The BaghdadTime Guide to Priceline

Priceline.com is a web based journey company recognized for its low cost charges on journey purchases together with accommodations, airfare, rental vehicles and cruises — oh, and perhaps these William Shatner adverts.

Priceline claims that it saves clients greater than $1 billion yearly by way of its many deal campaigns, which embrace Categorical Offers, Tonight-Solely Offers and Pricebreakers. Priceline VIP loyalty members can get much more reductions.

However have Priceline offers actually gone the place no man (or on-line journey company) has gone earlier than? Right here’s what it’s essential learn about reserving with and saving cash by way of Priceline.

Priceline is part of the world’s largest journey firm, Reserving Holdings, which additionally operates different large journey gamers together with Kayak, Rentalcars.com and OpenTable.

Accessible by way of priceline.com or its cellular app, Priceline delivers personalised suggestions for vacationers, together with nontraditional lodging like non-public houses, boats and yurts. Vacationers can bundle lodging, flights and rental vehicles collectively in a single transaction — and sometimes for a deal.

You enter in your dates and vacation spot, and Priceline lists flights, accommodations, and rental vehicles that may get you there. As an OTA, Priceline facilitates the reserving. In the meantime, the precise journey companies are supplied by another person — whether or not it’s an enormous lodge chain or a small, family-owned mattress and breakfast.

Priceline gives pretty strong reserving instruments, particularly for vacationers who prefer to e book all their journey elements — flight, lodge and rental automotive — in a single go, moderately than individually.

Priceline’s Journey Builder platform lets customers bundle these purchases collectively into one transaction, whereas additionally unlocking privately negotiated charges which might be in any other case unavailable. Priceline claims its bundled offers save vacationers a mean of $240 per transaction.

And the Journey Builder instrument is pretty versatile. Bundling options on different web sites will be limiting. Typically, they power you to e book a flight (even should you would have most well-liked a street journey), or don’t permit for stopovers in a number of cities.

In distinction, Journey Builder accounts for particular person journey circumstances and removes many restrictions discovered elsewhere. Your journey can embrace a mixture of stays between non-public houses and accommodations. You can too decide to bundle a visit that doesn’t contain a flight.

Priceline’s most well-known deal, Identify Your Personal Worth, has been retired. The Identify Your Personal Worth deal was a bidding instrument the place you can negotiate lodge charges as much as 60% off retail, and airfare as much as 40% off retail charges.

There are nonetheless loads of different Priceline promos available.

Categorical Offers launched in 2012 with a promise to supply the identical financial savings as bidding, however with an instant-booking part. Maybe probably the most standout side of Categorical Offers: You don’t know the precise title of the lodge or flight whenever you e book, nevertheless it might prevent as a lot as 50%.

With the flight model of the Categorical Offers operate, you gained’t obtain your actual departure and arrival instances till after you buy tickets. As an alternative, you’re given solely an approximate arrival or departure time, akin to within the early morning.

Forward of reserving accommodations by way of Categorical Offers, you get some info, akin to star ranking, buyer ranking, the neighborhood and the facilities. The precise lodge is revealed solely as soon as the reserving is made.

In case you like having a considerably higher concept of the lodge you’ll get however nonetheless just like the gamble, flip to the Pricebreakers deal, which launched in 2020. Think about it a little bit of lodge roulette, however this time, you get one among three recognized choices.

With Pricebreakers, three separate (however comparable) accommodations are displayed, every listed underneath a single value. Upon reserving that Pricebreakers deal, you’ll get a reservation for a kind of particular accommodations — although the precise one is chosen by Priceline.

Priceline guarantees that each lodge booked by way of Pricebreakers has a buyer ranking above 7 out of 10 and is obtainable at as much as half off revealed charges you will discover elsewhere.

Obtainable solely by way of its app, the Tonight-Solely Offers promotion gives last-minute lodge offers in most main cities together with Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Honolulu, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and San Francisco.

With Tonight-Solely Offers, Priceline’s app shows 3-star and 4-star lodge rooms that may be booked for check-in that very same night time (with a most four-night keep) at reductions of as much as 35% off revealed costs discovered elsewhere. Room reservations will be immediately booked up till 11 p.m. native time, or till they promote out.

Like many journey reserving websites, Priceline additionally runs periodic gross sales throughout sure instances of yr. Cyber Monday and Black Friday are large deal-nabbing alternatives on Priceline.

For instance, in the course of the 2021 Black Friday weekend, 2,000 fortunate clients acquired a coupon code that supplied 99% off Categorical Deal accommodations. For everybody else, Priceline despatched out Black Friday coupons for as much as an extra 30% off of Categorical Offers on high of on a regular basis financial savings of as much as 60% off.

Priceline VIP loyalty program

All these offers aren’t the one means it can save you when reserving with Priceline. Priceline VIP is the OTA’s loyalty program that features entry to additional reductions, coupons, premium customer support and extra.

There are 4 tiers of elite standing within the Priceline VIP program: Member, Blue, Gold and Platinum. Becoming a member of this system is free — you simply must create an account with Priceline.

Right here’s how you can earn Priceline elite standing, and what every tier entails:

In contrast to different elite standing packages, there are not any particular seat upgrades or free goodies like Champagne in your lodge room with Priceline VIP. However for no-frills vacationers who worth saving cash over facilities, the reductions is perhaps probably the most beneficial perk anyway. Properties eligible for VIP reductions are designated by a Priceline VIP emblem within the search outcomes.

One thing that units Priceline VIP other than different loyalty packages is that your Priceline elite standing doesn’t expire. As an alternative, you retain your similar tier degree from yr to yr till you advance.

To succeed in the following degree, although, you’ll must have accomplished new qualifying journeys after Jan. 1 of that yr (so journeys accomplished in earlier years don’t depend towards incomes elite standing).

The perfect bank cards for Priceline bookings

Whereas not essentially the most effective bank card to make use of for basic on a regular basis spending, the Priceline VIP Rewards™ Visa® Card is among the finest playing cards to make use of for purchases on Priceline itself. It earns 5 factors for each $1 spent on purchases, bookings and reservations made at Priceline. It additionally earns 2 factors on restaurant and gasoline purchases, and 1 level for every thing else.

Priceline factors are value 1 cent, so that you’re taking a look at a 5% return for all of your Priceline purchases on this card. What’s additionally good is that you would be able to redeem your rewards as assertion credit, so that you’re not essentially suckered into incomes factors in a loyalty program you may not recurrently use.

Different advantages of card possession embrace computerized Priceline VIP Gold standing. And should you spend $10,000 on the cardboard inside every card membership yr, you’re eligible to obtain an announcement credit score for the $100 International Entry software price or the $85 TSA PreCheck software price.

Contemplating the Priceline VIP Rewards™ Visa® Card has a $0 annual price, it’s arduous to be too harsh on this card. Plus, the additional advantages will be fairly a money-saver.

This card is handy not only for spending on Priceline, however all kinds of journey purchases.

For all of your non-Priceline bookings, use this card to earn 5 factors per greenback on journey booked by way of Chase. You’ll additionally earn 3 factors per greenback on eating at eating places, streaming companies and on-line grocery purchases; 2 factors per greenback on different journey spending (together with on-line journey web sites like Expedia); and 1 level per greenback spent on every thing else.

The cardboard, which has an annual price of $95, additionally options an introductory provide: Earn 60,000 bonus factors after you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months from account opening. That is $750 whenever you redeem by way of Chase Final Rewards®.

Canceling journey booked on Priceline

Priceline has an abundance of offers, notably for vacationers who’re versatile about the place they keep and once they journey. However for all of the delights of reserving on Priceline, there are pitfalls too — and cancellations rank among the many largest.

Most of the deepest reductions can’t be modified or canceled, interval. That features Categorical Offers (the offers the place the complete itinerary is revealed solely after you e book), that are non-changeable and nonrefundable.

For different bookings outdoors of Priceline’s thriller offers, change and cancellation insurance policies range. Usually, whether or not your journey will be refunded is as much as the supplier’s coverage, not Priceline’s. A primary economic system flight may not qualify for a refund, however an upgraded ticket would possibly.

And in some instances, you would possibly have the ability to change your reservation — however just for a price. Once more, charges range by supplier, however will be reviewed inside your on-line itinerary.

In case your reservation is eligible for cancellation, you should use Priceline’s self-service cancellation instrument. From a logged-in Priceline account, click on the My Journeys button and choose View/Cancel Itinerary subsequent to the reservation you need to cancel.

Remember to learn the person coverage for every cancellation, as they’ll range by way of how a lot cash you’ll truly get again.

You can too cancel flights by calling Priceline’s Buyer Care quantity at 800-774-2354.

Use the Priceline Assist Middle for assist with conditions like altering and canceling your journey, getting a refund or submitting a criticism. In case you’re unable to get assist from Priceline’s self-service instruments, there are a couple of different methods to get in contact with help:

• Textual content Priceline’s buyer care staff at 33296.

• Name and communicate to a human. Priceline’s basic contact quantity is 877-477-5807.

You need a journey bank card that prioritizes what’s vital to you. Listed here are our picks for the finest journey bank cards of 2022, together with these finest for: