Priceline Hotel: 4* NYC (Downtown-SoHo-Financial) Millenium Hilton

[al pacino]

Hi,

I've had a look through the forum today and it seems there are some great bargains to be had - patience, timing and good strategy seem to paramount to achieve the right deal.

I've had a look through the Priceline hotels list. I have narrowed down my preferred areas to Midtown East and Soho (which will likely end up being financial district as well). My main reason for travel is tourism/shopping.

I am looking for a 4* hotel at a very good price. The best deals I have consistently seen on this forum for my chosen areas are:

Millenium Hilton Hotel (financial district) for $160-200. The hotel seems to have been renovated and am not too fussed about the noise issues related to construction work around WTC.

W Hotel (Midtown East) $160-200.

Intercont Barclays (Midtown East) $140. I would like to avoid this hotel given numerous bad reviews on tripadvisor particularly relating to dated interior of rooms.

My preferred hotels are W hotel and Millenium Hilton. I am aware that I run the risk of not getting these but what is best strategy of targetting these hotels (I have not used Priceline before)?

I am thinking of starting off with Soho/Financial District bidding upto $170 and then doing the same for Midtown East if there is no luck at my price target (although am concerned I might get stuck with Intercont).

Any help/feedback is appreciated.

[al pacino]

Just bid $165 for soho/financial district and got rejected.......

[al pacino]

$170 rejected too!! (added chelsea village as new zone)

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

Few questions and comments:

First, what month are you bidding... August?

Second, there is no way to target/avoid a particular hotel when using PRICELINE. If you'd like to try to target, or avoid, a particulare hotel then HOTWIRE may be a better option as you have the ability to take an educated guess as to the hotel before your purchase.

Current rates are high for your dates... what is your maximum bid for this stay? Also, for difficult dates (with high rates) it's often adventageous to include as many acceptable zones as possible. In NYC the zones are fairly close and compact, and mass transit relatively inexpensive and readily avialable, that most midtown zones work fine for the average visitor... given current rates i would consider expanding your list of acceptable zones.

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

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

[al pacino]

It was for August - maybe it wasn't clear as I was using the British convention (dd/mm).

The good news is I had a bid for $180 (exc. taxes) accepted for my dates and I got the Millenium Hilton which I'm pretty happy with!

As a comparison, hotwire was offering a Hotel for $233 (exc. taxes) which seemed to fit the description of Hilton (4* Soho/downtown WITH a pool.....).

Pretty happy with the saving although with the narrow range of 4* hotels downtown I had a pretty good idea that I would most likely end up with Hilton. Not sure I would be comfortable using Priceline when there are a bigger pool of hotels and hence it's more of a lottery.

Priceline would be more attractive to me if it gave customers at least 2 hotels to pick from (even at the same price).

[thereuare]

Congratulations on your win and thank you for sharing it with the board.

Glad to hear you found something that works well for your needs and that the information on the board was helpful in your purchase.

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

Enjoy your stay.