Priceline Hotel: 3* or 4*, NYC (chelsea, midtown easy, midtown west, times square, empi

[supermd]

This is my first time posting and my first time even using PRICELINE. I am a little hesitant because I am scared what I am going to end up with. However, our hotel situation is a little difficult too...

So It will be a total of 6 people going to NYC. We will be arriving August 15. 3 of us will be leaving August 18 while the other 3 of us will be leaving August 19th. This is my problem, because we all want to stay at the same hotel. And it seems that is not guaranteed with PRICELINE...

Currently we have a $359/night room that will fit all six of us at Comfort Inn. We can still cancel this room. I feel like people on here have gotten waaayy better deals on higher star hotels!! I think Comfort Inn is like 2 stars! (nto sure about this..)

Anyways, please advise me on how to go about this. Thank you.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

First issue is that PRICELINE only guarantees double occupancy. If you'd be bidding on two rooms, obviously you'll be triple occupancy, and many rooms in NYC are notoriously small... only having one bed and no room for for a rollaway. If this is not a risk you're willing to take you can use HOTWIRE which allows you to search for up to quad occupancy, but is usually a little more expensive than PRICELINE.

Regarding the different stays, you can either bid/purchase:

2 rooms for 8/15-8/18

1 room for 8/18-8/19

(NOTE: those staying the extra nite may have to change hotels for the additional nite... or you can purchase the last nite thru a non-opaque source, but it may be prohibitively expensive)

OR

1 room for 8/15-8/19

1 room for 8/15-8/18

(NOTE: you may receive different hotels)

Let us know your thoughts regarding the above and we'll take it from there.

pricelne.hotwire

[supermd]

This is the preferred option:

2 rooms for 8/15-8/18

1 room for 8/18-8/19 (we are okay with extra money spent here as long as we get a good deal for the majority of the trip)

Also, I think i would rather go with HOTWIRE since we will be guaranteed space for 3 in each room.

UPDATE: I started searching on HOTWIRE and found it may be hard to get 2 rooms that fit 3 people each (total of six). I had more options when I said 4 adults in 2 rooms. Does this absolutely guarantee that there is only enough beds for 4 people? Or is there a chance that a rollaway can still fit?

[thereuare]

You had more options when searching 2rooms/4adults as this is only double occupancy and most NYC hotel rooms are set up to accomodate at least this... when adding an extra person in each room it becomes triple occupancy, and there are fewer NYC rooms which can accomodate this many.

To answer your other question regarding having enough room for a rollaway, even hotels which can accomodate more than double occupancy may not agree to sell rooms to HOTWIRE for triple occupancy... since they're giving the hotel away at a deep discount, it makes it easier to manage their inventory by leaving this room 'run of house' (assigned at check-in) based upon what's available at check-in. So some hotels which can accomodate triple (or quad) occupancy may not appear on a HOTWIRE search for such occupancy since they would prefer to not commit these rooms in case needed for their higher paying guests.

Let us know your thoughts (or questions) and how you'd like to proceed.

Please use these PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links to begin your travel purchases.

[supermd]

I just realized we probably won't get a better deal than $369 for ONE room at Comfort Inn with 2 double beds and a pull out couch. All six of us will fit...so not too shabby. (with no room to walk! haha)