iBidlow is soft launching today with a taste of the potential the project has. We plan to become the hub for Hotwire and Priceline users and build an analytical and accurate set of solutions to dilemmas consumers are facing when using Hotwire and Priceline.

So far we created a database of approximately 10.000 Hotwire and Priceline hotels which is instantly searchable, compared and linked to hotel and price comparison websites in a fashion similar to that of travel search engines.

We plan to do the same to analytics and provide algorithms that help plan a Priceline bidding and then compare that with Hotwire’s offers, and then to retail rates.

There is much more to come of course, but first we have to meet two important goals:
1. Use technology to build a better solution than the existing community based models.
2. Leverage users’ knowledge and experience into creating a large, up-to-date and diverse feedback database from user experiences across the globe.

Succeeding in this arena may be trickier than it first seems, as technology alone cannot be enough in the opaque travel markets – it needs to leverage enough and timely user feedbacks in order to become useful.

In order to improve the service appeal for sharing users we added not only simplified feedback forms, but also introduced the first solution in this niche to automatically convert confirmation emails from Hotwire and Priceline into detailed and highly reliable feedback. We hope to build enough trust in order to win users confidence over the model that may become the new standard in the opaque feedback niche.

In this blog We would be sharing valuable user experience, new product launches and our analysis about the place Hotwire and Priceline may have in tomorrow’s online travel arena.