Priceline Hotel: Help - NYC, Dec 31 to Jan 6

[jlin2]

Please suggest a strategy for bidding on priceline for this stay. Prefer Midtown East or Midtown West, 4 stars. From reading this forum I understand the price on New Year's Eve will be very high, but hope our long stay will bring the average down. What would be a reasonable price per night? A bidding strategy would also be appreciated. Thanks in advance for the help! J

[thereuare]

I think you'll have to be willing to SPLIT THIS STAY in order to have a chance. Read that thread which explains how Priceline does not average your price and your bid needs to be high enough to win each nite independently of the others.

What do you expect the average nite to cost... if we're not on the same page i'd like to at last make sure we're reading the same book. :)

[jlin2]

I'm willing to pay up to $300 for new year's eve. For the other 5 nights, hopefully ave about $150 per night or even less? In an early post somebody got NY Hilton for $110/night for 01/03-01/06. Thanks for your input.

[thereuare]

I'm not sure that $300 will be enough for a 4* on 12/31 and the only option i see within that range is staying at the Jersey City Hyatt (which has NYC PATH transportation at the doorstep) for the low/mid $200's. If the JC Hyatt is a realistic option let us know and we'll suggest a strategy for that in this thread.

I'm assuming that you realize that splitting your bid will likely result in your needing to change hotels during your stay. If this is acceptable and you want to try Priceline up to this amount anyway, this is the strategy i would try the following, which also includes UM/CPS in addition to MTE and MTW which you mentioned:

You have two re-bid zones when bidding 4* in NYC. If you're not familiar with re-bidding please read this post: PRICEINE REBIDDING and feel free to ask any questions you may have and/or confirm your re-bid zones with the board.

Select 4* MTE and...

Bid $250, if rejected add MTW and...

Bid $260, if rejected add UM/CPS and...

Bid $270, if rejected add re-bid zone and...

Bid $285, if rejected add re-bid zone and...

Bid $300.

I wouldn't book the remaining nites of your stay (which i'm not as concerned about... i think you can get a 4* hotel within your price range) until you confirm or have a back-up for 12/31.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have and let us know how it goes.