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Until recently, I thought I was stuck with the airline ticket prices I was given. I hadn’t thought of bidding for a plane ticket before. I imagined that if I did bid, I would be rerouted seven stops through Tanzania on my way from Oklahoma to Kansas. It turns out bidding for tickets wasn’t as crazy or scary as I thought.
Priceline’s Name Your Own Price Tool for tickets is best when:
- You have to fly soon – such as within two weeks.
- You know the current market price of the ticket you want.
- You have some flexibility on when you fly.
The good part is, as you’ll see from our video, you’re in control of deciding how much flexibility Priceline has when booking your ticket. If you only want to travel on a specific day and have one connection – that’s fine. That’s up to you. If you want to give Priceline more options for finding a cheap ticket, you can add in more days, airports, or connections. However, we do have a specific strategy for getting a good deal and getting an acceptable trip.
Want to get a good deal?
Here’s how to bid for plane tickets on Priceline:
- Look up the market price on the ticket.
- Go to Priceline’s Name Your Own Price Page
- Start bidding a few days before you need to have the ticket. (This way you have time to rebid)
- Choose one departure airport and one arrival airport.
- Keep the default set at only jet planes and only one connection.
- Bid below what you would be willing to pay for a ticket. Note: You must enter credit card info before you bid, so when you bid, you buy the ticket. There’s no turning back, so make sure you want to make the trip before you bid.
- If Priceline does not accept your bid, it will likely give you a counter-offer. If you don’t like the counter-offer, go to the next step and bid again.
- When immediately re-bidding, you must make one change on your trip. You can either add an airport, add more possible connections, add possible days, or choose to fly on non-jet planes (we don’t do this one). Only change ONE.
- Re-bid a slightly higher price.
- Continue this process until a bid is accepted or until you don’t like the options given.
- If you don’t successfully bid, you will be able to start the bidding process over again in a day.
Will this process always get you a steal? Not necessarily. That depends on how full airline capacity is for that time period. Some of our friends have saved 40% using this method, some have saved only 5-10%. But I’ve never seen it not save something. If you have some flexibility in travel and a sense of adventure, go for it!
We also have a full page of tips to get cheap airline tickets and more Priceline bidding details.
Has Priceline bidding saved you money on trips? What hesitations do you have about bidding for tickets?
I’ve used Priceline bidding for rental cars and hotels and have gotten some super deals. But I’ve been leery about bidding on flights because you have no control over departure/arrival times and often I need to be someplace by a certain time. Thanks for the tips! I’ll definitely try it next time I’m flying.
That’s a great point Lynn!! I usually buy a ticket the “normal” way when I travel for business events or conferences. When I travel overseas though, I usually don’t care what time of day I travel, especially if I can save some money 🙂 Thats when I’m more apt to bid. Or if I have to buy a last-minute ticket and I’m desperate for a bargain 😉
Best of luck! Let us know how it goes.
I have been using Priceline’s NAME YOUR OWN PRICE for years. But, within the past few years I noticed that, when you name your own price, the taxes and fees almost double and the amount that you thought you saved has almost been completely eaten up by taxes. I looked at some flights just today. Buying the tix straight out, taxes was 44.00. Name your price, tax was 71.00.
Yes, we’ve been noticing that the fees are different in bidding…and on bidding for hotels too….*sigh* – we’re having to take that into account when bidding and go a bit lower to offset it.
I’ve only purchased tickets on Priceline three (3) times. All were last-minute emergency tickets. Two were for someone else without a computer. DCA to PHX round trip (next day) for about 295. Listed price was about 2k and the 14 day price was about 300.
Did it again about a month later. I think that was about 400. Back in 2002, maybe.
As recent as 2008, I think I sent my bride out of state after her father passed away for about 350 for a next day flight.
All of these were NYOP.
Hotels? Excellent deals. 2 rooms in a tower in Niagara Falls (Canadian) for $60 each. $140 rooms. Parking was $20 each car once we got there, but still, our Australian friends (who don’t know Priceline) were quite impressed.
I also once got the Sheraton Cleveland Airport for $50 for a night. Regularly $129. I think it’s easier to get hotel deals.
Another hotel tip is to call a place up and ask if they do Priceline. If they say yes, offer them straight up your bid price (but do not bid). You can often guarantee to choose the hotel AND the price, taking out the middle man. 🙂
Sounds like you had pretty good experiences with Priceline on tickets then – that’s amazing! It’s definitely the best bet we’ve found for last-minute prices.
I (Kinda) hardly stay in ANY hotel without bidding on Priceline first. I’ve gotten some amazing deals. I’ve tried the calling a couple of times on hotels, but they’ve told me that the chain has separate deals with Priceline that they can’t specifically “match” it…but they have done their best to find me other discounts to get me close! You’re right, it’s the best of both worlds 🙂 ALWAYS ask if there are specials or discounts.
Happy bidding Derek!
Name your own air price: when it states $amount per ticket, does it mean per one-way ticket Or per round trip ticket for my trip?
Hi Elainea! If you put in departure and return dates at the beginning, the price should be per round trip ticket. You’ll know for sure because at the end of the bidding process, before you click confirm, it will give you the total cost that you’re bidding. Hope this helps!
I am very uncomfortable to use name your own price but it sounds like a great last minute option for me. I don’t care about flight times but I’m not flexible with my trip dates
Please let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you. It’s worked out very well for our friends who have had to fly last minute for emergencies.
After you have exhausted all the airline counteroffers are you still charged a fee if you do not book because Priceline still have the credit card information
Hi Elainea,
No, there is absolutely no charge unless the bid goes through. I know this for sure, as we’ve bid quite a few times on high-demand flights and not successfully bid. Also, if you’ll notice in the video, I’m actually bidding – it’s a real bid. No charge for that if it’s not accepted.
If you don’t have a successful bid, they will most likely send you an email shortly after – saying you can bid again – usually a day or two later. You just can’t rebid immediately. So if you have a week or two before your flight, then you try again a few days later.
Hello,
I wanted to confirm that even after multiple counter-offers from Priceline, if you can’t agree on a price offered, does your money still stay locked up with Priceline until you agree or does it ever get refunded?
Thanks so much for all your tips!
Hi there Abeeha! If you don’t accept a counter offer, they do NOT charge your credit card. I don’t believe any money stays locked up at all. In fact, in the video, that’s exactly what happens. They give me a counter offer, and I don’t accept. And nothing was charged. You’re only charged if you accept their counter OR if they take your bid. Good luck bidding!!
If im going in Oct when should i bid for a ticket to vegas
Hi Tamika! Per Priceline’s page, bidding is best within a couple of weeks of your trip. That’s when they know they have excess inventory. Of course it can’t hurt to bid a very low price now – it doesn’t charge you unless it goes through. I would put price alerts (through sites like farecompare) on the route that you want now, so if the ticket price drops, then you can purchase. And try to get a ticket for a good price. Then if you do not find a good ticket price, start bidding a few weeks before the trip.
Hi Kinda,
I am a single dad with a 5 year old considering bidding on 2 tickets from LAX to DUS- Germany for the Christmas holidays. Tickets for travel 12/19-01/03 are easy $1500 each. I was thinking about bidding really low and then slowly increasing, would that be right ? Is there anywhere written how long a stop over canbe ? I think something like up to 4hrs perhaps would be ok if the price is right. Anyway,thank you.
Hello! For stop-overs, they do have averages and maximums listed on their site. I’ve listed the information they give below, as well as a table of their averages and maximums that they provide.
When referring to connection time, Priceline says:
“We determine the connection time in conjunction with the best routing and frequency of service for the price you requested. ”
Here are their average connection times, according to their website:
Average Connection Times
Destination region – Avg. connection times booked by priceline (hours)
Africa 3.9
Asia 3.0
Australia 2.5
Canada 1.5
Caribbean 1.5
Central/South America 2.3
Europe 2.3
Mexico 2.3
Middle East 3.4
South Africa 4.5
Maximum International Connection Times
Destination region – Longest connection times booked by priceline(hours)
Africa 8
Asia 8
Australia 8
Canada 4
Caribbean 4
Central/South America 5
Europe 6
Mexico 5
Middle East 7
South Africa 12
I have question. Your step 5. I did not see a place to say only one connection. I only found the departure and arrival airport and the date. Can you tell me where that is.
thanks so much
Hi Jeanne! On the first bid, it should be automatic for one connection each way. It’s when you get to the “Flight Summary” page. It should say: Connections:
Maximum of 1 connection each way.
Then if you do not get the bid, you can choose the option to add more connections.
I clicked on the site you suggested in this post, ‘Priceline’s name your own…’ It took my credit card info for my bid, then kicked me out stating a price more than twice that of my bid. Was told by those who use Priceline’s bidding that this is not how it is done. That once they take your info, that means they have accepted your bid. Don’t use this service but tried it for my son’s ticket. Don’t like Priceline.
It takes everyone’s credit card info before any bid. But it only charges you if your bid is accepted. We just helped a lady bid on tickets yesterday again, and it saved her about 20%. Sometimes, if you’re flying on high-demand days, you may not be able to get a discount. But we have found substantial savings by bidding in certain situations.
Are you saying that your card was charged? It should have taken your info, but not charged you unless bid was accepted.
In the video, you’ll see that it does indeed take my credit card info, but I was definitely not charged for any of those bids.
Question – let’s say I’d like to fly today – how soon does it book my ticket? Meaning, I don’t want to bid, have it accepted and then the flight leaves in 30 minutes. I can’t find this information anywhere!
Hi Jennifer! Yes, this is a bit of a tricky question, and we’ve been researching it as well. Some information that we’ve found
1) Priceline says that it can take up to 24 HOURS approving international flight bids. Which means you may not know as soon as you bid if your bid was accepted. (Although, we must say, that’s rarely been the case for us. Most are approved or not immediately).
2) We’ve read different places that they will not accept current-day bids after 4pm. We’ve never tried this in real life, but we did attempt a bid this week to test it out. It seemed to have an error with us bidding after 4pm.
3) What we know for sure is, Priceline is allowed to book flights departing any time between 6am and 10pm. And you can choose “red-eye” separately. We couldn’t find any exceptions for same-day travel, and we couldn’t find any time “buffer” after the bid (such as flights only scheduled leaving two hours after bid was placed, etc).
All this to say, it appears it could possibly book a same-day flight leaving almost immediately. So if you *had* to book a same-day flight, I would be very, very near the airport with bags packed 🙂
We would definitely recommend bidding the day before if possible, though, especially for overseas flights.
Please let us know if you hear any further information on this issue and we will pass it along. We will keep looking for answers as well.
Hey Kinda,
my wife and I are planning a trip to South America for May 2015. Since tomorrow is the new year…do yo think we should bid now for a cheap flight?
Tickets are going for a little over $1300.
If we bid for $600 do you think we’re most likely to get that bid?
Hi Daniel! Sorry for the late response – things got a little crazy over the holidays. This is about the time we start looking for flights every year. Actually, the price usually drops for our Europe trips a few weeks from now, so we haven’t even bought tickets yet. As for Priceline bidding – from what we have been told, the Priceline bidding works best for LAST-MINUTE tickets. It’s for when the airline knows how much extra inventory there will be on flights, and they guage supply and accept bids from there. I suppose you could try bidding now, but if they only allow you to bid once per route, then you may not be able to bid again later. If I were you, I would go through the general steps (on our cheap tickets page –> http://www.travelchicks.tv/transportation/booking-a-cheap-flight/) such as setting price alerts now. And go through those normal channels for trying to find a cheap flight. But I think it will be tough to guarantee a $600 flight on a South America trip, quite honestly.
Go through the normal channels to try to find a cheap ticket. If you can’t, you might as well bid once before you purchase a ticket – it can’t hurt! 😀 Let us know what you find! And we’ll keep our eyes open for bargains for you too.
Hey Kinda,
If i submit a bid and priceline accepts my bid but i do not like the airline such as spirit airline that charges excess amount of baggage fees up to $100. Do I have an option to decline the offer and start again?
Hi Tia! Nope, that’s actually the catch/beauty of bidding. You’re bidding blind. That’s why they’re able to offer such cheap deals, because they offer excess inventory. Otherwise it would be similar to just buying a ticket.
I haven’t had them put me on Spirit Airlines yet for bidding. However, I cannot definitively find information from Priceline that excludes Spirit, so I can’t guarantee it won’t be one of the potential airlines.
I bid for a flight from RSW to ACY the amount is $303 gave all
the info of my credit cads date of flight leaving RSW may 8,2014
with return date may 10,2014 but for some reason my computer have
malfunction n went blank I really don’t if my bid is accepted please
let me know ASAP you Teodorosamin
Hi Teodoro – I had this happen once as well. What might help is to log into your Priceline account. From there you can go to “My Trips….” from there you can look at upcoming trips or recent requests. You can also check request status on your bids. Hopefully this will tell you if your bid went through or not! Let us know if this works 🙂
Hi Kinda,
Today, I submitted a bid on Priceline for $201 for my round trip from Grand Cayman to Chicago in a week from now. The only thing I received on the screen after my submission was the notification that “you will receive an email notification regarding the status of your ticket request”. I checked my email immediately, but I have not received anything. Is this a common practice of Priceline, or it is something new. Now, I don’t know if my bid was accepted, or if my credit card was charged. Please let me know if you are aware of any of this kind of situations. Thank you very much.
Regards,
Eugene E.
Hi Eugene! This is an issue that I had as well when bidding once. One thing that might help is to log into your Priceline account. Then go to My Trips….Check Your Request Status. It should show if you have any bids pending or not. If you don’t, then there was probably just a glitch in the system. If it *does* say you have a bid pending approval, you want to wait to bid again or you might get stuck with two tickets!
Sorry in addition to my question above can you give me some examples of your personal international flights that you booked by this method and what you paid? Thank you!
Hi Adriana! Unfortunately, it’s hard to predict exactly how much you can save on each flight, because demand varies so much. For instance, we just had a friend save about 25% off of a flight on her first bid. Another friend just saved about 40% on a domestic flight. However, we recently tried to book a round trip flight to Paris in high season and could only save about 10%. It all depends on their algorithm for supply and demand. However, if you have flexible departure and arrival times, (and it’s worth it to you to save the extra money), I would at least try bidding something. Priceline will most likely give you a counter offer if it has available space at all. I will say that it’s very unlikely that you don’t save *something*.
Hi, Kinda,
I’m trying to find out which airlines Priceline queries when you name your own price. I’m curious as to whether airlines such as Jet Blue and Spirit, which are in the regular listings, are included in Name Your Own Price.
I haven’t found a list. Have you?
Cheers,
Tim
Hi Tim – Priceline doesn’t give a complete list of the airlines it includes in the Name Your Own Price Program, but it does say a few airlines that are included on that list. Here’s what Priceline currently discloses as partners:
International:
AeroMexico
Air Canada
Air France
Alitalia
American Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific Airways
Delta Air Lines
Iberia
Icelandair
Japan Airlines
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
Lufthansa
Scandinavian Airlines
United Airlines
US Airways
Virgin Atlantic
Domestic:
American Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Frontier Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines
Sun Country Airline
United Airlines
US Airways
Virgin America
Here are a few more details on the criteria that Priceline uses to choose an airline, quoting from their site:
” For domestic travel, you agree to be ticketed on any of the major, full-service U.S. airlines and their affiliates. The Department of Transportation (DOT) defines major airlines as those airlines that sell over $1 billion of tickets each year. Full service airlines are those that offer travelers a broad array of services, such as meal service, seat assignments, etc.
Any of the major full-service airlines or their affiliates may or may not be participating in priceline at any given time. If your priceline ticket request is accepted, you will be issued a ticket on one of the major full-service airlines or their affiliates.
Major full-service U.S. airlines serving smaller regional markets frequently schedule travelers on affiliate airlines that have convenient connections to and from these markets. Priceline customers agree to fly on any of the major U.S. airlines and their affiliates.
For international travel, you agree to be ticketed on any of the major full-service U.S. and International airlines and their affiliates. International airlines include the following list of airlines, which vary by destination city. To be included on this list, an airline must be the largest airline to a country from the U.S. or carry over one million passengers per year. The following listed International airlines are those which agree to fly, although any specific airline may not be participating in priceline at any given time. “
Hey Kinda-
Wanted to find out from you if priceline does bidding for one way flights? I went on the “name-my-price” section but there’s no place that I can select one way or round trip. If they do no, then do you know of any other sites that I can do cheap last minute one way flights?
Thanks,
Laura
Hi Laura! I do believe that Priceline has an option for one-way flights. Are you on a desktop/laptop computer? I went to the site on my browser and clicked on flights…name your own price. A pop-up box came up to fill in the flight information. When you fill this out, it should have an option for the return date, and there’s a little link to the right of it that says “I’m flying one way”. Click that link and it will let you bid for a one-way flight.
Hope this helps.
I have been using the priceline bidding option since the past 8 months, I travel once a month from SFO to IAD. I have had excellent experience each time. Since I have the flexibility of when I travel I just bid and at a average save 75% on the airfare since I normally buy them a couple of days before I travel. Now I’m so used to bidding I don’t feel like buying the tickets as shown by the websites. Most of the time I get the flights I want to travel by ( lucky I guess but can’t be lucky 9 out of 10 times 🙂 ). I have been recommending the bidding ever since to my friends.
Hey thanks Srikanth! It’s great to hear your feedback on using Priceline and good to hear what percentage saving you’ve been consistently getting. Glad you’ve been saving money! Thanks for sharing your experience and tips 🙂
If you do not like the bids on a rental, will priceline still charge your card?
Do you mean bids on a plane ticket or on a car/hotel rental? The answer is the same with all of them though – if you put a bid in for a certain flight itinerary (for tickets), hotel star level and location (for hotel), or type of car rental, and Priceline accepts the bid, then you have purchased it. They charge your card. That’s the reason you can potentially get a bargain – because you trade some certainty for a lower price.
I tried Name Your Own Price before but my bid was never accepted so I just gave up. I’m needing to fly out next week, Expedia’s bargain offer to me was $475 with taxes. I did a $350 + tax (total $402) bid on Priceline but they did a counter offer, $404 with taxes and only 1 connecting flight if I return 1 day before schedule. I took the offer since my return trip is fairly flexible.
On the list of counter offers, I saw Expedia’s bargain price of $475 too for the exact dates on my itinerary so I guess to have a better idea of how much to bid, it might be prudent to check Expedia’s offers first. I’m glad Priceline offered me the price with some flexibility in my schedule. Overall, this has been a very successful venture as the trip would’ve cost $612 the normal way. Thank you for encouraging us to do this!
Actually did this for a flight from Yow to Msy and was able to save about 160cad. I booked 2days before travel where the price of this exact itinerary had rocketed to 795 and I bid 605 and lost…changed to nonjet OK (doubting nonjets would be available but if they were for cheap that would be fine) and raised my price to 635 and got it. Now this price was approximately equal to what it was about 2 montha previous but I couldn’t confirm at the time so this last minute booking gave me the same flight for the advance price. Not exaaactly a saving per set but in my case saved me quite a bit. I booked on Aug 17 before ever reading this but stumbled over today so figured id add my personal experience.
I flew from London, UK to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA in 2013 and used Priceline’s name your own price feature to book my hotel.
I read through the site information and familiarised myself with everything and then started bidding.
1. I chose my dates.
2. I chose the down town Milwaukee area. (You can’t be very specific about where you wish to stay, but they show you a map of the potential areas)
3. I chose the 3 star hotel option, as I knew what to expect from a 3 star in that area and thought that choosing a 1 or 2 star option would be risky.
4. I proposed $47 a night.
I submitted my offer and then waited for Priceline to email me (this arrived within about 10 mins).
I was lucky as a hotel accepted my first offer. They took the money from my card and then sent the full booking information. I ended up with a Marriott hotel room which, according to their site at the time, was worth about $150 a night. Once they added tax, I ended up paying $59 a night, so I saved a lot of money overall.
I had a good size room with King sized bed, sofa bed, modern TV and good decor, nice bathroom, good unlimited WIFI, PCs in the lobby, little seating booths in the lobby with TVs, free unlimited water, a vending machine, restaurant, a hot tub, pool and professional staff.
The hotel was also connected to a shopping mall, so I didn’t have to leave the building to go shopping, I just walked through a connecting door.
The booking didn’t include breakfast, but for the price I paid I couldn’t complain as there were really good breakfast options around.
You do have to read through some small print. All bookings are final and there are no refunds, changes or cancellations.
When going through the bidding process I was a little hesitant, but reading comments and reviews from other users put my mind at ease.
Since then I’ve used the Priceline feature to bid for other trips too and will continue to do so. This site is a good place to save money.
Sorry that I’m just now seeing this comment! That’s amazing, Michele. We’ve definitely been able to save a LOT of money on hotel bidding over the years, and we’re hoping to have a good tutorial for that soon as well. I love your steps and tips. That’s a very good price for a nice hotel. I would feel very wasteful spending hundreds of dollars on a hotel when it’s not for a special occasion and I’m just needing a place to crash. Bidding has helped so much – I feel there are a few tricks to bidding, but it’s very easy to save money on hotels on Priceline! Thanks again, and happy adventuring to y ou 🙂
Thank you so much for the tips and advice. I saved over $300 off of a $1500 flight from NC to Manchester UK with one layover on the outbound and 2 on the way back. While not a steal, it was definitely a help. Especially since I kept putting off getting my ticket looking for a good deal and missing the lower tickets a week or so ago. So with 2 weeks to go a sucked it up and made arrangements. Not the best ticket ever, but certainly not the worst.
So sorry that I had overlooked this comment somehow. Wow this is awesome! We’re so happy for you. Every bit helps – especially when you get to the same place at the end of the journey! It’s extra spending money in your pocket. Safe travels to you, and we hope you find some shopping bargains with that money you saved, Jen.
Kinda Wilson. I used after looking at your video and saved $80.from possibly paying $690 I ended up paying $602
Yay! So glad it saved you money 🙂 That makes us happy. Safe travels to you!
hello… So at the end if you are not satisfied with any of their counteroffers, do you have the option of saying. “Ok I don’t want to buy any of your tickets”. and just leave the site without purchasing any tickets?
That’s absolutely correct, Erika. In fact, that’s exactly what we do in the video! And you are not charged.
Why wouldn’t you just always type in $1 for your starting bid? Wouldn’t that be a way to always get the lowest price?
Hi Victoria! Not really, because you don’t get the opportunity for multiple bids unless you change something. You don’t have unlimited bidding. So if you *really* wanted a certain itinerary (day of travel and airport) – pretty much the only way you’d have that itinerary is if a counter offer was given to you and you accepted. Because although miracles do happen, they’re probably not taking your $1 bid. So you would be able to increase you bid, but only as many times as you would add other days, etc. So you *could* indeed start low – but $1 is probably a little unlikely! If you want to use that strategy, start with a low, but still somewhat possible, bid. And work your way up from there. I hope that makes sense. Feel free to reply if you have further questions on this.