priceline

I will be in Houston Hobby airport (HOU) 3/1/2012 at 7pm returning on 3/7 at 12pm (1 person, 7 nights).

I’ve tried numerous combinations of codes in this forum. Surprisingly, the best I have done is $214 on Hotwire (of all places). I’m obviously going to keep trying.

I hoping to get below $214. Will i have better luck < 7 days on Priceline?

Any help would be appreciated.

I need a hotel for my 2/11 cruise out of Luaderdale and need a hotel for the two nights prior. Hotel prices are really high for that time so I’m trying Priceline. I know there are some sketchy areas in Lauderdale so I was wondering if someone could check this map and tell me if there are any bad areas in the #2 section (which they call downtown Fort Lauderdale). Also, if you have any experience with Priceline and have a bid recommendation please let me know!

We’ll be there for one full day before the cruise so we’d like it if it was an area we could walk around and maybe walk down to the ocean. Also, I’ll need a liquor store to fill my Rumrunner Flasks before we board the ship

Priceline Link to Map of Lauderdale

Thanks!

Does anyone know if Priceline still has the 24 hours cancellation policy on flights? I’ve searched and found several past threads and pages on Google that do reference the 24 hours cancellation period for most airlines (my flight will be on Continental) but I couldn’t find any link from their current site that references it.

Anyone have recent experience with this? I’d prefer buying from Priceline instead of directly from the airline (I know Continental.com has the 24 hours cancellation policy) purely to earn additional CashBack on my purchase.

Thanks in advance.

Rental Car for PIttsburgh INt’l Airport PIT go steelers

12/24/11 – 01/02/2012
(Standard and full size same price, so I reserved full size)

Budget = $240
Alamo = $246
Priceline = $303
Hotwire = 286

most codes didn’t work … NOT a Costco member

Many thanks for your time and any help!! MERRY CHRISTMAS / HAPPY HANUKAH

I recently took a Transatlantic Cruise from Rome to Fort Lauderdale. I flew in the day before the cruise, and needed a hotel room for just one night (so I wouldn’t have to stress if our plane was delayed, or any other problems came up). Since I was planning this 7 months prior to my trip, I had a strategy to low-ball Priceline and see what kind of deal I could get. I figured there was time to pay full price later.

I searched for hotels in the area I wanted to stay, for a low price, and at 3 star level. I was bidding $75. I was offered a 3 star for $100. I thought that was a good value, so I bit. I received my “assignment” for the Hotel Kennedy. I looked at their website, and when I converted their Euro price to my USD price, it was about the same (but was less than what I was seeing on American booking sites when I was looking to select my hotel). So it was a luke-warm deal. I was happy none the less.

When my husband and I arrived in Rome, we schlepped our bags to our hotel to check in. We asked for our “booking slip.” (Not our names). I pulled out the form and the moment he saw the Priceline slip, he said there was a problem with our room, but they made arrangements for us at another hotel “down the road.”

I was very frustrated to have to schlep my bags again, and now I was going to a hotel I knew nothing about. Furthermore, I had mapped my route to/from my hotel to all the places we were trying to pack into our very short stay. Now my directions were wrong. I was frustrated. Someone from the hotel we were booked with did walk us to the new hotel, but he seemed to be in a rush. I ran on the cobble stones to keep up with him, but ultimately twisted my ankle. Badly.

Eventually we got to our new hotel. The star designation was the same. I was crying at this point, both in pain and for the fact that I was not in control of my trip. The hotel was “ok” but it was not what I was promised.

Do I have any recourse? Who if anyone can I complain to?

I won’t be using Priceline again in the future.

My gut instinct is that the hotel overbooked, and because my booking was for a reduced price and for 1 night, someone else got our room, even though it was booked 7 months in advance.

Since the original hotel deals FAQ has disappeared, heres one I put together for FW to use before posting any requests in Travel Deals.

This is to supplement the FatWallet Travel Deals FAQs. Please also refer to the FAQs/Guidelines.

******************************************************
Before posting a new topic requesting help on the board, please make sure that you conduct a SEARCH to make sure that it has not been covered previously.

If you are seeking assistance in planning a trip, please include ALL of the following information:
a. Make sure you begin your Title with REQUEST – For example, REQUEST Need cheap air/hotel package to Vegas from LAX in Oct
b. Dates of travel
c. Departure city (and airports)/destination
d. # of people (adults/children) (if children, you may wish to include ages)
e. # of nights
f. Approximate budget for your trip
g. Activities that interest you
h. WHAT YOU HAVE FOUND SO FAR IN YOUR RESEARCH. Please include complete prices (incl all taxes and fees) and where you have located the deal.

Please DO NOT post a new topic until you have done the items listed above. Finally, once you have posted your information, and received feedback from the community for your trip, please try to post a message indicating the details of what you finally ended up purchasing so that others may benefit.

******************************************************

FW Info Threads

Best Hotel Rate Guarantees

Las Vegas Promos List

Las Vegas Front Desk Tipping

Travel Guides to Popular Destinations

Hotel Search Tools

Kayak.com

Orbitz
Expedia
Travelocity

HRS (good for European hotels)

Hotel Deals & Other Search Tools

Travelzoo.com (lists hotel specials and packages & offers a weekly travel deals email)

Lastminute.com (offers last second deals on hotel + airfare and hotel + car packages)

hotelpricebot.com (hotel price comparison website)

hotelscomparison.com (hotel price comparison website)

Gtahotels.com

Octopustravel.com

Quikbook.com

Skoosh.com

BookIt

SkyAuction.com (offers hotel and vacation package auctions be sure to factor in the taxes and service charges!)

Venere.com

Vrbo.com Vacation Rentals By Owner

Travelworm.com (Las Vegas deals)

Vegas.com (Las Vegas deals)

Opaque Booking Websites

Betterbidding.com (PL & HW assistance)
Biddingfortravel.com (PL only)

When using Pricelines name your own price for a hotel, research on betterbidding or biddingfortravel BEFORE bidding on Priceline!

Pricelines name your own price and Hotwires limited rate are non-refundable reservations. Priceline might grant you a one-time exception should you make an error. If they do, they will charge a $25 penalty and will require you to correct your error by bidding again.

Priceline guarantees bedding for 2 people, not the type of bedding (king/two queens).
Note that some hotels may only fit 2 people in a room according to fire code regulations.

Hotwire allows you to select more than 2 people when making a reservation.

Also note that Priceline & Hotwires total price does NOT include any resort fees which must be paid directly to the hotel.

Hotel Reviews & Travel Information

Tripadvisor.com (hotel reviews & traveler photos)

Tripkick.com (online database of hotel rooms)

Smartertravel.com

Budgettravel.com

0rbitz Blog

Hotelchatter.com

Hotel Rewards Program Info

pointmaven.com (lists hotel point promotions)

In the face of naysayers who have long predicted its demise, Netflix (NFLX) has had a remarkable few years. In 2005, the Los Gatos, Calif.-based DVD rental service boasted 4.2 million subscribers and enjoyed net earnings of $41.9 million. Last year, the company netted $115.9 million, and its bright red envelopes made their way into the homes of 12.3 million subscribers nationwide. The company’s NASDAQ-listed stock price tripled in that period (see chart).

2010 is shaping up to be another stellar year. On Feb. 25 of this year, Netflix enjoyed a red-envelope day of sorts: It surpassed former industry leader Blockbuster (BBI) in movie rental revenue for the first time. Meanwhile, as mom-and-pop rental stores close up shop and Blockbuster enters a period of major retrenchment (the Dallas-based company recently announced plans to close 500 stores), Netflix’s subscriber base looks set to expand.

Netflix is in many ways the epitome of the 21^st century company: It’s based in Silicon Valley, it sells its services exclusively online, and it employs a hip bit of Web-speak in its name. But even as it boasts many of the trappings of a New Economy juggernaut, Netflix is still almost entirely reliant on that most 19^th century of institutions: the United States Postal Service. Indeed, Netflix is the Postal Serviceas biggest corporate customer.

And sadly for Netflix, its big partner is also in the redathe Postal Service lost $3.8 billion last year. In an effort to stop the bleeding, on Wednesday, the USPS took the first step toward eliminating Saturday mail deliveryait asked the Postal Regulatory Commission for an opinion on the matter. (Congress still has to approve the change.) The USPS says it hopes to implement the change in fiscal year 2011. In addition to eliminating Saturday delivery, the Postal Service has also said that it wants to raise postage fees. If these changes are implemented, Netflix’s finely tuned business model could suffer a serious blow.

Among other things, Netflix’s success relies on its remarkable efficiency and its affordability. The least costly subscription plan, which allows a subscriber to rent one movie at a time, costs only $8.99, and the most expensive, which allows the subscriber to have four movies out simultaneously, tops out at $23.99. And delivery really is remarkably fast: The company generally delivers in just one business day, and has 58 warehouses nationwide, meaning that you rarely stray far from one. A subscriber can expect that if he sends back a DVD on a Monday afternoon, he will receive a replacement on Wednesday. To maintain these speeds, Netflix warehouse employees are expected to process a minimum of 650 discs per hour.

Slower and costlier mail service could put an end to that. The elimination of Saturday delivery would mean that Netflix subscribers will have to endure two consecutive days of no serviceanothing to scoff at in a time when consumers have come to expect high speeds and (nearly) instant gratification. And Saturday is a big movie day; the blogger who runs the online bible for Netflix fanatics, Hacking Netflix, said via telephone that many subscribers have come to expect to receive movies on Saturdays and may be very disappointed. On the plus side for Netflixas balance sheet, the blogger did note that the elimination of Saturday delivery could mean lower labor costs as warehouse shifts are eliminated. However, as the USPS claims that mail would still be transported and that post offices would still be open on Saturdays, it is not clear if this is the case.

Higher postage costs will pose another serious problem. Postage costs have already increased four times in the past five years. To combat these cost increases, the company has simply continued to fine-tune its automation and squeeze costs out of its warehouse and distribution network. The company has also slapped on costs for premium services, such as a $1-per-month fee on Blu-Ray discs. This has eased the cost pressure somewhat, but itas a precarious balance. As far back as 2008, Netflix said publicly that it was considering raising subscription prices. Right now, Netflix needs to collect $2 per rented DVD in order to maintain profitability and is said to spend roughly 78 cents on postage for each rented DVD.

In total, Netflix estimates that it will spend $600 million on postage in 2010. A rise in postal rates will obviously skew this formula, and generate pressure on the bottom line. If Netflix canat mitigate these higher costs through yet more automation, the company will face two options. It could slow down turnaround time, and therefore reduce the number of DVDs that it sends each month: That is, it could sacrifice speed for affordability. Alternatively, Netflix could instead elect to sacrifice affordability for speed and raise subscription prices to compensate for higher postage feesaa gambit that the company would be loath to attempt in this economy. Either way, Netflix may have to give up one of its hallmarks: bargain-basement prices or light speeds. And these reduced speeds, of course, will come in addition to the elimination of Saturday delivery.

And don’t look to the Internet to save this Internet company, either. In recent years, Netflix has increased the availability of films that subscribers can stream instantly onto their personal computers, game consoles, Internet-enabled televisions, and soon iPhones. Currently, some 17,000 of Netflixas roughly 100,000 titles are available for instant streaming. But while instantly streamed movies obviously eliminate postage costs, they are not a cost-free proposition for Netflix. Analysts suggest that the streaming technology itself is very cheapait costs roughly five cents to stream 90 minutes of contentabut the licensing fees can be exorbitant. Netflix wonat release the data on how much it pays for online licensing, but can apparently be quite expensive. Dan Rayburn, an analyst with Streaming Media, has said that heas seen some streaming movies that cost as much as $4 per play.

Even if Netflix did wish to abandon mail delivery altogether, it wouldnat be possible. Hollywood studios actively limit the number of films they allow to be streamed, because they want to avoid cannibalizing their highly profitable DVD businesses. (Studios collect about 80 percent of the sales of DVDs.) Thatas a big reason why Reed Hastings, the founder, CEO, and chairman of the company, recently told Bloomberg News that he expects Netflix to continue mailing DVDs for 20 more years.

Ultimately, then, Netflix is going to be faced with higher postage costs and slower delivery speeds. Maybe your emphatically unsexy and oh-so-20^th-century brick-and-mortar movie rental store isn’t dead after all.