I think I booked somewhere between 4 to 8 weeks in advance (on both occasions), so it's somewhat in the middle of the road in terms of advance purchase. I don't think they were desparate to dump inventory because there was a convention (a rather strange one, but that's another story) on at the same time at the Hilton; unless the convention booked after me or the Hilton made a boo-boo.

There're heaps of sites that outline bidding strategies and list the hotels available. You can probably find the links from the FT Bidding forum. (My bookmarks are at home.)

Of course, my prices are exclusive of tax and charges. You also won't earn anything for your airline or hotel loyalty programmes and you can't use any programme status to get any freebies.

Thanks .... I can see I'm really going to have to give Priceline a try.....

Republican National Convention is in NYC in August. The OP should do some research on dates for the convention and the FIL/MIL trip because while the convention is on, hotel rooms here are likely to be very expensive at all levels (from the protesters in the cheap hotels, through the media at the Hiltons of the world, up to the bigwigs at the Four Seasons, everyone will want a hotel room). If their trip coincides with the RNC I would advise looking around for favours to call in.