Romelle

If you haven't tried the Cemberlitas Bath yet, I hope you do. An amazing experience. Romelle

There is so much info on the web that it is easy to get in the habit of just reading message text and blocking out everything else. But I wanted to make sure you don't miss that red $10 off in the signatures of thereuare and AaronJB. Romelle

There currently are even two free-rebid zones for London, so you could creep up on that counter-offer all in one session. Romelle

When watching other cities, I've seen Hot.wire rates come and go fairly frequently. Or change. One city even had a clear pattern of a few dollar hike every weekend. You've got almost a month yet. You could make a refundable rate back-up reservation and then just work with your bidding and keep an eye on Hot.wire for a while. Romelle

You are reading right. Price.line bids, PRICELINE EXPRESS, and Hot.wire deals are final. No cancellation. Romelle

It is 24 hours now. But it never hurts to allow an extra minute or two just to be on the safe side. If you try to bid again within the 24 hour period, Priceline sets the clock all over again, and you have to wait another 24 hours from the new last bid. However, depending upon which star level you are bidding, you may have available some "free rebid" zones that would let you continue bidding within the 24 hour period. If you aren't familiar with the concept, CLICK HERE. If it still doesn't make sense, please post back for some step by step instructions. Romelle

Janet, You can find the Hotel Vueling BCN on www.tripadvisor.com. It isn't on the Better Bidding hotel lists since no member here has yet received it via bidding (and reported it). It does have an excellent rating on TripAdvisor. CLICK HERE if you'd like to see that information. Without prior reporting, the identification is necessarily less sure, hence the "possibility" in thereuare's last response. I always think it is fun to be able to add a new hotel to the lists. I've scored a couple European ones, and even one in a very small New Mexico town. Romelle

Have you looked at the Hotel Reviews on this site? They have a bit different perspective, possibly since members are enjoying the Priceline bargain rate. Only a very few negative ones. If you haven't found the review area here, it is clear at the end of the site. When on the home page, scroll clear down. Then get into the first post and click on "N" for New York, since the reviews are organized by state. Romelle

Two issues here. 1 - Even if a hotel shows in one zone in the Hotel Lists, Priceline makes changes to the zone boundaries from time to time. The current zone map on Priceline rules. So you can't rely on the Hotel List for including or excluding properties. You could closely examine the Priceline zone map and make your determination as to whether that HI is in or out. You can zoom way in on the zone maps and get street detail. 2 - If bidding 3* Downtown, you have to be willing to accept any 3* or higher property in the Downtown zone map. Even if nobody has reported another 3*, there may well be one out there. Hotels get their star ratings raised or lowered. Some hotel may have just elected to begin working through Priceline. I've several times gotten hotels not previously reported here. You could get upgraded to a 3.5* clear out on the outer edge of the zone. Romelle PS - I'm a member, not a board official, but thought I'd just help you move your thinking on to your next consideration.

Hotwire offers come and go regularly. Do keep checking. But you might consider just jumping on one when it appears, rather than waiting to get info as to what hotel it is? Especially one with all the amenities you want plus a high rating. ESPECIALLY one that has the very same amenities as showed for your 6 night purchase, since it might be the same hotel. Or weighing the inconvenience of the move and deciding the higher rate for adding a night is worth it. Romelle PS - I'm a member, not a board official, so this is just a personal opinion. PPS - Rosen Inn is showing No Availability for your additional night via a Hotels..com direct purchase.

I'm sure there are lots of other venues, but CLICK HERE for a list of one person's top 10 NY food trucks. They probably won't be right outside your door, but I think worth hunting down. And you also might find yourself in an interesting area. At least some of the trucks might be in a student type area? Romelle

The best peek at what might happen for your dates is to take a look at Priceline Express and Hotwire (using the Priceline and Hotwire boxes up above). Usually you can do a little better with bidding, but checking those will at least let you know the max you might have to pay. Romelle

When you first come on to this site, just scroll to the very end for the Hotel Reviews. They are organized alphabetically by state. When you reach the end, click on the green Pinned "Hotel Reviews by Letter", and then "N" for New York. If you already are into some area of the site, just click on the Better Bidding logo up in the header to get you back to the home page. Then do your scrolling to the end. Romelle

Think of not knowing the hotel ahead of time when bidding as more of a happy surprise - finding an Easter egg, opening a gift. I've bid on at least dozens of hotels and have never been actively unhappy with one. My results have ranged from at least neutral (safe convenient warm place to stay at a good price) to "wow did I score this time!" The only warning I could offer is that bidding can be a little addictive. When hooked, one keeps looking for another trip so as to bid again. If you haven't found the area yet, clear at the end of this site is Hotel Reviews. You could browse the New York area results and see how others are feeling about their bidding results. Romelle

Hammersmith is definitely not "central". You might want to research the area a bit first. I'm not familiar with it, so can't personally comment. I'd also suggest you check the tube station locations, and see if you are comfortable walking if you happen to land a hotel in the most distant corner of the zone. That unpopular Copthorne is only a couple blocks from a tube station. It would mean longer tube rides, and less places to which one could just walk. If you stay more central, most of those areas have at least one popular attraction within walking distance. There haven't been any reports of Priceline, PE or HW wins in the area so no history to help an educated guess as to what you might receive. If you do consider taking this offer, you definitely should bid the more central zones up to that level first. Or maybe even a little bit higher, since I think there is value to you in the more central location. Alternatively, you could include the zone in your bidding to see if you might be successful at a lower rate in that zone. Romelle

I've gotten the Copthorne 2 or 3 times. I never have figured out why others feel so strongly against it. It did everything I wanted from a hotel. Besides, the location is only a couple blocks from an underground station and I could get anywhere from there. I did review it, although it is quite a few years back. I've no experience with the Hilton. Romelle

Usually one finds out the results of a bid in seconds. Occasionally it takes a few minutes. And there are rare occasions of up to a 1/2 hour. Romelle

Sounds like a well thought out decision. Excellent. I've got a couple memorable oopses back in my early Priceline bidding also. The first one was some London bidding for a 9 day stay. 7 months out I thought I was just low-balling a bid to learn how things worked. It went through .... I had to scramble to finance the resulting credit card charge that far ahead of the trip. I haven't done that again, or repeats of my other lessons. I hope you have a wonderful visit. There really is something magical about NYC. On one trip, my son and I scored 1/2 price tickets to a show. Great experience. And of course there is the Staten Island Ferry, NY bagels and pizza, and all sorts of other really interesting things. Romelle

When you click "Help" on Priceline the pull-down menu has "Contact Us" at the bottom of the list. If you click that, the "Email Us" doesn't actually have an address but the form goes via email. The physical address is also on the same page: Executive Services Priceline.com LLC 800 Connecticut Ave. Norwalk, CT 06854 It is possible (actually likely) the person with whom you spoke doesn't personally have access to the offers on Priceline Express, as it is a separate area of the company. The knowledge is within the company of course, but not necessarily handy to him. One does have to choose one's fights, and decide whether a particular one is worth the time/energy/stress. Being retired, I occasionally take on some issues I might well have not when I was working and busy with other things. Your choice as to how far you pursue this. I guess I was sort of angry when I wrote my last response, because I knew how hard you had worked for a good outcome. And computers and their systems can indeed bite one sometimes. Sometimes I decide I just bought myself some education, or added to my "never again" list. Romelle

Ouch. I think I'd take a couple more runs at them before I gave up. In writing. At least once via actual email, and once in writing to their corporate offices. There are addresses on Priceline's site if you first click "Help" and then "Contact US". Your bidding history will clearly show you'd never gone that high before. They've got it in their computers. And even when you were increasing, you were gradually increasing. The Priceline Express deal that likely is the same hotel is another piece of evidence to support you. If you were in dollars and the system somehow just switched to pounds it really shouldn't have happened. In situations like this, the front line defense of a company is simply trained to say "no", usually using a script. You have to push through them to somebody who can actually grant an exception. On the other hand, after a more concerted attack, if still unsuccessful it would be time to mutter one's favorite most serious obscenity and just forget it. Forgive yourself. Romelle PS - if I haven't mentioned it before, I'm just a member here, not a board official. But I do personally feel strongly about obtaining justice for oneself.

Did you happen to research shuttle services for the airport? I mentioned them in Post #9. I assume they are somewhat like our Super Shuttles. If you can find a well reviewed one, it looks like this is one money saving area. Some of their sites let one check rates, so you could see the shuttle cost difference between the various PL and HW zones. The British pound is really low right now. That will help. Romelle

The way thereuare has it set up, you check each bid level in each zone. If you just start bidding and adding zones, you risk overbidding. An example: Bid A at $100. Nada. Add B and bid A+B at $110. You win B. But B could have been won at $100. So you overbid $10. It does take more time to do the more involved sequence, but you will be sure you didn't miss some good deal at the best price. The other thing always good to do is know exactly what your fallback is. Currently I see a 4* on Hotwire at $115, and a 4* on PRICELINE EXPRESS at $107. 3*s are a little less, but I also think the European 4*s are worth stretching for, if possible. One of the Hot.wire 4*s was even a condo. Although the condo wasn't as well rated as the other offers, the "kitchenette" can be a good thing, and sometimes the condos offer a little more square footage. If you get into considering PE or HW, it often is possible for the moderators here to make an educated guess as to what you might get. PL bidding tends to result is slightly lower prices than either PE or HW, so the rates I mentioned above are also an indication your bidding might be successful within the $90 or $95 max. Romelle

CLICK HERE for a London walk that takes you past Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, The Mall, Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey. It takes about two hours of casual walking, and starts and ends at the Westminster underground station. There are lots of others of these, covering other tourist attractions. This is just one example. Romelle

Kevin, There is a member here with the screen name vanpoodle. Although I haven't seen her on recently, she is probably the most knowledgeable about London. One of her posts (#9) is in this thread: London Hotel Zone Information You might find her discussion about zones interesting. To your list, she adds quite a few. If you can find a hotel in the more central zones you might not want to go to the more outer ones on the list, but you can at least take a look at them. You can zoom in on the Priceline zone maps. When you get in further, you can see the little symbol that indicates a tube station. A red circle with a blue bar across it. You can get an idea just how far you might have to walk to reach one of the stations. The stations tend to be closer together in the more central zones. If you click on her name you can also read some of her other posts. Although a couple of times I've landed the Copthorne she mentions as some place to avoid, and have been happy with it. You can read the reviews both here and on www.tripadvisor.com and decide for yourself if the things to which people object would be problematic for you. Also, on Priceline some of the zones have more information about the attractions in them. If it is available, it is listed under the zone map when you click on "detail map" of a particular zone. And while I'm at it, if you don't have some already, it would be well worth your time to pick up some London travel guides at your local library or bookstore. Lots of good ones, but my personal buy-and-carry-with-me favorite is Lonely Planet. Great maps and directions, yet concise and lightweight. But to actually answer your question about the zones you've listed - yes, I think all of them would be suitable for your family. And you might consider some more after you've done some more research. Romelle

Up in the header is "Hotel Lists". If you click on it, and follow on through, you can see all hotels members have reported as receiving via PL bids, PRICELINE EXPRESS and Hot.wire. The Marrakech has been reported, but the Pennsylvania has not. However, it is always possible to receive an as-yet-unreported hotel. When you are bidding, you can receive any hotel within the zone map, at or above the star level you are bidding. While I'm at it, it can be a good idea to compare the total bottom line of PL bids vs PE and/or Hotwire when deciding just how high to bid. There rarely is much difference between PL and PE, but there can be between PL and HW. Good luck to you. Romelle