine print on the bottom of their acceptance form that you initial: “• The reservation holder must present a valid photo ID and credit card at check-in. The credit card is required for any additional hotel specific service fees or incidental charges or fees that may be charged by the hotel to the customer at checkout. These charges may be mandatory (e.g., resort fees) or optional (parking, phone calls or minibar charges) and are not included in your offer price.” Ok, I get the minibar charges and such, but a ‘resort fee’ that I am not using?
This raised my curiosity a bit, so I did a bit a digging and found that in addition to ‘resort fees’ some folks were being charged $15 for parking at the Trump – and they didn’t even have a car!
So; do be aware that these fees exist and that they do get added to your bottom line sometimes.
Coloradodude

Here is some hotel tips for Vegas.
Always check rate calender at the different hotels. Ussually Sunday -Thursday is cheapest and Friday and Saturday the most expensive. If you can move your trip a few days, or to a different week it can save you big bucks. For example go to http://www.flamingolasvegas.com

Then select
All Las Vegas Casinos Calendar.

This will pull up rates for 8 major hotels for 3-4 months in advance. You can see when rates are cheapest and when there is probably a convention in town.
Hope this helps someone
Wayne
Coloradodude

Hi Shannon.

My rule of thumb with Priceline is only bid 3 Star or above for a hotel. Usually I bid resort. That is where the biggest savings are.

Also, if you are staying a while in a nice hotel,research hotel, know the best rooms etc and do the $20 sandwich tip at check in. This usually works best if you check in early afternoon before all the best rooms are gone.

This last year was my our 30th anniversary. I emailed the hotels we stayed at and let them know we our celebrating our 30th anniversary this year. I never mentioned the exact date, just that we were celebrating our 30th anniversary this year, which was true.

We never stayed in a regular room the whole year. Between the $20 tip and e-mailing them ahead of time we were able to secure a suite or a nice upgraded room. My wife joked that she is getting spoiled staying in such nice rooms.

Wayne
Anonymous

I have found the 2 cheapest sites for Vegas hotels are mycheapvegas.com and lasvegasadvisor.com (Both require a free sign-up to see the cheapest rates.)
Also, watch groupon for Vegas (or any city you're visiting for that matter). I'm paying for 7 people for 8 nights in Vegas in July, and saw an awesome Groupon Vegas deal a few weeks back: $60 for $120 at the TI spa. (If you've stayed on the strip, you know about the only thing that doesn't go on sale are the big hotel spas!) Since I'm paying for 4 women, I bought 4 packages. Saved me $240!

Mike
Mike

If you're thinking about taking your kids to Vegas this summer, you may be surprised to hear there are a lot kid-friendly activities. If you're on a budget, Excalibur is decent (I would upgrade to a recently remodelled room). The casino floor was very smoky and my youngest didn't appreciate it, but you can't beat the price unless you stay at Circus Circus but their location isn't as good. If you're staying for a week, consider renting a condo from VRBO.com. Then you can have breakfast in your room, and heat up last night's dinner for lunch. Finally, Vonn's and another local grocery will deliver food free to many Vegas strip condos.
nicholas

One tip I have learned through many Priceline bids is to be patient. It is better to wait until the next day than to rebid more than you want to spend.

Hotel availability works like this: Hotels know where they want to be in terms of how many rooms they have sold depending on how close it is to the date. Like the airlines these days hotels chains use yield management.

The ideal situation for them is to be almost sold out a few days before. Then they can sell the remaining rooms at a hefty premium. On the other hand if a day or three passes and they don't sell many rooms it's not great for them. This is when they release rooms to Priceline. So by holding your bid steady day after day you will find the point at which they release rooms to Priceline. Once you get proficient at re-bidding it only takes 5 or 10 minutes a day to do the rebid process. There are some good examples on betterbidding.com where people get the best deals and they report that they bid every day for a week or more.

If it is getting close to the date of your stay what I do is protect myself with cancellable cash or points booking. Most likely it will not be needed, but if it is a particularly busy time of the year it reduces the stress level of not having a room.

One other tip for using Priceline, which is fairly obvious, is to use one of the cashback sites or mypoints.com, which is what I do.
chemist661

For the 4* airport zone plus 5 zones with no 4* (free rebids), there are not just 5 rebids but at least 25 rebids using the permutation method. It is a little more trouble because one needs to start the bid all over again.

Read the FAQ's on http://www.biddingfor travel for more information.

Another trick (there may be a little risk) is to add another 4* zone (in this example) where the chance of getting the bid is very small. Of course, it would have to be an area where I would jumping up & down if I won a bid in that expensive zone.
joy

If you are SPG platinum or Hyatt Diamond, will the hotels (when you check in) recognize your status and offer the amenity bonus and also points?
Or should we call earlier to add our member #? How does this work with status members?
Angik S

Rookie tip: How to get low priced hotels.

I rarely book with priceline/ hotwire since I it is non-refundable and I don't earn any points. Here are the tricks I follow to get cheap refundable rates:

1. In most cases, I can find some publicly available rate that is lower. For a list of promotional codes, you can visit http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hotel-deals/934858-general-list-codes-promos-orbitz-hotels-com-expedia-travelzoo-others.html and http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?sduid=451537&t=2070078.

2. Check the corporate rate. Some that come to my mind are Hilton MVP rate and Priority club Friends and family rate. All hotel chains have AAA/AARP/Govt/Military discount rates

3. Check the current offers for various hotel chains. For example, with priority club, I often earn 12K points even for a $50 stay. Now that is almost enough for a reward stay. As Rick mentioned recently, check priorityclubinsider.com for available promotions. For a list of all available promotions see http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/points-page-5-current-hotel-loyalty-promotions/

Moreover, unless I know that the hotels will be packed, I never purchase refundable rates. Hotels prices often go down as date of stay draws nearer.
Isaac

Rookie Travel Tip:

One great resource for scoring cheap hotels is bestrateguarantee.com. There are some great tutorials there for locating best price guarantee deals that result in cheap or free hotel nights. Rookies should take a look at the tutorials there but the essence of the deal is that when booking a hotel stay on Expedia (or some others), they will match the price and give a $50 coupon if you find a lower price on a competitor's website. This type of deal works very well for low nightly rates and one-night stays.

As recommended by that blog, Kayak.com is a great choice for general travel searches and works particularly well for locating price match opportunities.
Anonymous

When bidding PL put in wrong CID number from back of cc. If you get sorry your price wasnt accept then its too low. If you get theres an issue with your cid number its accepted.

jwchef1975
erica

I had the same experience as Dale- infuriating! I was so happy to try Priceline myself after enjoying a lovely cheap hotel in Anaheim that a friend had gotten through Priceline. My first attempt, though, was a Vegas hotel $25, then $10 fees, ok, I'll accept. But then… $15/night mandatory resort fee for internet/pool. It completely negates the entire "name your own price" concept if they can add $10-$40 after matching!

I am too scared to use Priceline again for fear of getting screwed like this again. Is this a Vegas-specific scam? Is it safer in other cities?

You are Going to Love this One

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