May 26, 2004 -- Priceline lets you save 40-60% on hotels around the world. This we know. But giving up control of the exact hotel you win is too much stress for many people. Priceline lets you lock down your hotel's star level, but the hotels Priceline considers to be worthy of four stars might garner three or five stars on other travel sites.
Up until now, the best way to keep tabs on Priceline's hotel stock has been by checking the Hotel Lists on www.biddingfortravel.com, www.betterbidding.com and www.cleverbidding.com, the independent Priceline watchdog boards. Those boards collect thousands of successful bids and list all the hotels their readers have secured. But as BiddingForTravel's moderators love to point out, you still might get a hotel that's not on their lists.
Now, there's an official way to check Priceline's hotel star ratings. Earlier this year Priceline bought most of hotel-sales Web site Travelweb (www.travelweb.com) and said they intend to buy the rest of the site in the future. (Travelweb was originally owned by five hotel chains, but they decided to sell the site in favor of running specials on their own individual Web sites.)
Later this year, Priceline will integrate Travelweb's hotels into searches on Priceline.com, letting you see the names of hotels before you buy (at somewhat higher rates than you'd get by bidding, of course.) That won't affect the super-low rates you get by bidding for mystery hotels, though it'll probably add another screen you have to click through to get to the good stuff.
One Star (System) To Rule Them All
The Travelweb purchase still helps bidders, because Travelweb's hotel star ratings will soon be the same as Priceline's, with one important exception. Travelweb doesn't use half-stars, so Priceline's 2.5-star hotels will show up on Travelweb as 3-star hotels.
Priceline and Travelweb are still working out some glitches in their system. For example, Travelweb rates the Four Points in New York City's Chelsea neighborhood as a 3-star hotel, while Priceline calls it a 2-star. Priceline's Brian Ek assured us that the ratings will soon be brought in line.
"If there's a discrepancy, I'd attribute it to updates not having completely worked their way through the two systems," he said. "Priceline taking ownership should address that as our folks proceed to integrate the two organizations."
So later this summer, if you want to know what Priceline considers, say, a 4-star hotel in Denver, you'll be able to go to www.travelweb.com, click on "Advanced Search" and ask for four-star hotels.
While that still won't help you divine exactly which hotel you'll get on Priceline, it'll be a useful bit of help for smart bidders.
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