Photo by Kevin Dooley

Every so called “cheap hotel” offer I had ever seen is basically just a standard price comparison site with the same internet rates. I have seen far too many sites promise the same exclusive deals only to find that prices are pretty similar wherever you go. As someone who likes a really cheap deal, this article will show you how to find the cheapest hotel rooms in any city.

I was introduced to Priceline.com by a friend who had used it successfully to stay at a 5 star hotel in Manhattan for not much more than $100 per night – cheap hotel accommodation doesn’t have to mean poor quality. Priceline has a name your own price feature that lets you select a date, general location and star rating then bid for a hotel room. The catch is that you don’t know which hotel you will be staying in and if your bid is successful, your credit card gets charged automatically. But now there is a way to accurately predict which hotel you will be staying at and how much you really need to pay. You can do all this while still making genuine savings through the Priceline bidding system.

I will show you how to use Priceline’s name your own price feature to book super cheap hotel accomodation. I will then show you how to use another tool to accurately predict which hotel you will be staying in and how low you should really bid.

To use the Name Your Own Price feature, visit http://www.priceline.com/hotels/

1. Click on the bid now button



2. A new box will appear. Enter the name of the city you wish to stay in and the dates you require the hotel room. The Click the bid now button.



3. A new page will appear that allows you to select from a map, the area within a city where you would like to stay.



4. Next, select the minimum Star rating of the hotel you wish to stay in. 4 star and above hotels offer the most guarantee, in terms of what they offer. Some lower star hotels may be less than desirable to some travellers.



5. Once you have selected your star rating, a median retail price is displayed for the options selected. This figure is essentially the average price to book a hotel normally. By bidding instead, we can save considerable money compared to this. Enter your bid price (per room, per night) in the box provided. Currency is US Dollars.



6. Enter your name, as it appears on your credit card/ID in the field at the bottom and click next.



7. A new page will appear that confirms all the details you have entered. Be sure to check that the dates are correct. If tax is applicable, it will be shown here. Once you have checked everything is correct, enter your initials in the box and click the next button.



8. The next page prompts you to enter your details, including credit card number. Once you enter this information and click Buy My Hotel Room Now, your credit card gets charged. Only then do you find out which hotel you have been offered. If no hotels are available at your bid level, you will not be charged.

Using Priceline’s “name your own price” system, it is easy to book very cheap hotel accommodation in most cities. They work out much cheaper than even the cheapest price comparison website. The major downside is that, although you know the area which the hotel will be in, you don’t know specifically which hotel you will be staying in. Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem.

http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com

A Bidding For Travel forum has been created where thousands of people who use Priceline.com share their results and experiences. This means that you can see which hotel you are likely to be staying in based on your bid. Furthermore, people post bids they have recently been successful with for dates in the future. Therefore, you can match the bid and have a very high chance of staying the same hotel. By doing so, you can predict where you will be staying.

Priceline.com also tends to use only certain hotels. In each sub-section of the Bidding For Travel forum there is a post at the top listing the hotels Priceline uses in that area. Usually there are only a few hotels for each star category. This allows you to have a very good idea of which hotel you will be staying in. You can get a good feel for which hotels commonly appear for which bids in a specific city through this forum. It also has a search feature so you can search for a specific hotel you want to stay at and see how much other people have paid through their bids for this hotel.

This is an excellent resource that when used in combination with Priceline.com provides a serious option for cheap hotel accommodation. Many large cities are notoriously expensive and this technique offer travellers a genuinely cheaper alternative to going through dozens of “cheap hotel” sites. The Bidding For Travel forum adds a large amount of predictability to the process, though does not guarantee it. It would be worthwhile to research the city you are staying in on this forum before bidding. If you take a look at some of the posts, you can see that some people have paid almost twice the rate other have for the same hotel. The bottom line, as always, is that the more research you do in advance, the more likely you are to find a great deal on truly cheap hotel accommodation.