Cozy up to Priceline and bid

I regularly say use priceline.com and name your own price. However, every time I travel I find that the prices through Priceline are phenomenal.

I just wrote about saving money on a Courtyard by Marriott in New Jersey. Now on a trip to Chicago for graduation of a friend’s son at Northwestern, I scored another great deal on a rental car.

Avis rented me the car through Priceline for $20 a day!!! The lowest price through Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity or through the car rental companies was in the mid-$30s.

Think Priceline when you travel.

I don’t use them for airfares because one never knows whether the flight leaves at 6 a.m. or 6 p.m. (For flights to Europe, Priceline works fine, since almost all flights leave in the evening from the U.S.).

With rental cars and hotels, Priceline is an absolute joy and I always save money. Check Hotwire first and then bid about 20 percent lower. Or, go to biddingfortravel.com to see what others have as winning bids. With a little investigation and bidding, you’ll save a bunch of money.

Priceline’s last minute deals

just drove from DC to Boston this weekend and wanted to stay along the way on Friday night. I calculated about where I would be after a 3-hour drive and came up with Somerville, NJ. Eventually, I booked my hotel room on Priceline.com and got what I thought was a great deal.

Previously, I checked with hotwire.com and found places for around $59 and a Hampton Inn for $69 a bit out of my way. Kayak.com and hotels.com showed nothing much different. I decided with listed prices hovering between $60 and $80 that $50 would be a fair bid. I really didn’t care where I stayed, but wanted to only spend $50.

Priceline wasn’t a simple game of bid and get. I tried to get a 3-star property for $50 and was told that I would need to up my bid by another $14 to get that room. (This was a one-time courtesy by priceline according to popup screen.) I decided to keep trying in the vicinity.

I dropped my hotel desires down to a 2-1/2-star category and added Basking Ridge to my geographical selection. Then I pushed “buy my hotel room” and got a confirmation back from Courtyard by Marriott just off the Interstate. Perfect.

I don’t anywhere else where you can bargain with hoteliers like Priceline. I love it.

Tripso is talking about other hotel bargains based on advanced purchase, but I like Priceline.

Musings become reality!

Last week a post on Tripso.com suggested that airport security may begin banning pictures of guns aboard aircraft. This rumination seems to have come true.

A man was just banned from a flight for wearing a cartoon depiction of a gun on his T-shirt.

We reported last week on a woman who had to pack a charm shaped like a pistol in her checked luggage to fulfill the “no guns aboard” policy.

Amazingly, we discovered that a 2″ gun that actually can fire a bullet does exist, so we have to forgive airport security on that count!

Now if we discover a cartoon illustration of a gun that can fire, we have to forgive security personnel again. I don’t think that will happen.