Priceline Review

Priceline.com

Overall 3.32 of 5 view all 34 reviews

LauraBelle
South Elgin, IL

Travel Your Own Way at a Good Price

one that didn't pay attn. in History, a family traveler, Budget-Conscious, Entertainment Writer

Pros

huge savings, It's easy to use, lowest prices

OCT

2008

Priceline —

In years past when trying out priceline.com, you could make an offer of a particular price you wanted for a flight, and just might get it, but you couldn't be assured of the airline you were flying on or the times of departure and arrival. For hotels, there seemed to be a little more control we were allowed. It was enough to scare me away, that and William Shatner. Yet urged to try it out again by my sister who I was making travel plans with, I found there to be much more control in our hands, yet the prices are still kept lower than we were able to find anywhere else.

Traveling to New Orleans, we were checking out many of our old familiar websites, but finding the "deals" to be a little more than we were willing to pay. We tried looking up individual hotel sites as well as all the airlines and all the travel sites, such as Orbitz, Travelocity, etc. Our time to travel was only slightly flexible, as my parents were traveling to New Orleans as well, and we wanted to be down there in time to surprise them and spend a few days with them.

We put in several different choices of travel dates surrounding the days in which my parents would be there, and came up with combined prices of hotel and flight, with many different hotel choices. We knew where some of them were from previous trips to The Big Easy, but some we had to look up, which we were able to do there from the Priceline site. We saw some great prices, but these were guaranteed prices with a large window of traveling time.

With families to tend to, along with the fact of knowing you get more bang for you buck traveling to New Orleans if you arrive in the late morning and leave in the late afternoon, we wanted exact times of arrival and departure. We were able to utilize an optional link that gave use exact flight times with exact Airlines. While these prices were slightly more than the general prices with the unknown flights and times, they were still very reasonable.

We thought we did pretty well with our arrangements and the price. For just over $900 a couple, we had air and hotel. Our hotel was the Holiday Inn Chateau Le Moyne, just one block up from Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. We'd never stayed in the French Quarter before, so for us to find this at a good price was pretty exciting. We had flights on American Airlines, a preferred airline for us, an arrival at 10:30 in the morning, and a departure home at 4:30 in the afternoon. We were arriving the day before my parents and departing two days before them.

After the original booking of our flight, everything went as planned. I received an itinerary by email, and two weeks before departure, Priceline emailed me some reminders with links for my itinerary and any additional booking we'd like to do, such as rental car and tours. Just a note, if you're staying within walking distance of the French Quarter and plan on spending most of your time there, there is no need for a rental car, especially with the price of parking as it is. We checked into our flights arriving and departing with no hassles, and checked into our hotel with the same.

I used to be a dedicated user of Orbitz, but I'll admit that now I'm rethinking this. I've always checked the other travel sites, but never found better deals than I was getting. I think Priceline may have just found a new customer.