Priceline Hotel: Milan 7-12 October

[ElPal]

As indicated in my previous Italy thread which was merged by a moderator by accident, my sister is looking to stay in either Florence or Milan for 7-10 October but will be in Milan from 10-12 October regardless. She is attending the Linea Pelle fair in Bologna and does not want to stay in Bologna.

In Milan, she had some luck with the Westin Palace for her April stay and would love to stay there again. Accordingly, we are aiming for 5* in the NE Milan zone.

One week ago, I tried bidding using your PRICELINE link for the 7-12 October at $140 and then closed out and re-entered each time via your link and added free rebid zones. We bid $145, $148, $155 and $160 at which point we received a counter-offer of $213. We didn't continue to bid.

I also tried bidding for 10-12 October with the same process of closing out and re-entering via your rebid link each time when adding free rebid zones. I bid $125, $126, $128, $130, $135, $140, $145 and $150. No counter-offers were received.

One week on, I have tried again with your PRICELINE link and again closing out between each bid when adding new zones for the whole 7-12 October period. I bid $148 which was rejected. I then bid $150 and received a counter-offer of $212 ($1 less than the previous week's counter offer). I bid $155, $161, $165, $168-$182 (in $1 increments) all of which received the same counter-offer.

I know there's no exact science to these things but given that the counter-offer first appeared at $150 this week, I had thought that perhaps half way between the price bid when it appeared and the price counter-offered may have been where we would get lucky - that would have been $181. No such luck.

Now, I will try for the 10-12 October period as my sister will definitely stay in Milan for those dates even if she does end up in Florence from 7-10 October.

[ElPal]

Now, I will try for the 10-12 October period as my sister will definitely stay in Milan for those dates even if she does end up in Florence from 7-10 October.

I tried for 10-12 October period on that day using your PRICELINE link and closing out and reusing your link for each redid. No luck there either. Started at $148 and went to $178 with no counter-offers made for this shorter period.

For the 7-12 October period, I have just tried again now using your PRICELINE link. This time I made the following bids for NE Milan: $148, $148, $150, $160, $165, $170, $175, $178, $180, $182, $185. At no point was I offered a counter-offer, whereas this is the date range for which I was previously offered a counter-offer of $212 from my lowest bid of $150.

Also, I have looked at HOTWIRE and noticed that there are not many properties for Milan for these dates (not sure whether they are updating inventory at the moment).

[ElPal]

I have now tried for 5* in the Old Town - Duomo zone. Still no luck.

Using your PRICELINE link to search and for each rebid, I bid as follows:

$140, $145, $150, $155, $160, $165, $170 and $175.

Unfortunately no counter-offers were made either.