Priceline Hotel: always a day late, $1 short

[superkittydog]

Of course, I leave for NYC tomorrow a.m. and just this minute found this board thru eGullet (wasting time at work looking for good restaurants).

I tried Priceline for this weekend (5/13-17) maybe a billion times. I didn't know any of the good tips from here, but did stumble upon the same basic ideas about adding areas to get free rebids, etc. I started with Midtown West, 4* at $125 and added 3*, added CPS at 4*, then 3*, and kept adding areas. I did it again (days later) at $150, and got nothing. In fact, even the same semi-crappy Best Western President that I usually stay at for under $120 is going for $180 (at last check) this weekend. I ended up with the Midtown Holiday Inn (no horror stories, please!) for about $160 thru Quikbook, and settled only for that because I was getting desperate.

I don't know if there's something going on this weekend that's hogging all of the hotel deals, or if I was just really unlucky, but I certainly didn't succeed in making Priceline work for me! Is it because I was too chicken to wait until the absolute last minute??

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

I don't know of anything hapennng in NYC this weekend that would account for increased demand, but apparently there is something going on the nite of the 15th (the other nites seem to show fairly typical occupancy). You may have also had better success if it weren't for the last minute, as we did see a 4* win for a sub-set of your dates in this NYC PRICELINE THREAD, and i imagine if you were willing to SPLIT YOUR BID you would have at least had success for the first two nites of your stay (at prices considerably lower than you had tried).

Next time you won't be a day late and a $1 short as now you know where to come for help :)

Enjoy your NYC visit.

[TravelGuy]

The Ninth Avenue International Food Festival is 5/15-16 and draws over a million people. I don't know if Jersey City would have been an acceptable alternative, but I bet that probably would have been doable for somewhere in the range of $37-50.