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Essential Priceline Tips

June 19, 2000
By Michael Shapiro, Internet Travel Planner

Priceline is an online service that allows you to name the price you're willing to pay for airfare. Priceline can save you money, but it can also cause travel headaches if you're not careful.

It's important to be aware of the hidden restrictions and requirements. Follow these four tips to avoid potential pitfalls and become a Priceline success story.

Leo and Michael Shapiro give great advice on using Priceline.com

What are Priceline's restrictions?

You can pick your travel dates, but not travel times. Domestic flights may depart anytime between 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM and may arrive as late as 12:30 AM. International flights can depart anytime. You may also have to make one stopover on domestic flights and up to two connections on international flights.

You can't preview your itinerary before deciding whether to take a ticket. If Priceline accepts your bid, it's automatically charged to your credit card. You won't earn frequent flier miles, and tickets can't be changed.

Can you make more than one bid?

Priceline states that you can make only one bid for any itinerary. But if you change the date of your outgoing or returning flight, you can make a new bid. In many cases, if Priceline doesn't accept your bid, you'll be given a chance to raise it. So it's much smarter to underbid than overbid.

Priceline keeps the full amount of all accepted bids, so if you bid $600 for a round-trip flight to Paris and Priceline can purchase that ticket for $450, Priceline pockets the difference.

How do you pick the best days to fly?

On many routes, Priceline offers a calendar showing peak travel days. These days are marked in red. This means it's hardest to get tickets on these days. Semi-peak days are coded yellow, and the best days for getting tickets are green.

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