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To understand how to get the best price on Priceline.com, you first have to understand what Priceline.com is all about and why it is used by airlines, hotels and car rental companies.

What is Priceline?
Priceline is a liquidator of travel services used by the travel industry to unload perishable inventory in a manner that does not dilute the value of a brand name. Simply put, it allows airlines and hotels to sell seats and rooms for deep discounts without sacrificing their margins for their normal customers. This site is oftern referred to as an opaque travel site since you don't know which travel provider you will be using until you make your bid and it is chosen. To this end travel suppliers look at this site as a last minute method off selling off inventory when they know that they are not going to fill.

How does Priceline work?
Simply put, you tell Priceline how much you are willing to pay for an airline seat, hotel room or car rental over specific dates and locations. They search their database for when and where you are traveling. If they can find a suitable supplier, you buy the hotel room with no ability to cancel the reservation without losing your money.

Why should you use Priceline?
Because you can save a lot of money, if your travel is flexible or if you are flexible in where you are willing to stay. In many cases you can save over 50% off of regular prices or some times even more.

What is the best way to get good deals?

1) Search for rates on one of the online travel agencies like, Expedia or Travelocity for the time period in which you are traveling. Keep in mind that discounts are going to be dependent on the market you are traveling and how busy the market is. Don't expect discounts if the area is sold out.

2) Try looking at Hotwire.com before bidding on Priceline. Hotwire shows you star level of the hotel and price point before committing to make the purchase. This will give you strong guidelines for where to bid on Priceline.

3) Take a look a www.betterbidding.com or www.bidding4travel.com. These are two sites where fellow travelers share their strategies and success stories for bidding on both Hotwire and Priceline.

Learn more about this author, Shane Keener.
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