Priceline Hotel: hotel in NYC - midtown

[rugger640]

Hi - thanks for creating/moderating this site. It appears to be helpful to lots of people. Hopefully you'll be able to give me some help too.

My wife and I are traveling to NYC for three nights in the late Christmas season (12/19 - 12/22).

I've done some preliminary digging on Hotwire and have found a 4* 'Best Value' in MTE for $153/night and a 3.5* in MTC for 144/night. I think we'd be OK with staying in this section of town (MTE), but may prefer ultimately staying in MTW or even MTS if possible (departure is via early morning train on 9/22 from Penn Station). Would also consider UM-CPS. Prefer 4* but willing to accept a 'bang for the buck' 3*. Budget: no more than 200/night if possible.

Obviously we can book what appears to be an acceptable hotel on Hotwire, but I'm interested in seeing how PL works and getting some experience using the interface. I've read through some of the threads on the bidding/re-bid strategies for PL. Basically, I'm looking for some help developing a strategy that I can use to get a wham-bam room for some quality pre-Christmas tourism.

Thanks for your help. I look forward to your reply.

Chris

[rugger640]

Update:

I decided to be a little adventurous and sort out using some of the combinatorics of using the UES and UWS as re-bid zones for 4* hotels using lowball offers. My bid history (all rejected):

4* Hotels only

130 MTW

130 MTW+MTS

135 UES+MTW

135 UES+MTW+MTS

140 UWS+MTW

140 UWS+MTW+MTS

145 UES+UWS+MTW

145 UES+UWS+MTW+MTS

I realize these targets are a bit low. I imagine that I'll have to wait to find success until I get closer to 200. I took some time to look at the rate calendars on some of the retail booking websites and I've determined that it's an odd time to be visiting NYC. The prices seem to be lower (maybe just too close to the holidays?) than at other times in December. Does that also mean that the hotels would accept lower PL bids in line with their lower retail prices? That's why I started with the lowballs.

I'll probably go back tonight and check offers for MTE as well, using the same (or maybe lower with larger step) basis for the bids. And then I imagine I'll be able to use the 2 and 3 zone combinations to extend the upper range on the bids as well.

Any suggestions would be helpful - Otherwise I'll keep on giving it a whirl using the link at SavingsBarn.com.

Thanks for the references,

Chris

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

To make an educated decision on how to proceed, i would first try to ID the HOTWIRE hotels above. Star ratings are subjective, and you may be pefectly fine with one of those above, and not want to increase your bid higher than the amount of that hotel. What are amenities of the HOTWIRE hotel(s) above?

Also, based upon your post above, i'd also consider the Affinia Manhattan thru GTA Hotels (please use this link), just slightly higher than your $200/max above. The reviews are generally great and the hotel is almost directly across the street from Penn Station. This hotel may also be cancellable (so good to use as a back-u while you continue to try the opaque providers)... GTA Hotels states that the "vast majority of their hotels are cancellable, but the actual terms will be shown during the check-out process" so you'll need to at least start the check-out to see if cancellable and good to use as a back-up.