American Web Hotels

After type in “Colorado Springs” and enter your check in, check out, and number of rooms for your stay, you’ll see that Priceline gives you 4 zones. They are

Colorado Springs Airport (COS)
Colorado Springs North
Colorado Springs South
Northeast Colorado Springs

Also notice that there are 5 star levels:

3 1/2 star upscale-plus
3 star upscale
21⁄2-Star Moderate-Plus
2-Star Moderate
1-Star Economy

If you click and unclick on each zone, you’ll find out the highest star level offered for each zone:

Colorado Springs Airport (COS): 3-Star Upscale
Colorado Springs North: 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus
Colorado Springs South: 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus
Northeast Colorado Springs: 3-Star Upscale

Keep this information in handy, you’ll know why you do this a little further in the article.

Before we make our first bid, now would be wise to see what the winning bids for other users were for the Colorado area. Check out betterbidding.com and bidtotravel.com to see what type of winning bids other users got.

When you go to betterbidding.com, scroll down to the Colorado forum and then click “Priceline – Colorado”. If you look at the “Priceline – Colorado” forum you’ll see that users have posted their winning bids, with each post including the winning bid amount, the zone, the date of their stay, and the specific hotel. For example, one poster on bidderbidding posted that for a $50 winning bid they got a Marriott Colorado Springs in the North Zone with a star rating of 3 1/2 star upscale-plus. Other winning bids for the same zone and star level ranged from around $45-$50.

Biddingfortravel.com also lets you see the winning from other users for the Colorado Springs area. Simply go to the “Colorado – all other cities” forum. Although there weren’t many recent posts there for the Colorado Springs area, at the time this article was written, there might be some more by the time you read it. Despite the lack of posts I noticed that users got 3 1/2 star upscale-plus hotels for around $45.

You can use both websites to help you decide how much to bid for a particular zone and star level. Because I have already collected information for 3 1/2 star hotels in the North Zone of Colorado (You can get a winning bid for around $45-$50), I’ll use that as my example in telling you how you should bid on Priceline. Because users routinely got winning bids from $45-$50 for 3 1/2 star hotels in the North Zone, I’ll start my bid at $40. What should my highest bid amount be? I’d go over to hotels.com and check out the rates they have for 3 and 1/2 star hotels. Although Priceline’s and Hotel.com’s star system is not the same, this should give me a good idea of what the typical rate would be if I book with a booking site. I see that hotels.com has 3 and 1/2 star hotels for around $100-$150. This tells me that the closer I get to this range when I bid up, the worse deal I getting. However, it is highly unlikely I’d ever reach this point considering that other users got winning bids of around $45.
For my first bid I select Colorado Springs North for my zone and 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus for my star level. Let’s say that my $45 bid gets rejected. End of story? Priceline gives me a screen which lets me bid again if I change something: If I add a zone, add a star level, and/or change my check in or check out date. Otherwise I can only rebid after 24 hours. Who wants to wait that long? Because I don’t want to change my star level (I want a 3 and 1/2 star hotel!) nor my dates, the only thing that’s left is changing my zone. Remember the list of zones and their respective highest star level, which I showed earlier?

Colorado Springs Airport (COS): 3-Star Upscale
Colorado Springs North: 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus
Colorado Springs South: 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus
Northeast Colorado Springs: 3-Star Upscale

…we can use this list to bid again.

I can add one of the 3-Star Upscale Zones (say Colorado Springs Airport) to rebid for a total of 2 zones. Because my star level is still 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus, I know I won’t end up staying at Colorado Springs Airport. If my rebid with the additional zone fails, I’d rebid again by starting a new bid with a different 2 zone combination (Colorado Springs North and Northeast Colorado Springs). How do you start a new bid? At the rejection screen simply click on the Priceline link up at the top. If my rebid with Colorado Springs North and Northeast Colorado Springs does not work, I can rebid by adding an additional zone at the rejection screen for a total of 3 zones, Colorado Springs North, Northeast Colorado Springs, and Colorado Springs Airport.

To summarize, if you want to bid on a 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus hotel, bid the following way…

A is the zone which you want to stay in, in Colorado Springs it would include either Colorado Springs North or Colorado Springs South.

Bid 1) A
Bid 2) A+ Colorado Springs Airport
Bid 3) A+ Northeast Colorado Springs
Bid 4) A+ Northeast Colorado Springs+ Colorado Springs Airport

(a nice post over at biddingfortravel.com by verkuilb allowed me to display the fourth bid)

For bids 1 and 3, you’re going to have to start a new bid by clicking at the Priceline logo at the top of the rejection screen. You’ll have to start a new bid because the rejection screen only allows you to add additional zones, not have a brand new zone combination, which is what you need to rebid again.

If you happen to run out of rebids for the 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus level, you can bid on a 3-Star Upscale hotel one more time using the same method for either the Colorado Springs North or Colorado Springs South zone. Simply bid with only one zone selected (either the North or South zone) and select “3-Star Upscale” as your star level.

A big thanks to biddingfortravel.com and betterbidding.com!