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Priceline for Dummies -Check it Out at Amazon.com |
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I learned a lot researching several trips in 2002. Here are some good web sites I've found along the way.
View my France/Holland Photos! |
View my London/Paris Photos! |
People have different travel philosophies. Some people are very particular about flights, airlines, hotels and locations. Others want the cheapest price possible to meet their basic needs, even if that means a "nice" hotel room or a decent flight. I fall into the latter category. And I've found that Priceline.com works great for travel, particularly for getting cheap (but nice) hotel rooms in big cities.
Look at it this way: if you are the type who, when traveling to a city, sees what's available in the basic area you're staying and don't care whether it's a Marriott, a Hilton, a Holiday Inn, as long as it's something decent in the basic area where you want to stay (e.g. downtown, not in the suburbs, then Priceline may be for you. In order to get that ultra-cheap price, you will have to live with a few restrictions:
Some first-time Priceline users feel nervous about using the service; what kind of dumpy motel might you get assigned, and how do you know it's not in the worst part of town? Fortunately, there's a great website called BiddingForTravel.com that helps you with "informed bidding." That's because BiddingForTravel.com is full of messages from Priceline customers reporting what hotels they've gotten in various cities and what they've paid for their rooms. Knowing that people are getting Marriotts and Hiltons (at killer prices!) is enough to reassure most people that using Priceline isn't such a bad risk after all. Just READ all the info on BiddingForTravel.com before making your first Priceline bids and you'll be OK.
I've gotten hotels in about a dozen cities now with Priceline, always far cheaper than I could have gotten them any other way. However, don't expect to get a Motel 6 or Econo Lodge (if that's where you're used to staying) for half price; the majority of Priceline hotels seems to be in the 3-star range and above. So look at it this way: you can get a Marriott or a Hyatt for the price a Motel 6.
Examples: Renaissance Hotel in Amsterdam - $82/night. Westin in Seattle: $55/night. Holiday Inn Brookline (Boston): $55/night. This is at least 50% off the cheapest rates I could anywhere else. Note that in many cases I booked these hotels only a day or two in advance, so Priceline is good for last-minute deals as well.
There's another competing service called Hotwire - similar to Priceline, except instead of bidding, you give them the info about your travel and they offer you hotel rooms, airline tickets, and rental cars without the brand name being shown. You can then decide if you want to pay that price...only then do you find out which hotel, etc. Priceline seems to have better prices but is a little harder to use. Hotwire might be less stressful for some people to use.
If you're just checking the "regular" rates for air, car, or hotel, use Orbitz. They'll show you (usually) the best rates you can get without resorting to a Priceline or a Hotwire. Orbitz also shows you web fare specials on air travel. But often you can take the fare seen at Orbitz and go directly to the airline's web site and book the travel there.
Others prefer Travelocity or Expedia. Usually you won't find great bargains with these two, but you might find the best available "regular" rates pretty quickly if you hate shopping around.
To get a weekly email with travel bargains for city, try Smarterliving.com. You might find the same airfare specials via Orbitz, but at least you can look for the weekly email for your home airport each Wednesday and decide if you feel like taking any cheap last-minute trips.
Where can you get travel tips for your future vacations? Start by buying some travel books. Rick Steves has some great travel guides if his books happen to cover the area where you will be traveling. His guides have no photos - only lots of common sense information and very biased opinions. Another good book I found helpful in Europe came from Michelin's Travel Web Site, viamichelin.com. Their Green Guide for Normandy was terrific.
Going a step further, there are some good travel forums on the Internet where you can interact with other travelers. If you have a question about traveling somewhere, undoubtedly someone out there can answer it! But, where can you go to get timely responses to such questions?
The best travel forum I've found is Fodor's Travel Talk. They have forums covering all the world, but their Europe Forum is fantastic. You can learn a lot just by browsing other people's questions!
If you use Rick Steves' books, you might enjoy Rick Steves' Graffiti Wall. Although you cannot ask questions here, you can give feedback on Rick's books and your experiences with them - plus you can read everyone else's opinions and often learn a lot.
Finally, if you ever use Usenet newsgroups (some people don't even know what they are), you might try the rec.travel.europe newsgroup. There are a lot of knowledgable people there as well.
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