3.5* Minneapolis-St Paul (Downtown Minneapolis) Millennium

I am staying an extra night in Minneapolis, and I'm currently at the Crowne Plaza Northstar (previously booked below), which I had booked on a $34+10bonus rate. BTW, the Crowne Plaza Northstar is a fine hotel, and I will write a review later.

I used the PRICELINE link at the top of this page, and tried to extend my stay another night. They offered me a room for $101, so I gave up on that.

I tried bidding for a 3* downtown for $44, but got a counteroffer for $54. I rebid using another zone with only lower-starred hotels, and won the Millennium Minneapolis at $45, so I was upgraded to a 3.5*. One nice thing is that the Millennium has a pool, even though it's a small hassle to change hotels.

AppleCoreHotels.com - bid on us

http://www.applecorehotels.com/promotions/bidonus/

The idea is that you place a bid, and you may get accepted by any of the 5 hotels in their group.
These seem to be reasonably central 2* hotels with decent reviews.
This says the promotion is valid from July 1, 2010 to August 31, 2010, but when I filled out the form, it allowed later dates, so I'm not sure what would happen if you submitted those dates. Also note that the form says the bid cannot be lower than $99.99 (+ taxes).

The thing I would worry about before bidding is whether all of these hotels had air conditioning, so that's what I'd check for a summer stay. And I'm not sure how good the discount will be--it's quite possible PRICELINE or HOTWIRE would give you a better rate for a better hotel.

3* Minneapolis-St Paul (Downtown Minneapolis) Crowne Plaza Northstar

I had gotten the $50 bonus cash offer through a post on this board.

In order to use it, I clicked the link to PRICELINE at the top right of this page, opened My Rewards, and placed my bids.

$33 + 10 bonus had failed. There are several rebid zones for the Twin Cities if you are bidding for 3* or above.

This hotel has excellent reviews -- better than some 3.5* and 4* hotels in this zone.

The Westin Minneapolis (4*) had a deal on the SPG website for prepaid rooms at $69/night, so I knew to keep my bids fairly low. For the Crowne Plaza, cheapest rates on its website for this stay are $109/night.

New York - 5/21 - 5/25

Through a Twitter special a week or so ago (sadly no longer available), I got the Roosevelt at a cancellable $99 rate for my upcoming stay.

From what I can see, this is about as good a hotel as you can expect at the 3.5* level, in a good location.

I suspect this will be hard to beat, and I want to ensure I don't get a worse hotel in a worse location, for just minor savings.

Any thoughts on whether or what I should try, in terms of zones or bids, for a standard tourist visit?

3* Philadelphia (Downtown) Courtyard

Bid this one through the BB link also.
I bid $50 and did not get a counteroffer.
I added a zone that only went up to 2.5*, and bid $55.
So once again, I may have lost a few dollars here, but the bid was over quickly. The cheapest room on the Marriott site is $199, so this represents rather extreme savings.
This hotel has excellent reviews, so in this case 3* will be fine.