belgo

$80 has not been successful so far. I'll keep trying! :)

I'm looking to spend $100 or less for a hotel room in Manhattan Oct. 10-14. The location within Manhattan doesn't matter much as long as there are no hotels in the zone which are far from a subway stop... Thanks! 3* would be better, but will go lower if needed.

My reservation is at the Hotel Montana, which is well-rated and near the HBF. The only problem would be if there's a heat wave, since this hotel has no A/C. Historical data for those dates show an average high of 77F and low of 42F. I might panic and go higher if it looks as if temps may go higher than usual when the 10 day forcasts come up. :)

I started bidding from $80 over the last 5 days. This is as high as I'm willing to go with Priceline. I used the savingsbarn link, of course.

Probably the best criteria to use would be the proximity of the Priceline hotels to good public transportation. Madrid and Berlin have good subway systems, so if your hotel is near a stop, you're in good shape. Rome has more of a bare-bones subway. Just as an aside, you seem to be spending a lot of time in Nice. The area around Nice is quite beautiful, so if you plan to go driving around, staying a few days is a good idea. Unless you have a car or are going to Nice for a conference, I'm not sure I would spend 3 days there (in particular, Nice's beaches are pretty lousy).

As I have posted on other BOS strings, I'm fairly certain that the Hilton in particular (and possibly the Hyatt) always wait until exactly 30 days before making their rooms available on Priceline. In other words, I have consistently seen that $200 won't cut it 31 days before check-out, but $65 might well work 30 days before check-out. Go through all of the 4* wins for Logan in the last couple of years, and you'll see what I mean.

But just to make it clear--you still got a great deal. It's a wonderful hotel, and getting to the subway (and airport) is easy with frequent shuttle service.

For future reference, I believe it was last year (?) around Labor Day, we stayed at this hotel through a Priceline bid. I think I posted my win here. In any case, There was NO availability until exactly 30 days before our trip, then we got the hotel on some ridiculously low bid--I believe it was around $75. We actually had two stays at this hotel before and after a trip to northern New England, and I think it was the same story each time. I think that the pattern for the BOS Hilton is to not put up rooms at all until 30 days prior to the check-in date, then sell the rooms really cheaply. I'm planning to go in the second week of October, and the prices seem really high. I wonder if this is a really busy time in Boston for some reason? I'm going mainly for a medical conference, but plan to look at the foliage for a couple of days (i.e. will do a come-and-go for this hotel again). This hotel is especially convenient for these types of trips, since their shuttle will take you directly inside the rental car agencies (and pick you up quickly from the rental car agencies as well). So is early October a super-busy time in Boston? Would it be because of leaf-chasers such as myself?

I was hitting up the city's tourism office's (English language) site, which is http://www.zuerich.com/en/welcome.cfm , so maybe the people who live there don't know how to spell the city they live in? :)

I think the Buckeye was trying to be funny :) . Well, $95 didn't do it, so I just booked the Montana for 165 SF at booking.com. There was a similar price at Otel.com, but I just finished booking my Bern hotel there, and working with them was a giant pain in the donkey :) . I had to put all of my information through on the website, then print out a confirmation page from my e-mail, then fax them back!! And I still haven't received my final confirmation. However, for that particular hotel, the Bellevue Palace, the rate was so much better than at other sites that I used them that time ($170 with them as opposed to $210/night on Hotels.com, and $212 on Expedia.com--some sites were even higher). I normally don't spend $170 for a hotel, but that seemed to be a good bargain given the Bellevue Palace's reviews. As for the umlauts, the umlaut is a shortened way of writing the vowel without the "e" after it. I'm not quite sure how to use umlauts on this site, so I add the "e." If one were to write "Zurich" without the "e" or the umlaut, it would (incorrectly) be pronounced "Zuh-rick."

Many thanks for that last post confirming my impressions from web reviews of the Hotel Montana. Well, $90 didn't do it either. I think I'll do one last try at $95 tomorrow, then book the Hotel Montana. Since the inventory seems to be limited, I feel I should book fairly soon. I don't feel like bidding for $100 when I may get the Crowne Plaza which gets mediocre reviews.

Another nice link would be hotelclub.net which offers both regular and superior rooms. I'm not sure how the superior rooms differ from the regular...

Well, a little bird :) has told me that some people have gotten the Marriott at $80, although not necessarily in the summer (as late as Memorial Day week-end). At higher bids (i.e. $110), the Crowne Plaza has been hit. The former seems to be selling its rooms at 400 SF and up, the latter around 310 SF and up. The latter requires a tram trip from the rail station, which I'd rather not do with a big suitcase (but I would if I had to--to pay 20 SF for a cab each way defeats the purpose of saving money). There are some Best Westerns within easy walking distance of the HBF (main train station) for around $130, which I'm tempted by. Unfortunately, the one I'm most interested in, the Hotel Montana (BW) is not offered on the Best Western website which is linked on your "Support BetterBidding" page. If I can't get something on Priceline, I'd at least like to support this site through a link, but the hotel only seems to be available on www.otel.com. I don't suppose you could get them to link through your support page? The Montana seems to be well-reviewed and quiet, and within easy walking distance to the HBF. I'll try $90 tomorrow, but it seems the Marriott may not have Priceline availability. I will also probably get my Bern hotel through Otel.com, since they have the best deals there (no Priceline in Bern). If you can put a link there through your support page, I'll be happy to use it. :)

$85 didn't work either, but at least I didn't get one of the messages that my offer had little chance of being accepted. Maybe I'm too early? I don't see a lot of Swiss hits on this board...

$82 didn't cut it for my overnight stay. Just a quick overnight in Zuerich before going to Bern. I have a feeling $85 might work :) . I used the savingsbarn link, of course.

$65 didn't do it again for 3*, nor $50 for 2*

Strangely, it (the Quality Inn) doesn't even appear on www.tripadvisor.com. I hope it's an OK place, because I booked it at the $72 government employee rate for a twin-bedded room.

Yes, I realize it's Memorial Day week-end. Priceline's non-bidding site lists the Red Lion (3*) for $119, the La Quinta (2*) at $115, and the following other 2*'s: Quality Inn at $79, Holiday Inn $129, Holiday Inn Xpress at $140 :) . I might look up the Quality Inn on Tripadvisor to see what they say...

I won this hotel twice on Priceline for the summer of '05; we stayed pre & post cruise (a 2-week British Isles & Scandinavia cruise). For the pre-cruise, we stayed in a kind of dinky room which had a strange setup for A/C. We eventually figured out that every few hours, you had to dump this container of water in the sink or it would stop working! The room was quite small, too. I don't know if it was because I had Gold status with Starwood, but on the way back I was upgraded to a much nicer room which was pretty much twice the size of the previous one with a modern A/C setup, and everything one would expect from a nice hotel. The location is great--within easy walking distance of Picadilly, Leicester Square, the theaters, and Buckingham Palace. The room for our first stay was definitely not 4*.

Well, actually I ended up doing something similar, but with Priority Club points. I got the Priority Club Visa a while ago, and I got some points from them for that (as well as some for actually staying at HI's and HIX's). After some frantic searching, I found out I could actually get two nights at the HI Munich City Center with a meager 30,000 Priority Points! The amazing thing is that this hotel's rock bottom nonrefundable rate was 300 Euros (almost exactly $400!) per night for those days. The hotel is within walking distance of the sights, and one easy rail connection to the airport (otherwise an $80 cab fare in a city apparently without supershuttles). The hotel is apparently sitting over a light rail which gets to the HBF in two stops and to the airport from there. I'm thrilled :o although embarrassed :) I wasn't able to book through a link after all of your help. I did, however, book my Budget Rent-a-car through your support page for my car in the ABQ airport on the 31st of this month, so I hope that kind of makes up for it :) . I'll be sure to use the support link for some of my other hotels on that trip (primarily in Switzerland). I'm not a huge Starwood fan. I've had the best customer service from the Hilton family, and the second best with the InterContinental/Priority Club group. I've never had anything but great customer service with Hilton and IC, but I've gotten the runaround a couple of times with Starwood. I probably should get their credit card, though. It seems that one can end up with 100s of these credit cards, though--they all have such good deals!

That's good to know for next time. Actually, went I went back to the www.spg.com website, it turns out that the rate for the Sheraton is 175 Euros and it's a pay-in-advance no-turning-back rate. I can't use it as a fallback for Priceline. Well, for now I'm just going to bid to $100 and then see what Hilton does. The Hilton Park isn't ideal because it's not near a subway station, but if I can use my HHonors points, it'll do nicely.

Well, here's the complete answer. I noticed over the week-end that one of the two Hiltons (the Hilton-Park, not Hilton-City) is still allowing booking with HHonors points. I had enough for one night and change but not for two. I tried to transfer myDiners Club points over the week-end, but they were closed and doing it online can take a month. So I waited until this morning (Monday) to do a rush transfer for the extra points which cost me $30. Apparently the points will be in by Thursday (3/15) at the latest. In the meantime, if I can get something on Priceline for $100 or less, I'll take the Priceline booking and not bother with my Hilton points. If I can't get something on Priceline for $100 or less, then I'll try to book with my HHonors points when I get them. If THAT doesn't work, then I will probably go up to $130 with Priceline. If that doesn't work, the $200 or so per night for the Sheraton Grand seems reasonable, especially since it's within walking distance of the train station which will get me to the airport for my 12:30 PM flight on the 24th (and it's apparently also walking distance to the Oktoberfest festivites). I'm going to try to figure out where the better located hotels are on Priceline---North or South zone?? :)

I don't know if Priceline will have any availability during Oktoberfest. The Marriotts are sold out. Strangely, the Sheraton Grand goes for 175 Euro on their website but $665 per night on Expedia. I'm not sure whether the North or South zone is better in terms of public transportation. The Hiltons are also going for upwards of $600 per night! :)

The Best Western Stevens Inn had a government employee rate for $64. It didn't specify that you had to be on government business, and since I work for the government, I decided to go for that rate. I did book it through the "Travel links to support better bidding" page. I didn't see any sense in going any higher on Priceline.

$30 didn't work for a 1*