Blind Travel Sites

Blind travel sites score good deals

Blind sites, such as Priceline.com and Hotwire.com, use similar databases of schedules and fares, but also allow you to bid for tickets and hotels, which might net you a lower price. (Both websites also have regular search features, where you just see the fares without bidding.) The catch is that you won't know the airline, departure time or specific hotel until you actually buy the ticket, so this option is only for those who are willing to be very flexible. Flights purchased on blind sites are typically nonrefundable, and you don't earn frequent-flyer miles for flights booked on a blind site. With Priceline.com, you might have to change your travel dates, airport of departure, hotel location or type of rental vehicle before your bid is accepted. We've seen user complaints regarding Priceline.com's customer service and about flights booked through the site that leave at odd times or have multiple connections. However, the site now guarantees that unless the purchaser agrees otherwise, bookings will not be made on red-eye or off-peak flights (though some could argue with the last point as permissible flight times span a rather large range of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.) and will not include more than one connection.

Priceline opened for business in 1998 as the first major Internet-based travel service offering leisure airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, vacation packages and cruises. Shoppers tell Priceline where and when they want to fly and then bid on that ticket. Priceline searches for airlines with seats available on those days and tries to buy the seats for that bid amount. If the bid is rejected as too low, you can increase the bid and try again in 24 hours. To nab the best deals, experts recommend checking the highly active message boards at BiddingForTravel.com first, since Priceline users often post their winning bids there.

Cost savings can be substantial; experts say that blind websites like Priceline can turn up deals that can save you 40 percent or more. Although Priceline.com's guarantees help, many travelers cannot deal with the uncertainty of not knowing the exact time of the flight or the airline they will be flying before booking, even for a lower fare. However, for the flexible traveler, Priceline.com's name-your-own-price option can often net you a good deal. For the squeamish, Priceline also has a standard search function as well, which works much like the ones at Orbitz or Expedia.

If you're looking for hotel deals, reviewers say that Priceline fetches the best prices, particularly on expensive big-city accommodations. According to Kiplinger, bids of less than $100 a night on luxury lodgings are often successful. The one hitch, according to Kiplinger editors, is that you should book rooms in overseas hotels at other sites (or through Priceline's standard search), because you'll need to know the precise location beforehand. Even for U.S. cities, users run the risk of landing a hotel far removed from the ideal location, as you must specify a section or neighborhood, and those can cover a large area in many cases.

Overall, Hotwire.com gets much higher marks than Priceline in reviews, particularly for ease of use and site navigation. When booking a hotel, Hotwire works like Priceline, except with one key difference -- no bidding is involved. Instead, the site tells you the general location, rating and price, but does not reveal the property name or exact location until after you have booked. Airline booking is not blind, however, and works similarly to the major open travel sites, like Expedia.com.

Hotwire's approach seems to work. J.D. Power and Associates' 2008 survey of 7,667 online travel consumers revealed that they were most satisfied with Hotwire's ease of use and good deals, versus Priceline and online agencies such as Travelocity and Expedia. Hotwire has also added a cache of valuable tools; Local Trips helps consumers find last-minute hotel deals within a 250-mile radius. The Trip Starter tool counsels consumers on how to choose the right time for booking their vacations, based on variables like historical pricing and weather. Booking fees are folded into prices, making comparisons easier. However, Hotwire.com has eliminated airline booking fees and has suspended -- at least temporarily -- its other booking fees.

LuxuryLink.com is another popular site for travel packages, albeit high-end ones. LuxuryLink specializes in helping users to score deals on bundles that might include spa packages, resort stays and gourmet meals, although airfares usually need to be booked separately. While LuxuryLink.com offers some packages at a set price, the big draw to this site appears to be its auction packages. Depending on the contents, bidders report substantial savings with those -- sometimes 50 percent or more. As with most such sites, however, availability is somewhat limited and flexible dates are a must. No refunds are offered on auction packages, and payment must be made within 24 hours of each auction's close.