An Unsolicited Testimonial for Priceline.com

As long as I'm in the mood to praise those where praise is due . . .

When we heard my father had died, we immediately began planning for how I could get up there for the funeral. Of course, it's nineteen hours in a car (fourteen without stops), so that's a pretty hard row to hoe. We priced airline flights, but they wanted $750.00 to Des Moines Iowa round trip. The best price was $420.00 round trip to Omaha Nebraska, four hours by car. I checked into 'Bereavement Fares" where you can get a discount for going home for a funeral, and they were only going to cut the airfare by 10% for any carrier. Plus I'd need a car to get from Des Moines (or Omaha) to Centerville, which are about $50-75 a day rental.

So the lovely and gracious Ariane says to me, "Why don't you try that
Priceline.com website? You like William Shatner!" (Like that's any way to judge a travel website, right?)

So I thought, What the hell-- it's gonna cost me anyway. Might as well give it a try." So I thought, if I could get the Omaha price (about $400.00) to /Des Moines, that would work great. So I went to the website and set up my bid. Word of caution to anyone trying this: Priceline doesn't play around. When you bid on a flight, they want your credit card number up front -- no window shopping!

So I set up a $400.00 bid, and I started to hear William Shatner calling me a "namby-pamby" and a "wussy." (If you've ever seen their TV commercials, you know the one I'm referencing. If not, you can watch their commercials HERE -- Look for the one title "Tough Love".) So I decided to try lower -- what could happen? If they reject my bid, I'll just try again, right?

So I bid $300.00 to Des Moines . . . . and they took it!

Wow!

Then a little pop-up box comes up, asking if I wanted a hotel and a rental car with that. You bet your damned petunias I did -- so I clicked "Yes" and got a $14.00 a day Rental Car, too.

Wow again!

So, yeah, I'd use Priceline again. I'd even strongly recommend trying them if you know you've got to go somewhere.

What have you got to lose?

~~JD~~