I am looking for hotel in London and Paris (in late Sept/ early Oct) and I am trying to use Priceline but all of my bids are being rejected.
I had heard that you can save upto 50% via priceline.
Any tips?
Essentially, I googled something along the lines of "Hotwire hotel list", and was given a list of hotels in each major Canadian city which are offered by Hotwire.
So anyway, when you're booking with Hotwire, you select a city, a date, and a star-rating for the hotel you want to stay at. From here you can just cross-reference the list found on the web to determine potential hotels you can get if you pay for their service.
In my case, I selected 4* hotel in Toronto between August Xst and August Xst, and was given an "average" price per day based on the stars selected and how long my trip was.
The hotel I ended up getting only cost me $92/night on hotwire for this period of time, which was a savings of around $60/night overall from Expedia. The list of hotels is surprisingly good too. In Toronto, they list hotels such as the Mariott and the Hilton downtown, so it's pretty awesome.
Choose as wide a geographical range as possible - tick all the areas that could possibly work for you. Don't forget that public transport makes practically any location workable in cities like London and Paris.
The deals are better at the highest end - saving 40% on a 4-star hotel is definitely doable, savings at the lower end are more modest. If you are on a really tight budget, you'll probably do better with hostels than Priceline.
Some areas are just hard (like NYC) - Priceline will get you something manageable rather than exorbitant, but it can't get you cheap, because cheap isn't to be had.
Great deals are also to be had in airport hotels. If you are somewhere where there is public transport between the airport and your destination, and you can afford the extra time it takes to commute, you can save a pile of money. Eg you can stay near CDG and take the RER to Paris. Of course, make sure the train cost + cheap hotel is less than the pricier hotel.