Sorry, I may not have been clear, I wasn't aiming to lower star ratings and raise my bid price at the same time, I was just going to lower star ratings first and if that doesn't work, go up by a few dollars each time. So my bidding sequence would be as follows:
1st bid: $75 for 4.5* in
2nd bid:$75 for 4*
3rd bid: $75 for 3.5*
4th: $75 for 3*
5th: $75 for 2.5* (I don't want to go lower than a 2.5*, so for my sixth bid I would go up a few dollars)
6th: $78 for 4.5*
..and so on until I get to ~$95 which is about my max.
Zones I am open to stay in:
Zone 1 (Civic center south), 2 (financial district), 3 (fisherman's wharf), 4 (Japan town), 5 (Marina), 13 (south of market), 14 (union square east) and 15 (union square west).
It looks like the only way I could use the re-bidding strategy to bypass the 24 hour waiting period would be by using zone 8 (Richmond) because it only has a 1* and 2* hotel. So bids 1-5 I can make in the same day since I am changing the star ratings, but for my sixth bid I would need to check zone 8 (Richmond) in addition to the zones I am wanting to stay at so that I don't have to wait 24 hours, correct? and I can only do this once since there is only this one zone that has less than my minimum star rating? So once I go through $78 down to 2.5* (assuming all my bids are rejected), then I will have to wait 24 hours to bid $81 for a 4.5* hotel, correct?
My goal is to get the best hotel I can at my budget. I hope I explained it a little better, do you foresee any problems with my strategy above? Thank you for your help and I will be sure to use the links!