An
online service that claims to offer great
rates on
Everything. <(how's that for ironic noding?) >Anyway, the
long and short of it is that you enter the
price you would like to pay for an
item (by way of example, let's just say an
airline ticket) and it tries to find a
deal for you.
The catch is that you have to have a good understanding of the lowest available prices to make a good bid. If you bid too high, you may pay more than retail. If you bid too low, you can try again; however, you must change something other than the price. (In our example, you might have to take the option of flying on a prop-engine deathtrap from a grass field in the middle of nowhere at 1:00 AM along with 23 other passengers, 9 of whom are psychotic killers. OK, so I exaggerated a little bit.) When you get right down to it, Priceline is a demonic form of The Price is Right, only without the nifty 70s music.
Oh, and one more thing: if it does find the price for you, it automagically purchases it for you on your credit card without your final approval. No refunds, no exchanges, no nothing. So if you picked a price that was too high or something is otherwise unsuitable, you're just outta luck pal. If you didn't already hate William Shatner, you should now.