i had already won this hotel for myself at $77 and was booking for a friend. this was for 3 nights and included the more expensive weeknight. so i began bidding in this zone for $74 for a 3.5* and was rejected. there are 5 zones in d.c. without a 3.5*, and we were willing to accept a win in the white house zone. that said, we added all those zones one bid at a time, increasing the bid by $3 each time until we finally won this hotel for $92 a night. this is the 3rd couple total that we booked into this hotel, all on seperate requests, because we decided at different times we were going. so we're happy we rolled the dice and all ended up together.