My husband and I will be coming home from a 5 week European trip the beginning of June. We land at JFK 7 PM (which will be the middle of the night Europe time for us) on a Thursday and fly home 12 PM Saturday. Where should we stay? We've been recommended the Chelsea area, Midtown West, and Upper Manhattan. We're also on a budget and I'd love it to be around $100 a night (or less). We'd like to see Times Square, Upper State Buliding, Statue of Liberty (just see it, not visit it), and Ground Zero. Anything else along the way would be great seeing as we'll pretty much just have a day. So in addition to a hotel rec, what would be your idea of a good 1 day in New York?

That is a very low budget for NYC. You might try Priceline. Do you mean Empire (not Upper) State Building? You can see the Statue of Liberty from the Staten Island ferry. Everything you're interested in is in Manhattan, and accessible by subway.

This is a difficult budget for June, even Priceline will be tough as inventory will be diminished. I checked my usual bargain hotels (i.e. Radio City Apartments etc) and they are coming up at $175 before tax (after tax close to $200).

I don't think you'll find something for $100/night, but what are your travel dates? Let us know and maybe we can help you find something that is affordable.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is one time when I might suggest NOT staying in Manhattan. When you arrive you are likely to want to get to bed as soon as possible, so why not stay as near JFK as possible and save some major money. Perhaps you'll want to move on to a hotel in Manhattan for Friday night, but unless you're looking for a fleabag, you may have a real hard time meeting that budget.

Or with the time change you might get up early the next morning after a long sleep, leave your luggage at the JFK hotel and head into the city unencumbered for a whirlwind day, returning to your hotel fairly late at night.
With a noon flight you aren't going to have much benefit of being in the city on Saturday morning any way.

You will not find a hotel room with private bathroom on the island of Manhattan for $100/night at any time of year, let alone early June when prices are high. You can try finding a private room in a hostel which will have a shared bathroom but even those will be a bit over your budget. The YMCA Vanderbilt is very centrally located. https://reservations.synxis.com/lbe/...px?hotel=11146 bigapplehostel.com is another option right near Times Square.

If you want your own bathroom and can't increase your budget, I'd suggest you stay just outside Manhattan in Queens. The Country Inn & Suites in Long Island City is a good newish hotel only 1 subway stop from Manhattan and will be about $110/night plus tax. http://www.countryinns.com/hotels/nynyquee

$100 a night in Manhattan will work only in Jan or feb - and then yuo probably need to bid Priceline. For that budget you will ned to stay in Queens (if you;re lucky). I don;t reco stayin at the airport - since the trek into and out of Manhattan from an airport hotel is painful - or expensive - about $60 car service each way.

Thank you all for the replies. We are going to be in NY from 6/3 to 6/5. I've just finished planning our entire Europe trip but never really looked into our stay in NY. I'm ok with increasing our budget (I just wished it'd be $100 or less) - our Europe trip will be mostly hostels and B&Bs so staying in a hotel might be nice since we will be exhausted. What's good bang for my buck if we wanted to stay in Manhattan? I don't think we want to go back and forth from near JFK.

Abram - yup I meant Empire, don't know how Upper got in there.

I guess I'm confused, kalliesto. I sure wasn't suggesting you go "back and forth" between JFK and Manhattan other than once in and once back out. I'm not sure how you can do the trip WITHOUT doing that since you are flying in and out of JFK, aren't you? You have one day. I was suggesting you go in for the one full day, just not go in to sleep in expensive hotels just after you arrive and just before you leave.

check out www.betterbidding.com 's "calendar of wins" and you will see that you just may be lucky staying near that budget. Do study the bidding process however, so that you do not overbid, especially when you drop a star level to add more options.

I don't think you will find a JFK airport hotel to be much less expensive than a hotel closer to Manhattan. To limit the cost, check out hotels in Long Island City in Queens, which is one subway stop away from Manhattan. I like the Comfort Inn Long Island City because of its proximity to the subway at Queensboro Plaza, and it's often less than $150 per night.

There are a handful of rooms in Manhattan that are closer to $100 per night. The Pod Hotel has tiny rooms with bunk beds and shared baths, and the Larchmont in the Village has some shared-bath rooms for about $129 last time I looked. As others have said, the Vanderbilt YMCA and the youth hostel on the Upper West Side are cheaper. The Gershwin also has some cheap rooms. But these are few and far between and more like under $150 rather than $100. It's just not found in Manhattan except on Priceline. Not even NJ hotels are that cheap.

WOW - I checked out the "Calendar of wins" lincasanova mentioned and I'm really surprised, there are some very decent wins for your dates, and it's still really early. June is usually tough, but everything won and recorded so far sure beats a hostel or a YMCA!! But don't just start placing Priceline bids, go to the above mentioned www.betterbidding.com and ask for some help - give your dates and budget range and you'll get some tips and a bidding strategy that will give you the maximum amount of re-bids without over paying.

I don't think you read anything I wrote. NO ONE here said anything about staying at JFK.

someone else mentioned staying the first night there if they are tired then go in to another hotel in the morning.

Actually, Neopatrick suggested that ... I just re-read his original post, and I don't think I misunderstood. I'm just suggesting a bit closer to Manhattan than a JFK hotel.

But I don't think it makes much sense to change hotels; with only two nights (and fairly stringent check-in, check-out requirements, plus the difficulty of dealing with luggage from a European trip), that doesn't seem very practical to me.

Yes, Doug is right. As I said I can't believe myself I was even suggesting that, but honestly -- when you're planning on going to bed immediately upon arrival (it sounds like) and you're going to have to leave your hotel by 9 in the morning to get to the airport for your noon flight, it just didn't seem to me there was much advantage in spending two nights IN a Manhattan Hotel IF you could do better closer to the airport. Maybe Doug is right about not being a money saver, however. I was "guessing" that weekend rates near JFK in all those business hotels might be lower, while weekend rates in Manhattan actually seem to go higher. But we all know how much trouble guessing gets us into.