Well priced flights, but times can be dodgy... (priceline.co.uk)

Member Name: Zahooga

Product:	priceline.co.uk
Date:	17/02/01 (397 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap flights, with quality airlines

Disadvantages: no control over flight times

Priceline is a relatively new concept in the UK. It is well established in the US at priceline.com, but the UK represents the first foray into europe.

Basically the principle behind the site is that you name the price you want to pay for a flight between two points. Priceline then see if any of the airlines are willing to accept your offer. If they are, then you win the tickets, and pay whatever you bid, plus taxes and a £5 admin fee.

This works because hundreds of thousands of seats on planes are empty each day. So by filling them with passengers paying something (who wouldn't have paid full fare), then airlines can maximise revenue.

The seats are all on "quality" airlines - e.g. BA, British Midland, United, Virgin etc

All good in practice!. I used Priceline for the first time this month, submitting a bid of £20 for a flight between London and Edinburgh. First bid rejected (Priceline tells you what level of bids are likely to suceed - but by all means bid below this!).

I then upped my bid to £25 (plus tax and fees), and my bid was successful!

However... the catch with priceline is that you don't get any control over flight times. Whilst this is fine if you are off on holiday for 2 or 3 weeks, since you can put up with leaving late and returning early.

But I ended up flying to Edinburgh at 20:40 on a Saturday night, and returning on the Sunday morning at 06:30 (am!). Although this suited me as I was going up for a night out, if you'd been hoping for a weekend in Edinburgh, your 8 hour trip may be a bit disappointing!

One feature which would improve priceline would be a time selector. I appreciate that to keep fares low, you can't select the flights you want (the airlines would never allow it!), but you could at least choose from two time zones in a day (e.g. afternoon or morning). This would still give the airlines a 12 hour slot, and allow you to plan your time better.


All said, it is a great value way to get flights - I know that I will be trying them again for long haul flights, where I'm going on holiday for a week or more.

Also tickets arrive quickly by post (or if possible you get an e-ticket on your credit card).

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