Worcester Cheap Hotels

If you are looking for Worcester cheap hotels in Massachusetts or Omaha cheap hotels, one of the best ways to do so is through Priceline’s Name Your Own Price Service (just go to Priceline.com). Whenever hotels have unsold rooms they use Priceline to fill them by selling them off at discounted prices. Hotels win with Priceline because they get some revenue rather than no revenue and Priceline’s users win because they get amazing deals. When Priceline says that you can end up saving 50%, they aren’t joking! What’s the catch? You won’t know exactly which hotel you’ll be staying in, you’ll only know the general area. But for many, that’s a small price to pay for the deep discounts.

Hotwire.com is very similar to Name Your Own Price except for the fact that Hotwire’s prices are already displayed for you, there is no bidding or “naming your own price”. Although Hotwire is more user friendly than Name Your Own Price, the general consensus among Priceline and Hotwire users is that the prices you get with Hotwire are more than Priceline, but not by much.

Sure, you can use Hotwire, but you want the very best prices, don’t you? Because you can bid on Priceline, the key to getting the best prices is by knowing where to start your bid and how to rebid as many times as possible.

Betterbidding.com and biddingfortravel.com let users post their winning bids on Priceline. If you search for Worcester on Priceline, you’ll notice that there are 3 zones:

Auburn
Sturbridge
Worcester

Because Worcester doesn’t have many posted bids showing in the Massachusetts forums, simply do a search for Massachusetts on each site. There, you’ll find posted bids, which will give you an idea of where to start bidding for each zone (it’s best not to assume that winning bids from the, say, Worcester zone, are an indication of what the winning bids will be for the Worcester zone. When I did a search for Worcester area, I found that instead of posted bids for the Worcester area, I got posted bids for the Worcester-Auburn area. Apparently Priceline changed the name of the Worcester area from Worcester-Auburn to a shortened Worcester not long ago.

To get an indication of which hotel you’ll be staying in, at the top of the Massachusetts forums from each site, there is a list of hotels for the Worcester area.

Unfortunately, for some zones and star levels, there aren’t many posted bids available. The Worcester zone seems to dominate the posted bids on both betterbidding.com and biddingfortravel.com. If you want to bid on a hotel in the Auburn or Sturbridge, you’re going to be forced to bid somewhat high so that your bid is accepted. If you want to bid on the Worcester, you can get a very good indication of where to start your bid because there are many posted bids available. Just make sure that you make your predictions based on the same zone and star level as other winning Priceline users.

You now know where to bid, but how should you bid?

The key is to use dummy zones. Say you want to stay in the Worcester zone. Priceline allows you to rebid if you change something about your search criteria (chosen star level, different zone, ect), otherwise, you can rebid again after 24 hours. I assume that you don’t want change anything about your criteria. Because Priceline allows you to change your zone criteria, you can get multiple rebids by including zones in your new bids, whose maximum available star level is less than your chosen star level. Remember those 3 zones I showed you earlier? If you click and unclick on each of them you’ll find the maximum available star level:

Auburn: 2-Star Moderate
Sturbridge: 3-Star Upscale
Worcester: 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus

Say you want to stay in a 3-Star Upscale hotel in the Worcester zone (3-Star Upscale is your chosen star level and Worcester is your one selected zone). Your bid is rejected. You can rebid again if you include a zone in your next bid whose maximum star level is lower than 3-Star Upscale. For your next bid, bid for the Worcester and Auburn zone. Because the maximum star level for Auburn is only 2-Star Moderate you know you won’t end up staying there. You’ve used Auburn as your dummy zone! Of course, there are more rebid available if you want 31⁄2-Star Upscale-Plus for the Worcester because now you have 2 “dummy” zones available, Auburn and Sturbridge.