Family Adventures

» mcmarried - Priceline SUCKS!

Great.. one thing i should have learned from working at Orbitz.com and Cheaptickets.com, who happen to be affiliated w/ Priceline, is never to book with them or third party travel sites. Having worked with bidding sites, such as eBay, you would think that you would be able to place a bid and if it is rejected, then so be it. Luckily, I decided to keep bidding on my airline ticket and got a semi-decent price w/ the exact airline i was TRYING to avoid.. instead of not getting a ticket at all and still getting charged for a non-existant reservation, like i know they would. my trip is in two weeks and so i have yet to see what may happen.. for all i know, they probably never even made a reservation for me. of course my long flight will take place on the smallest plane i've ever seen!
So the airline res was only a fraction of the battle.. add in my stupidity and bam you get a hotel reservation.. in the area i was looking to stay, the rates are pretty high, so i decided to take a chance on bidding on a hotel price. little did i know.. not only do you have to alter your bidding price, but you will evetually end up having to broaden your locations you may have to stay in and even your dates! i needed to book a 4-day reservation and entered in a bid of $60 for a measly 2-star hotel. It denied me saying that now I had to either change my dates, change my location, or change my star rating preference. So, against my will, i chose to look at both 1-star and 2-star hotels. great! the only 1-star hotel in the area is a junkie econolodge. i was almost reduced to tears w/ the thought of how i bet they would stick me w/ the dreaded econolodge.

So i resubmit my bid and was AGAIN denied. Now i had to either change my location or change my dates. So i clicked on the radio button indicating that it would not be the WORST thing to have to stay at a hotel possibly 10 miles away from my original destination. Hoping that this is what it would finally take to get the reservation, and after upping my bid to $70, it still rejected my bid! The only option i had left was to change my dates. I was FURIOUS! I needed to stay somewhere for 4-days and who wants to have to checkin one day and then checkout to another hotel the next? So i tried to put in 3-days, then 2-days and finally it approved me for one stupid day. Oh but wait..it gets better.. then it asks me if i would like to extend my stay...wtf, right?! what does it extend it to, one extra day.. but no it does not extend my reservation, it creates two totally separate reservations, each for one day, which would NOT guarantee that i can even stay in the same room for the second day. AT LEAST, they put me in the candlewood suites hotel, and not the ECONO!

So i get on the horn w/ the hotel, who seemed to be very nice people. I explained the situation and the lady was nice enough to put in notations to keep me in the same hotel room. Plus i had to book yet a third reservation w/ them for the remaining two nights, which the rate they offered me was the SAME price as price line.. all that bs work for NOTHING but STRESS and FRUSTRATION.. so yeah save yourself the meltdown and just call the hotel directly and ask if they have any special rates.
i highly suggest cheapoair.com and kayak.com which are two sites that scan the net for the best deals from all websites, even the airlines and hotel's own websites.

Note to self.. NEVER BOOK WITH PRICELINE EVER AGAIN

-- posted by mcmarried