gleff

Thanks, but the rooms aren't for me! Just for folks coming into town. Sure beats putting them up on your couch! :)

If you're going to NYC, you have to at least consider eating at a Deli... For breakfast, consider a platter of bagel & lox and/or sturgeon... For lunch consider a Pastrami sandwich and a potato knish with pickles and Dr. Brown's Black Cherry (or for the die-hards, Cel-Ray) soda.

Bid MTW 4* $100, rejected Added MTE, $110, rejected Added UM-CPS, $120, accepted back in my original MTW zone.

:) With condolensces to his family. :)

Nothing wrong with the JW Marriott. It's a big convention hotel, not high-end luxury, but certainly nice ... and an incredible value at $70/night. Great location to boot.

And good work on $63! I don't recall seeing the property below $65, though I haven't scrolled the successful bids here before making the claim.

Bid 4* Buckhead $55 Added rebid zones as follows - Midtown, $60 Norcross, $67 North Central, $75 Decatur, $80 Stone Mountain, $85 With prevailing rates ~ $149 for 4* in the zone I was surprised not to get this property cheaper. Your Offer Price: $85.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $85.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $18.55 Total Charges: $103.55

Bid 4* Capitol Hill Convention Center for $65, rejected. Added 4* downtown for $70, accepted in the original zone. Your Offer Price: $70.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 4 Subtotal: $280.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $46.69 Total Charges: $326.69

Bid Downtown 4* and failed all the way up to $85 Bid 3* Downtown, $30 added Cottonwood, $35 added SLC North, $40 added South Salt Lake, $45 added Valley, $50 Your Offer Price: $50.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 5 Subtotal: $250.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $38.86 Total Charges: $288.86

Your Offer Price: $50.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $50.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $12.51 Total Charges: $62.51 Started 3* DEN at $40. Added my first of two potential rebids and upped my offer to $50.

Your Offer Price: $60.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $60.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $14.54 Total Charges: $74.54 Started out bidding 3* Arlington $50. Added Crystal City/DCA and bid $60. Wound up with an Arlington property (perfect). My 'backup' was the Holiday Inn for $119...

Another one of my likely overbids, not wanting to spend the time to get it 'just right' .. still a deal I'm happy with. Your Offer Price: $70.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 2 Subtotal: $140.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $26.49 Total Charges: $166.49

Car is in the shop until Monday afternoon. Most convenient pickup for me is DCA, and I really need a car Sunday and Monday... Rates seemed abnormally high for last minute weekend rental, so I just plugged $18 into P/L - I may well have done better than that? Your Offer Price: $18.00 (per day) Total Rental Days: 2 days Subtotal: $36.00 Taxes and Fees: $18.44 Total Charges: $54.44

Whoops, I thought I had put this in "States N-Z" (for Virginia)... ... but I guess A-M will work, as DCA is the primary airport for the [D]istrict of Columbia!

Well, it isn't MY stay. But I do seem to bid for lots of others. Thanks, though!

Yeah, that's right, it *is* 21 days. Spacing...

And Priceline should offer an elite level for folks like us! :)

I've done this before, basically it is treated as a new bid but now you are bidding at the same price point only for the property you already have reserved. Priceline places several restrictions, however -- * The number of additional nights you request cannot exceed the number of nights in your original reservation * you may only add nights to the beginning or end of your stay (but not both) They'll only let you do this if -- * your original priceline reservation was made less than 30 days ago * your total stay does not exceed 21 nights * you make your request before midnight eastern time the night before your check-in date * you have not already requested additional nights for this trip (you can only make the request once) And there's no guarantee of additional nights... you'll get the additional nights if there's additional inventory at your original bid amount.

I've forgotten what the maximum stay length for any one bid is, it might well be ~ 28 days. I recall someone who was using Priceline for about a month at a time to stay at a Hyatt in SFO for less than it would have cost to rent an apartment. Plus since Hyatt gives status on PL stays as long as there are incidental charges, this person was a Diamond and received elite treatment! And they did this for ~ 2 yrs IIRC.

Friend had rented a car for the previous 4 days via Priceline with Avis, she says @ $17, but they wanted $60/day to extend the rental. She was rejected w/ a $19 bid, so I bid $22 and got an offer to raise the bid which I did to $25 and it was accepted. Your Offer Price: $25.00 Total Rental Days: 3 Subtotal: $75.00 Taxes & Fees: $31.55 Total Charges: $106.55

Started bidding @ $65, prevailing rates all over town were pretty high (eg $200 for the Holiday Inn on Capitol Hill) so I was bidding in $10 increments as I was willing to go $125 for a 4* property basically anywhere in DC. Your Offer Price: $95.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 2 Subtotal: $190.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $33.60 Total Charges: $223.60

You may well have a length of stay problem only in so far as Priceline rates under $70 for 4* Capitol Hill and Downtown may be available for one or two nights of your stay, but they'd need to be available for all 4. But that doesn't mean you won't succeed using Priceline for your stay! What we need to know is where you'd like to be in town? Where you NEED to be? How discretionary is your trip or what is your fallback hotel, in order to determine how high you should be bidding. As far as backup hotels (contingent on where you need/want to be in the city), let me suggest that for your dates Orbitz has the Hilton Washington And Towers for $119 and the Radisson Barcelo for $119. (Both are available cheaper elsewhere as prepaid options, but I'm suggesting 'backups' here so you want them to be cancellable. Also, Orbitz will first try to give you "OrbitzSaver" rates that are $119... and prepaid... so you have to click a couple times on the link for more rates before you see the same, cancellable rate.) Hilton Washington and Towers is a 3* in DuPont, on the corner of Connecticut & Florida. It's a HUGE property, has one of the biggest ballrooms in DC, I've actually been to a seated dinner there for 2500...! Radisson Barcelo is also a 3* in DuPont. But I can say that both are perfectly decent properties in my experience. Radisson is probably more walkable to downtown if that's what you're looking for, though both are walkable to the metro. Capitol Hilton (Downtown, 4*.. and right downtown at 16th & K) is available on Orbitz for $139 fully cancellable. Surprisingly for a weekend right at the end of summer, DC room rates and availability doesn't look bad at all. So I imagine you'll ultimately do pretty well on Priceline. Just share a bit more about where you want to be in town, what qualities you want in a property, and I'm happy to suggest a strategy.

Was this your first bid or did you start lower and use rebids? I ask b/c I just got a 3* in the same zone for $30, am wondering the extent to which availability at such a low price varies... whether different hotels have different price points, etc. (I admit I could probably learn these things by studying the history of successful bids, I just want you to do some of my work for me!)

First bid. Your Offer Price: $30.00 Number of Rooms: 2 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $60.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $15.16 Total Charges: $75.16

First bid, potential overbid, but as often the case I didn't have time to devote to rebids on this one. Your Offer Price: $75.00 Number of Rooms: 1 Number of Nights: 1 Subtotal: $75.00 Taxes & Service Fees: $17.67 Total Charges: $92.67