Favorite Bloggers
Check out the Travel Ekspert's favorite travel blogs! These sites are selected for being an important part of the online travel community and providing exceptionally valuable information.
Priceline Fans
Who are the Priceline Fans? Almost every day, I come across blogs and fun stories about how people are using priceline.com to stretch their travel dollars. Here are some of the most interesting ones.
Eric Bergeson's A Duck Out Of Water In Las Vegas trip. The Tinfoil Tiara says Priceline is priceless. The Copper Brick Road books a Valentines Day hotel. ProHomemaker.com gives priceline a try. Interview with Love Like Fire. See how bands like The Southland make their road trips count with Priceline. Dennis Bournique looks at Priceline’s new mobile service. Glenn Gregory gives money saving travel tips. Jens Odegaard’s
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February 2009 Archives
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Hotel deals for the Average Joe
This morning’s USA Today carried an article by Gary Stoller titled, “There’s room at the inn: As hotels struggle for business, some guests are finding an upside.” Some guests? Intrigued by the headline, I dove into the piece, which takes a look at how the nation’s hotel industry is coping with the downturn in occupancy. According to the article, while some hotels are cutting back on amenities, others are focused on keeping their best customers with enhanced services and room deals. One consultant who personally booked 204 room nights last year said that, “you do not have to go to Priceline” to get a deal. “Everyone, from budget to luxury hotels, is willing to deal on rates” for frequent guests. That may be true for someone who books 204 nights a year, but I seriously doubt that the average Joe who books a half-dozen nights a year is going to have much success asking the front desk for a 50% cut on his room rate. For him, priceline.com is his secret weapon. Last Friday, I had a shoot-the-breeze session with Priceline’s hotel team, just to get a feel for what’s happening in their industry. They echoed a lot of what was in the article – occupancy rates are down pretty much everywhere, retail prices are down and big cities aren’t seeing the usual levels of business and convention traffic. They also said that they’re getting a lot of calls from hotels that want to be in Priceline’s Name Your Own Price hotel service. It’s easy to see why. We don’t publish hotel names. And hotels have the flexibility to change prices and move inventories in and out of our system on the fly, which explains why Priceline has such great last-minute deals. The big takeaway from the meeting was that, even with retail prices being down, hotels are still willing to sell their unsold rooms through Priceline’s Name Your Own Price service at hefty discounts of up to 50% off published prices. And they’re willing to sell those rooms to anybody, whether you book 200 room nights a year – or 1. Here is more info on how our Name Your Own Price hotel service works. And be sure to check out the Winning Bids feature over on the right, where you can see sample successful bids made recently by other priceline.com customers. Happy bidding.
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