Saturday, March 31, 2007

Subprime: The Business Falling Faster Than Britney Spear's Career

Subprime lending has received a considerable amount of attention from the major media lately. While I think that some of the negative attention is deserved, like everything the media needs a scandalous story and evil character to go after in stories. These lenders aren't without fault, but people are looking past the real issue.

Land contracts with balloon payments have been around for years in the lending biz. While I think excessively large increasing payments are ethically questionable. The biggest problems are 1) the lack of basic financial skills we possess as Americans, 2) people borrowing beyond their means and buying more house than they need, 3) eager lenders with relaxed lending standards.

Cheap, easy to attain financing is a great thing and one of the keys to people living the "American Dream." The problem recently has been that companies have extended this financing to people who were buying "investment property" or homes that their cash flow would not support. While the economy was growing fast and property values growing faster this generally wasn't an issue. As housing inventory increased the problems began. The subprime lenders had a problem in two respects first many people receiving loans were less than qualified and as the housing market turned and payments increased they were on the hook for payments they couldn't afford.

So why don't I think the problems going on now aren't the fault of lenders?

  • Whether at subprime rates or market rates, unqualified people will receive loans -- they may just pay extra for the risk associated.

  • Basic finance skills aren't taught in the U.S. Schools have a vested interest in teaching for tests which determines their funding. The vast majority of U.S. households are buried in "Bad Debt" with no signs of changing soon. Teaching fiscal responsibility needs to start at an early age. Americans do bestow the glory on those who take risks, but there are many more risk takers to fail than succeed.

  • People need to educate themselves. There are a slew of resources online, some better than others, they can help you learn about any number of topics. Personal finance is no different. Banks are required to disclose in plain English the payments and interest rate of a loan. If you are taking out a loan and can't determine if the monthly payments outpace your monthly revenues you need to seek assistance or not take out the loan.
There are always cases of predatory lending companies, but I'm talking merely about companies that lend to borderline individuals. Not those that make loans to people who are clearly incapable of ever repaying. I am also not trying to imply that bad things don't happen to good people. Real life happens and people can lose a job, fall into bad health, or fall on hard times. I think people need to be accountable for their own actions. Too often in the society we live in people are quick to point the finger rather than look in the mirror.

What do you think? Am I way off base?

Friday, March 30, 2007

Is it Really Worth it to Move That Money? Interest Rate Chaser Calculator


If you are considering moving funds from one account to another for an increased interest rate I found a tool that might be of interest. It lets you play around entering your current return, new return and the amount of time your funds will be unavailable. The calculator then spits out the total time you need to hold the investment to break even. I actually found this while doing some research for myself after being frustrated with the REALLY slow transfers in and out of HSBCDirect. It's a good bank, but the bank must be making an absolute killing off the float from keeping your transfer "pending." Their policies might be enough to make me send my money back to ING or E*TRADE who are significantly faster. Based on my calculations it is 1) worthless to move more money into HSBC to chase their 6.00% new teaser rate and 2) takes nearly two months to make it worth your while to move say money from ING's 4.5% APY to HSBC or ETRADE's 5.05%.

Anyways, check it out. The calculator might be handy if you are say considering moving from one online bank to another or some other for of investment.

Link:

Interest Chaser Calculator

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Making Money With Adsense 10 Tips

It's no secret Google has been wildly successful and a lot of that success can be attributed to Adsense. The deceptively simple program lets people bid on keywords to sponsor either on the Google search page or on millions of website on the internet (and to your right on this blog). There is also a ridiculous amount of people that think they can slap together a site, throw some adsense on there and be rolling in the cash. While this is obviously not the case, every little bit helps even if it is a few pennies at a time. So, lets take a look at some things you can do to improve your site's (or blog's) traffic and hopefully adsense earnings.

1) Increasing Traffic and Visibility: Easier said than done, but you have to boost your presence to get traffic. Exchange links with other sites, get your site listed in directories, search engines, and create meta tags. It can also be beneficial if to use trackbacks and actively post comments on other sites (note however, if you are spamming Google has some of the best email spam filtering software in GMail I have ever used and I'm sure they have a way to detect this built into their system).

2) Use the Web 2.0: The usual suspects, reddit, stumbleupon, del.icio.us, digg, etc. Word of mouth can drive people to your site without you doing much work provided the product is good.

3) Don't go Crazy with Adsense: You are limited to three Adsense "units" on your page but that doesn't mean you have to have other ad programs all over the place. Remember there is a point when your site looks like a billboard and people stop believing you are pushing out content for a reason.

4) Create Good Content and Understand that it takes time: You won't make Alexia's rankings overnight and it takes time to create a user base.

5) Include a Search Box: Searching is second nature for many people. I'd much rather type in a few keywords than slog through 10 pages of links or posts. If your information is hard to find people will go elsewhere.

6) If You Have a Blog use Technorati and Feedburner: I was suprised at how much traffic I received from Technorati once I started religiously tagging my posts. Feedburner is a good because it pings sites for you (see below), allows people to quickly find your feed, and lets you keep a rough tally of the number of people subscribing to your site.

7) Follow the Hot Zone: I'm not overly concerned about making a few extra bucks with this site so you will be able to see I don't adhere to this advice well. However, Google has created a nice "heat map" showing where advertisements typically fare the best based on where users are attracted on a website.
8) Pings Are Your Friend: If you have a blog frequently use services like pingoat.com that will 'ping' other blog services to check if you have updated content.

9) Get Some Data: Visit Statcounter.com and sign up for a free website counter. It's invisible and will give you an idea of what kind of traffic you have at your site and how people are finding your site. It may also give you ideas if a certain page is generating a lot of interest.

10) Optimize Your Ads: Visit Adsenseblacklist.com, the site will create a list of sites you can paste into the adsense block list. This list will clear out a lot of the sites that advertise on Adsense for a penny or two per click and are nothing more than a bunch of advertising links. If people are clicking an ad and leaving your site it might as well be for something they can find useful.

Links:

More tips at RealityWired , Problogger series, and tips "from a 12 year old"


DRIPs a Good Idea for College Students?

When you think of the things you might have purchased or do purchase as a college student beer, music (unlikely), food, and housing probably come to mind. Safe to say DRIPs don't come to mind for many people, if they know what one is at all (a dividend reinvestment program which generally allows fractional share ownership).

How about DRIPs as a smart investment for college students? I don't know about you when you were in college, but I didn't have expendable income to be throwing around investing. Look at the staggering average amount of student loan debt people come out of undergrad with these days or the costs or any professional school. If you can afford that kind of tuition and still have money in the bank then maybe this is a good idea for you.

I remain unconvinced that this is a practical solution, mostly because the article suggests that you start with $200, then make payments of around $50 a month. For the average college kid - who isn't still living off mom & dad's credit cards if we can clarify here - $50 a month is a good chunk of change. True it might only be the equivalent to a cable payment or cell phone bill, but if you are making minimum wage and not working full-time substantial none the less. Let me know what you think.

Wikipedia - DRIPs

Source article at Forbes

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Tax Time: Big Time Write-offs

If you have a home business or office you can legally write-off a lot of things you might not expect (provided they have a use related to your office). Like most laws, tax laws use the terminology that is vague at best and baffling to most. Luckily there are CPA types who love this stuff that the rest of us find mind-numbingly boring.

To write off an item it must be "reasonable and customary" and connected to a trade or business. The good thing is that as the CPA says in this article, "there's almost nothing that isn't deductible under the right circumstances." This article describes tax write-offs for car, mileage, educator expenses, big screen TV, and higher education expenses. While it might be a good start, a better place to get deductions obviously is to call up your local CPA.

MSN Money: Taxes

Pourover Trusts and Living Wills

Many, though not enough people have wills and living wills. The basic building blocks that make sure your assets go to the person you choose and not that second cousin that you never really liked. A pourover will is the next logical step, but relatively few people know they exist.

A pourover will takes your assets at death and funnels them into a trust for disbursement. This is an invaluable tool because you might get an inheritance or have assets that didn't make it into your will before you died or weren't retitled in the name of the trust. These can be transferred at your death to the pourover and distributed as you see fit. What happens if you don't make a pourover will? Well, the assets will pass based on the intestate laws of your state so your assets will be divvied up based on a statute some old guy with grey hair made up. Pourover wills are generally short compared to most legal documents (around 5 pgs). It might cost an extra couple hundred dollars now, but will save you from lawyers fighting over your estate or getting a cut of the probate fees which add up fast. Generally they are pretty standard documents and well worth the extra money.

For other estate planning tips head over to deathandtaxesblog.com he's a Chicago estate planning attorney who writes very easy to understand articles on complex topics.

CNBC Million Dollar Challenge

Want a million dollars? Yeah, don't we all you reply. Well if you know something about stocks are lucky you could be in the running if your portfolio performs well in the CNBC fantasy stock game. I don't pretend to be a market beater or investing whiz-kid, but looking for short gains like you need to win at the CNBC game let's consider some of the things you could look for when making picks.

  • Put the majority of your fantasy money in 1 or 2 stocks that you think will move big.
  • Look for a stock that has recently been beaten up with the market "correction"
  • Look for a small company that will report earnings soon (these usually swing big with good news, but unfortunately do the opposite with bad reports).
  • Penny stocks can be your friend for obvious reasons.
Any other tips? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Note: I know this contest is already underway, but due to my domain issues this has only been able to be posted now.

CNBC Million Dollar Challenge

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Whew... Domain Problems Come to an End

After lots of trouble I have finally gotten my shiny new blog domain up and running. With the help of google apps, blogger.com, godaddy.com and about three weeks of downtime things have finally worked themselves out. Anyways, I will start posting again since that fell off the face of the earth with my frustrations over the domain. Look for new content regularly updated starting tomorrow.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Blogger Question for Those More Technically Savvy Than I

I'm relatively new at the blogging game and need to call on the advice of those of you more knowledgeable about Blogger and blogging in general. Does anyone know how to get HaloScantrackbacks or trackbacks in general working on the new Blogger? I tried the HaloScan utility that is supposed to automatically fix your Blogger template and have gotten nowhere. Any assistance would be wonderful -- be gentle, I'm admittedly lost when it comes to this topic.

New Domain: Same Blog

Exciting news (for me at least) this blog now has a new home at http://www.thegoldenparachute.com so update your bookmarks. I've also installed a new template which should be working now, there will be bugs I'm sure I have to work out in the next week or two. If anyone has a better looking template they want to throw my way send me an email. There have been some issues the last couple days with changing my DNS data so I apologize for the delay in getting new posts up. I have a lot of them saved that I will post soon.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Have a Domain Name: Double Check Who it is Registered With

This post is for those of you who make a living, extra money, or market products or services on the web AND have a domain name. If you don't have any interest in domain names you can skip this post, well because I don't want to bore you.

If you registered the domain with Registerfly you might want to move quick to make certain your valuable domain doesn't get transferred to someone else. The CEO of Registerfly (Kevin Medina) made news lately expropriating company funds for liposuction and other expenses that don't exactly slip by unnoticed when the CPA comes to audit your books. The company is relatively unknown aside from the antics of its CEO, but does have 2 million + domain names under management. Now Registerfly is a company in a fast downward spiral and 75,000+ customers are without access to their websites. Users who have names there should get things moved as fast as possible to a carrier that won't let things expire. Sounds easy... except there have been many of reports of Registerfly not responding to email or requests to transfer accounts. The folks at GoDaddy have stepped in to help. While it is probably not entirely benevolent, the company is offering special rates to former Registerfly customers and has offered to help out customers who have had transfers denied.

The special rates aren't that tremendous an offer to switch to GoDaddy, but it is a pretty reliable company (even if they have terrible Super Bowl commercials). The more important part of the story is you can enlist their man power to get your transfer request moving forward if you are stuck.

See message from GoDaddy

Home Improvements with the Most Bang for the Buck

If you are fortunate unfortunate enough to have a mortgage and you aren't certain this house will be the one you grow old and retire in, you may want to know which home improvements will translate into a higher sales price (ie ROI=Return On Investment. Let me tell you, you're in luck. I stumbled across a list earlier today and will include it below.

Based on a article in remodeling magazine (yeah I have never heard of it either so take the numbers below as an article of faith):

  1. Minor Kitchen Remodel 88% (ROI) $8,655 (Avg Cost)*
  2. Second-Story Addition 83% (ROI) $73,553 (Avg Cost)
  3. Bathroom Remodel 81% (ROI) $9,135 (Avg Cost)
  4. Bathroom Addition 81% (ROI) $13,918 (Avg Cost)
  5. Family Room Addition 75% (ROI) $30,960 (Avg Cost)
  6. Major Kitchen Remodel 71% (ROI) $31,090 (Avg Cost)
  7. Deck 55% (ROI) $8,022 (Avg Cost)
Note: Return on investment figures are based on one year ROI.
Link to source here.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Cell Phone Carrier Tips & Tricks

The vast majority of people in the US use one of four major cell phone providers Cingular, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Additionally, the vast majority of cell phone users in the US are dissatisfied with the customer service provided by these companies.

What you may not have known is that many of those same pushy reps that attack you at the wireless stores and mall have flexibility to negotiate with prices and incentives. The Consumerist has recently seen a rash of former employees from these big four providers write in with tips and tricks about how to game the system. I'll give a quick summary of the tips for each of the big four. These may not work in all scenarios, but the worst thing they can say is "no" so what do you have to lose?

Cingular

  1. You can sometimes avoid contract extensions if you change your plan at a store.
  2. When buying a new phone offer to purchase accessories and data packages for a reduced price phone. You can cancel the package the minute you leave and return the accessories later.
  3. You may be able to convince the commission hungry rep to give you the rebate in the store. Then you can go to the website and print off the mail-in rebate form, submit it and voila.
  4. Negotiate to get website prices in store.
  5. If you go over on your plan go in and as for them to credit the difference if you up your plan. You can always drop down again later.
Verizon
  1. Reps get paid more for new contracts than upgrades.
  2. Reps make tons of commission on accessories and text packages, so use them as a negotiating tool. Mention you will get a text package and accessories and you give yourself leverage for getting a good phone deal.
  3. Mention the lost or stolen program for 25% off.
  4. If your package is 59.99 a mo or higher you may be able to get a new phone at a discount after 12 mo.
  5. The Unlimited Data Plan with a new Treo will get you a massive discount on your phone because it counts almost as much for reps as a new sign-up.
  6. Insurance and 2 yr contracts are a rip-off.
Sprint
  1. (This is probably not legal and as a result I'm not endorsing this one at all) If you lose, break or have your phone stolen you can get one on eBay and bring it in after it is activated. If you have the extended warranty they will probably cover it and replace it. Of course they will catch on if this happens repeatedly.
  2. Buy at the end of the month when reps are desperate.
  3. Try to get the Sprint Employee Referral offer. Don't know an employee? Grab a business card from a rep to get a steal on your min package.
  4. Work for a big company? You can probably get a big discount.
  5. Switch to electronic billing and statements, then move your address to some random place outside Sprint coverage. You can then probably convince them to break your contract without penalty because they can't serve you anymore.
T-Mobile
  1. T-Mobile can price match on same services, for same terms.
  2. Reps can give away accessories so ask for some accessories if you throw in a messaging package.
  3. Play the rebate game like with Cingular, ask for it in store then fill it out online too
  4. Reps don't get paid much based on how large your voice package is.
  5. If you break your phone, buy a prepaid on and put your sim chip in it.
  6. You can get a better deal if you upgrade over the phone.
  7. Call to get your phone unlocked. That way you can move to Cingular (or another provider that supports the same network if you want later).
Stick it to "the man" with the help of the consumerist and read the full text of the articles I used for this post: T-Mobile, Cingular, Verizon, Sprint

Friday, March 9, 2007

5 Ways to Find Cheap Gas

Do you like getting screwed on the regular by OPEC & Co.? Yeah, I don't either and I'm not that guy who drives a Hummer and then complains about how awful gas prices are. Well I'm here to help. Here are five ways you can find the cheapest gas around without putting in much time or effort.

1) Install Widgets:

like "GasWatch" for PC

and "Gas" for the Mac



2) Visit websites that will let you search by zip for gas prices and view locations on a google maps type interface.
like GasPriceWatch.com


3) Text messaging: If you are handy with a cell phone you can text the guys over at 411sync with your 5 digit zip code and you will get a listing back of prices in your area.

4) Mobile web: Another one for those of you with a capable cell phone. If your cell phone, blackberry, or PDA surfs then head over to www.gasbuddytogo.com

5) GPS system: StreetPilot and a few of the other new in-car GPS units will offer this information to you directly. If you can afford a GPS system you probably don't care if you save 3 cents on a gallon of petro, but if you do the option is there.

Full Story Here

Thursday, March 8, 2007

How to Size up A Broker

One of the many great things that the Internet has done is move the power from industry specialists to the average person (assuming they are willing to fire up google and put in some time). Now I'm not implying the internet will allow a person to become a specialist at anything, but it cuts down the risk that they will be taken advantage of when buying a car, home, or other big ticket item.

Fool.com has a list of questions to ask when interviewing financial planners. The questions fall into three categories 1) costs, 2) products, 3) service. Planners are all over the board when it comes to fees. Trading fees, minimums, and other fees all must be considered. You should take into account the portfolio of services your broker offers, research, and the different ways you can make trades. Finally will the broker give you the time you deserve. Some brokers will not give small investors the attention deserve because the commissions are much smaller. Then again, just because the planner will answer your call on the second ring doesn't mean he is any better at putting your money to work for you. Find someone you are comfortable with and that you are willing and able to move from if your money stops performing as it should.

Full article here

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Choosing an Online Broker

The Motley Fool has a decent article describing the best places to invest if you have an extra $20, $100, or $1,000 lying around. I think the article is good because it gets people thinking about investing incrementally. It's easy to invest if you already have gobs of money in your pocket. It's much harder when you are starting with a pair of Hamiltons in your wallet.

The article operates under the assumption you have paid off all your high interest debt from credit cards and other not-so-favorable investments.

  • If you have $20: The Fool says to consider investing in a DRP (a plan some large companies have allowing employees to purchase stock). That is good advice, but for those of us not working at a fortune 1000 company where else could that $20 be put to work? Regular visitors to the site know I'm a big fan of high yield online savings accounts. They won't make you rich, but are flexible, a good value, and generally have no minimums.

  • If you have $100: The Fool says to consider investing in an index fund. The rub on this type of investment is that you may have that investment chewed up by broker fees. If you get charged $10 to buy the fund, then another $10 a year until your account meets the brokerage minimum, you will have to make more than 11% per year (on the $90 invested after commission) just to stay even. Again I think $100 is better spent in a high yield savings unless you already have a brokerage account up and running. In that case the index fund can start to make more sense.

  • If you have $1,000: Here you have more options. The Fool says a good option is a discount brokerage account charging less in commission than 2% of portfolio value. I think another excellent option is a Roth IRA account. There are plenty of fund families that are no load and if you couple that Roth investment with additional funds each year until retirement you will have a nice little next egg when you turn 65.
Check out the article here for the full scoop

Monday, March 5, 2007

Don't Forget the Telephone Tax Break

The government has offered to give $30-$60 back to each American in the form of a telephone break. Any money you can get back from the tax man is good and you may say that you had a professional file your return so you are safe. Think again. The IRS is estimating that 10 million Americans already have forgotten to file for the credit costing them $300-$600 million dollars in lost refunds. Already file? No problem. There is a form you complete in less than 30 mins to collect your money. Here is a step by step tutorial to bypass the fluff and get your money fast.

Read full article here.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Trade your Old Digital Camera For a New One

If the thought of inviting more used car salesman types into your life scares you, rest at assured this isn't quite like that. How do you feel about trading in an outdated camera for a shiny new one? Although the new(ish) program from Kodak values your digital camera in a similar manner to car dealerships by devaluing the product steeply the second you take it home, there isn't a guy wearing too much cologne and pushing products you don't want. This may something you should check into if you are thinking about trading up to a new digital camera. The program (started in October '06) considers multiple factors when calculating price, but gives megapixel count the greatest weight. The site is easy to use:

  1. Register
  2. Use the estimator tool to determine how much your old camera is worth.
  3. Buy a new camera from Kodak.com
  4. Send in a copy of your Kodak.com receipt and your old digital camera with the prepaid shipping label.
  5. One to two weeks after receiving the item, Kodak sends you a check.
Kodak.com trade in program here

MBNA Sticks it to Consumers in the UK

I don't have hard data so I can't be assured of the accuracy of this story, but it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility... Credit card companies have always made a killing on people who are late or otherwise delinquent on their payments. Now there are reports that MBNA the huge American credit card issuer has been charging users who use their cards responsibly. British users who have a positive credit card balance from accidentally overpaying or paying twice in the same month have found they are being charged £10 if they don't reduce the positive balance. The policy has been spun - not surprisingly - as a measure to protect consumers against fraud. No word yet on if this policy will be transferred to United States card holders (luckily I don't use MBNA), but if I see anything about it I will let you know. Full story here.

Friday, March 2, 2007

Saving Cash on Travel Series: Kayak.com (Article 4/4)

While it is overshadowed by expedia, orbitz and some of the other better known travel sites, my favorite travel website out there is Kayak.com. Why not just use the big boys? First off orbitz is owned by American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, and United. Important to know because your search won't bring back fares from any of the other airlines which may give you a better deal than those five carriers. Expedia actually has a pretty good reputation as far as online travel services go, but I like Kayak because it seems to give me more options.

The search is fast and aggregates results from many of the major and not so major carriers. I'm not sure why but in my very unscientific tests I seem to get more results that are on average a little cheaper than its competitors. I don't know if 1) the site shows results from the airline itself where there aren't additional fees, 2) the searches I have run just happened to come out cheaper, or 3) it picks up more matches than other providers but it has worked for me in the past so give it a try - it's free.

Saving Cash on Travel Series: FareCast.com (Article 3/4)

Ever buy an airline ticket only to watch the price slide after you have already been locked in? Or more than likely waited too long only to have OPEC give you a present in the form of an inflated ticket price?

This website is in Beta still but may be helpful for those of you out there on the fence about whether to buy a ticket now or later. FareCast lets you type in where you are going and when, then will predict based on a bunch of factors (some historical some current). The site will guess how much the fare will go up or down in the next seven days and give you a confidence rating. It is quick and easy to use and probably worth if you are in the market for a ticket.

Saving Cash on Travel Series: Hotwire.com (Article 2/4)

A similar - but different service that can save you money on travel is Hotwire.com. Hotwire provides consumers with the ability to purchase hotels, airfare, packages and cruises at a discounted fixed price. Hotwire like Priceline lets you purchase excess inventory at many major chain hotels (except you won't know what you are getting till the deal is over). The catch also like Priceline is that you won't know exactly what carrier, chain or service you are purchasing and your purchase will be non-refundable. The difference is that you don't bid with Hotwire, the prices are fixed. The site will give you a quote usually good for an hour but will not reveal details about the itinerary until you confirm your purchase.

If you want to take the guesswork out you can again use Better Bidding for Travel to see what hotels other people have purchased by the state.

Things to keep in mind before using Hotwire:

  • I have heard mixed stories of success with the service and heard reports of people buying a room on Hotwire only to find that they could have purchased a room directly from the source for less money, but have also heard people raving about a deal they got there.

  • Hotwire lets you see amenities on hotels before you confirm, the quality, and general area. This makes it easier to pin down what hotel you are looking at.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Saving Cash on Travel Series: Priceline.com (Article 1/4)

I cringe at endorsing a company or product with William Shattner as a spokesperson, but here goes. Aside from being known for it's terrible advertising Priceline is known as a website that allows users to "name their price" on hotels, airfare, cruises and rental cars. The site has an inventory of excess supply that companies are willing to dump as a steep discount. That is one of the reasons that people with some luck and persistence can get a steal by using the site. The company does not disclose what hotel, flight or rental car company you are bidding on, but you can pick by star level on hotels or flight times for airfare. If your bid is too low it will be denied in which case you either have to 1) raise your offer 2) add another "zone" or area to your search or 3) decrease the level of stars of quality of hotel you are willing to settle on. There are two catches though the first is that you have a limited number of re-bids before you have to wait 72 hours before bidding again and if the company accepts your bid you are on the hook for the cost and generally can't cancel.

I recently booked a weekend stay in a large midwestern metropolitan area with Priceline.com and saved a considerable amount of money (I paid $50 per night for a $120 per night room, a savings of $70 per night sounds good to me for a four star hotel chain). Nothing earth shattering here, but if you play you cards right you can game the system much easier than blindly naming your price.

Enter Better Bidding For Travel and other sites that aggregate user submitted winning bids. Users often submit what zone or area they bid on, what price bids won and failed, and their resulting hotel brand. This is incredibly valuable for people like you and me. It gives us an idea of what hotel locations have been won recently in a given area and what price we should start at bidding without low-balling too much. Had I checked Better Bidding first I would have known that I overpaid $5 from another user's bid a week before my trip. Not that I'm splitting hairs over $5 but you can understand that this could add up in a high rent area like Manhattan where the nightly room goes for considerably more.

Things to Consider Before Bidding:

  • A standard Priceline room is double occupancy and does not specify smoking or non-smoking. You can contact the hotel directly after winning and specify your preference for a king bed or non-smoking, but from my experience it will never be guaranteed only noted.

  • The steepest discounts are on 4 and 5 star properties simply because they have the most margin to work with in the first place.

  • Be not afraid of the process, it is not as complicated as it may sound. Forums like Better Bidding have members who are particularly friendly and helpful for those who may be new to the game.