PenskeFile

Just booked this. Many places showed as no rooms available tonight on Hotels.com and Hilton (where I have points from business travel). PRICELINE had a 3-star PRICELINE EXPRESS Deal that was a $78 but I didn't want to end up with only one bed, so went with HOTWIRE using the BB link Hotel details Amenities Free parking Free breakfast Free Internet Pet friendly Indoor pool(s) Smoke-free rooms Fitness center Pool(s) Business center Self-service laundry Internet access

Not much of a "win" I'm afraid. I think I only got about $20 off the Hotels direct rate, but my wife was very pleased with the hotel and it was a great location near the Univ. of Arkansas where my son took a tour. I checked HOTWIRE and PRICELINE EXPRESS deals and didn't see anything less than $105 for a 2.5 star or higher. I tried bidding with my Priceline account several ways and struck out every time when I finally hit on the $95 rate.

My pleasure, please see below for a copy/paste and let me know if there is any additional information you need. I made my reservation without creating a Hotwire account, so this may not be what you need. I was unable to get my itinerary into the account I just set up because the reservation was made with my wife's email. . You would think I could add it with the itinerary number, but no. Hotel Amenities Pet friendly Indoor pool(s) Smoke-free rooms Fitness center Pool(s) Restaurant(s) Business center Internet access

OK - pulled the trigger using the board HOTWIRE link and I see an extra $15 discount applied. Sheraton Grand Chicago. Thanks for the help folks! I'll be back in the future for sure.

Very good point on the single- vs. double and I'm glad I came to this site, that's part of the intel I was hoping to gain. I've never had an issue with single occupancy in my previous bidding on Priceline. Does that happen much? I've probably gone NYOP with my family about 20 times now in the past ten years, but I suppose there is a first time for everything. If that happened then I guess we would request a roll-away or extra bedding and the kids would draw straws to see who gets the floor or couch. The hotels we've booked using bidding were usually so empty (and correspondingly cheap) that it was not an issue, but I get the sense that's not the case in Chicago right now. Sorry if this is a dumb question, but how are you able to keep upping your bid? I thought you had to switch areas, star levels, dates to do that? Is that what you do or is there some other super-secret method you use here?

Wow\, thanks Aaron for the quick and detailed response! My sons are 17 and 14, so they should quailify as children. We are very open to bidding on Priceline, I wasn't very clear, but that was the intent of the post - to get some strategies for bidding on NYOP (Name Your Own Price) for a hotel in the downtown area less than $100. In talking to my wife again, her goal is to drive downtown to the hotel, park the car (understanding that parking is expensive) and then walk/Uber around for the day/night. My older son is planning to take in the Texas Rangers v. Cubs game and my wife and other son will probably walk around the Mag mile area.

Hi all, new to the forum so please be kind My wife and two sons will be driving up to Chicago later this week. For part of the time they will be staying with friends, but Friday night (7/15) they're on their own. We live in Texas and I have had great success in the past when travelling to Dallas and Houston on last-minute (same-day) NYOP deals with PRICELINE. I think this is mostly because we travel on the weekends and both cities have vast numbers of nice hotel rooms for business travelers that are empty on the weekend. I suspect this is not as much the case for Chicago, but want to find out. Browsing the board here, it seems that the prices in Chicago will likely be in the $100-$200 range, but I'd like to see if anyone knows of strategies to get a room on a Friday night for less than $100. The star rating is not critical, 3* or above would be great. No particular amenities needed, just clean, safe and pleasant. Parking less than $50 per day would also be nice. Ideally this would be in the downtown area, but if I'm crazy for even thinking such a thing, just let me know and I'll go away and break out the checkbook.