Priceline: Last Minute Transparent Deals

Who’s up for a last minute trip?

When searching the Internets for new Disney resort deals, I found that Priceline has some surprisingly good transparent (aka non-hidden and refundable) deals out there into the end of September. How about Movies for $68, Pop for $88, or Yacht Club for $243?

For the last several months, Hotwire has been winning the hidden deal arms race, with Priceline offering relatively few themselves. However, once in awhile I’ve noticed Priceline has transparent deals sitting out there for random dates that can be as good as the hidden ones. (I’ve said to myself, “Self, did they forget to hit the Hidden Deal button again?”)

As usual, before I present my findings I have a few caveats:

• These deals do not appear very extensive – don’t expect to see them for all dates, especially over weekends.
• Sometimes the lower priced deal appears in one of my browsers and not the other. For example, I saw a refundable Yacht Club deal out there for $243 using Google Chrome, but when I looked for it in Firefox today it was $383. Sometimes clearing your cookie cache can help, or try their app for another opportunity at it.
  (PRO TIP: Eating cookies makes me feel better if that doesn’t work.)
• Dates matter: These deals don’t seem to be showing for single night searches and only for particular multi-night windows. So, as usual, if your trip dates are flexible try moving them around and you may see more or better deals.

Below are a few examples of the deals from the Priceline site, as well as a quick table of some of the dates where you may find these deals.

You’ll notice there’s a little duplication and overlap going on in my table – when I find one I try to find the patterns by moving the dates around. Sometimes just adding or removing a single day can make the price change significantly. In the case of the $187 Coronado Springs deal, if you change the end date to 10/1 the price increases to $237 per night!

If you’ve booked any of these deals or found any others, let us know in the comments!