First visit the Priceline.com Hotels page and select Name Your Own Price^®. Enter the name of the city that you will be staying in and the dates of your stay and click the next button.

You will then be presented with a list of areas in your target city/region. Select the first area and then record the highest star level that becomes active beneath the area list. The star levels from highest to lowest are 5-Star Luxury, Resort, 4-Star Deluxe, Boutique, 3-Star Upscale, 2 1/2-Star Moderate-Plus, 2-Star Moderate, and 1-Star Economy.

Pay careful attention to this because Priceline^® doesn't always list the star levels in order. The Resort star level is typically at the bottom of the list.

Type the name of the first area in the text box labeled "Bidding Area" provided in Step 1 of BidSmartForHotels.com, select the maximum star level from the select box titled "Maximum Star Level", and click the "Add Area" button. Now deselect the area that you had selected.

Repeat this for each area paying close attention to deselect the selected area between each area addition. You should only have one area selected when recording the maximum star level.

It really is up to you. When you are presented with the list of areas and star levels for you target city/region, you may click on each star level to get Priceline^®'s description of what qualifies a hotel to be placed in that star level.

It is important to point out that the strategies generated here work the best for the highest star levels (especially 4* and greater). The reason for this is that specifying a higher level typically gives you more rebid areas.

Like star level, this is largely a matter of personal taste and your trip agenda. Priceline^® provides an area map for each area with a description of the area.

First of all, you should only bid an amount if you are willing to pay in the event that you are awarded your bid. Remember that hotel rooms that are awarded Name Your Own Price^® are non-refundable.

Here is how we typically determine our bidding range. Please feel free to use it, but remember that it is solely your choice and you are responsible for the amount you bid.

We determine the rate for hotels that typically come up on Priceline.

As a rough guide, we typically take 40% of this rate and use this as our starting rate, you can try a little less or a little more -- it's up to you.

Now we are ready to set our maximum bid. As a rough guide, we select whatever is the lowest of the following:

• 75% of the rate used to set your starting bid.
• The rate quoted by Hotwire.com for a hotel at the closest star level and area for your dates.
• The most you are willing to spend per night for your stay.

You now have your starting and maximum bid. Please feel to deviate from this guidelines -- it's your call.

You have the choice between three bidding modes: Simple, Advanced, and Expert.

Simple produces the easiest to use strategy. You simply keep adding rebid areas until you exhaust them and you never have to logout of and back into Priceline.com^®. Its ease of use comes at a price, the downside is that this mode typically gives you the fewest number of bids.

Advanced is slightly more difficult to use because it requires you to logout of and back into Priceline.com^® once. But for your effort, you typically receive more bids.

Expert is the most difficult to use because it can require you to logout of and back into Priceline.com^® multiple times. But for this extra effort, you typically receive many more bids than either the Simple or Advanced modes provide.

You can also generate and then print out each bidding mode's strategy and use the one that you feel would work the best for you.