Please help me choose best "zone" for using PL in New York
 

Hello, please help me choose my best zone when bidding Priceline for an upcoming New York visit in June. We will be traveling with hubby's parents (70's) that have never been to New York. We will probably end up using taxi quite a bit as I'm not sure how my 76 year old father-in-law will fair on the subway. Staying in a nice hotel is important to us. Also, we are considering the 5* MTE Waldorf Towers bid, but are hesitant due to bad treatment of PL customers but if the hotel/location itself is spectacular we are willing to consider this possibility. Thanks for any input.

MIDTOWN WEST- Hilton Towers, Marriott Marquis, Westin Times Square, Sofitel, The Muse

MIDTOWN EAST- Wladorf Towers (only NY 5*), Waldorf Astoria, W New York, Grand Hyatt, The Barclay

UPPER MIDTOWN/CENTRAL PARK SOUTH- Westin Essex House, Intercontinental Central Park, LeParker Meridien

UPPER EAST SIDE- The Stanhope (only 4* choice, gets good reviews)

My 77 year old father and 77 year old father in law ride the subway quite frequently and have no problems with. Does your father in law have physical limitations? Knock wood, both my father and FIL are in excellent physical health.

What is your budget? Since a 5* on priceline will still cost in excess of $200, how about stepping back a bit and purchasing a known hotel room?

Le Parker Meridian would be a wonderful hotel in a great location. The uppper floors have views of Central Park and the suites are huge.

Thanks GoTravel. Father-in-law is is good physical shape but has a small body frame, I'm scared somebody will knock hime over! Do you think that is a realistic worry? Also MIL has a habit of just letting her purse hang loose, I am just thinking of keeping them out of harm's way. I think we'd be willing to go about 250/nt per room per night taxes included. I will check rates on the Meridien right now.

In that case, you may at least want to stay off the subway during rush hour. As for the handbag, maybe she should leave it in the room safe and give a cc, ID, and cash to dad. Both my FIL and father are big men. FIL is very tall, 6'6 and father is stocky.

I love the location of Le Parker Meridian. Very close to Central Park. I don't think the Waldorf Towers have as much a tourist friendly location as LPM but that is a personal opinion.

I would go for <b>upper Midtown/Central Park South</b>. All those hotels are good to great. IMO the Parker Meridien is no better than the other 2, so why would you pay for it rather than try Priceline? Make sure you read biddingfortravel.com &amp; know what you're doing.

I love the Stanhope (Upper east side) but you may find it too out of the way (it's across from the Met Museum but quite a ways from theaters &amp; a small trek to the nearest subway. The 5th ave bus is right outside the door though.

The only reason not to use Priceline is to get a hotel you can't get with them. Look at the Michelangelo (maybe check quikbook.com)if you're planning on doing theater.

I don't think the Waldorf Towers is in a great location for you. The W has tiny rooms (&amp; is behind the Waldorf), the Hyatt is big &amp; corporate. The Barclay is very nice.

You can get excellent advice about NYC in particular at http://www.betterbidding.com .

I checked rates for the Le Parker Meridien, the best rate I could find as of yet before taxes is $239/nt. Since we are covering both rooms we were hoping to maximize savings but if the Waldorf Towers was exceptional we would have considered paying more.

Looks right now like Upper Midtown is the best bet. Hotwire is showing a rate of $249/nt for the Meridien which is not a good deal at this time.

GoTravel, FIL is about 5'4 and is thin and small boned. MIL is just the opposite, big and sacry @-) I agree about MIL's handbag and just have her keep the essentials with Dad.

Thanks so much everyone for the helpful advice!

Aloha T'wifey,
We're booking for a Mid May NYC trip and have the same Qs as you so I'll ghost ya!

I've been looking at BFT and now thx to the fine suggie, will look at betterbidding.

We'd like to be as close CP as possible as &quot;you-know-who&quot; wants to be able to do an early morning jog thru the park. I'll have to rent a bike to keep up. What's new, eh?

We stayed at The Wellington last trip. Nice place, good location but....

Have you looked at The Salisbury Hotel? It is privately owned and it used to be an apartment building so the rooms are very big. It is across the street from Le Parker Meridian on West 57th.

Maybe you could book a cancelable backup and watch the prices on hotwire.

I forgot to mention, I thought I'd read on biddingfortravel that the Wales Hotel was now included in 4*s on the UES, making the Stanhope not the only 1 in this area/ctegory. It's a cute European type place but not in the same league at all as the Stanhope. Beware.

For Mr &amp; Mrs Kal, I'd agree Upper midtown &amp; UES woud be best for park jogging but Upper west side could work too (don't remember what the PL hotels are in this area though).

Just an FYI here. You mentioned that Hotwire was showing a $249 rate for the Meridien. Hotwire doesn't tell you the name of the hotel until you buy so you can't be certain it's the Meridien. Were you looking at Expedia or another side instead?

Hi Dan, I matched up the icons on the betterbidding.com website.

GoTravel, I checked rates at the Salisbury. Their rates are a little better at $209/nt and the reviews are good on tripadvisor.com. I may book a backup there and try low balling on Priceline first to try to save some $$, I'm also going to keep an eye out on hotwire to see if the rates get any better.

Tis' the season to hit NY Kal... we were going to go in Dec. to see all the pretty holiday decorations but decided for warmth instead!

And another thank you to Mclaurie and Willtravel for your insight. I wish I knew as much about NY as ya'll.:) Since we live on the west coast now it is much harder to get back &amp; forth to the NE, would go to NY twice a year if I could!

Please give your exact June dates - check in/check out. I'd love to help, but your inquiry is a bit complex, especially without the dates.

Yes, the dates will be June 11 or 12 depending on flights and return June 19th.

In my experience, stays of more than a weekend or several days are much more complex when bidding on Priceline, or selecting a hotel blindly on Hotwire.

I am assuming that you plan to book two rooms? I would not recommend using Hotwire or Priceline for NYC if you are booking one room for four people.

If you are determined to use Priceline, you could do your homework and ask for bidding assistance on Biddingfortravel.com

The better bet, though, now that you've mentioned that you are flying, might be to check out the Priceline and Hotwire air/hotel packages. These have the advantage of being able to select a specific hotel, but you won't know flight times/connections until after you book. (Even so, you would want to price flights and hotels separately before booking with Priceline or Hotwire.)

Looking at the Priceline and Hotwire packages will also give you an idea of which hotels they have available for your dates (though you must be able to figure out in which zones they are located and there is still no guarantee on which hotel you'll get if you go for just rooms).

I've had terrific luck with the Priceline and Hotwire packages.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I use bft all the time. No, we always travel in sep rooms, sharing a room is not a possibility! A PL vacation would not work for us because we need to take flights during specific times in the day.

From what I have read on BFT the site the Central Park Zone can be expensive. There was another bid with almost my exact dates that was not successful up to $140. As mentioned above, the Salisbury looks like a good back up in case nothing works out via Priceline. I may also have to try another zone if nothing works out.

If a PL bid of $140 failed, that doesn't necessarily mean that rooms in that zone/rating are expensive -- it could mean that none were available via PL, at any price. it's more useful to look at amounts of recent successful bids, and if there aren't any, it's likely that no rooms were being made available to PL. In other words, don't misinterpret failed bids as a reason to overbid!

Yes, I got that info by reading Sheryl's previous comments. There have been winning bids in the $125-130 range during the winter months. I still have plenty of time to bid. Just booked 2 rooms at rack rate for a specific hotel in Nola this fall, would be nice if we can save on this New York trip. Thanks again :)

A rejected bid for a week long stay could mean that Priceline does not have inventory anywhere for all of those dates successively.

A description of NYC Priceline Zones:

http://www.betterbidding.com/show.ph...ST/f/254/t/522