leeward

for what it is worth - PRICELINE now has bidding on Buenos Aires - only one zone and only 3* and 2* is available... I just had a 3* bid for 15/5/08 rejected (as i thought it would be) at $31.

I suspect Saturday 8 March may be your problem. I suspect that there is something on in Sydney that night as a lot of the hotels (including 4* marriott) are showing no availability on one of the Australian sites where they tend to dump their excess capacity. (Although having said that I live in Sydney and dont know what it is). I have been a regular bidder for sydney rooms (both 4* and 5*) and have never got anything other than the marriott. Nor have I read of anyone getting anything but the two marriotts. I've just checked the marriott site and the 8th has no availability for either the 4* or 5* city hotels - just the one out at North Ryde (which is some 20+ mins drive out of the city in the suburbs). So I think you will need to either consider moving hotels mid stay - or paying for another hotel (outside of priceline). At any rate the saturday night wont be cheap. I've stayed in a fair number of the Sydney hotels, and am happy to give pointers re specifcs or relative merits of general locations or otherwise.

My bidding history for this was as follows (all Sydney City zone bids for Wednesday 19 March 2008 for 1 night). On 28/2/08 I bid as follows 5* $120 4* $120 3* $90 all rejected - no counter offers. On 29/2/08 I bid as follows 5* $135 4* 126 3* 97 2* 72 all rejected - no counter offers. Then today (3/3) I bid as follows 5* 140 4* 127 - accepted. I wouldn't have been prepared to up my bid another dollar as this is about right for a midweek stay in a quality 4* in Sydney (if one compares this price to the AUD prices on the Australian sites such as wotif.com) and the 4* Marriott is right on the edge of what can be reasonably classified as a Sydney centre hotel. Its a good 15 minute walk from my office which is pretty much in the middle of the city.