Affordable hotel accomodations in the center of Manhattan, New York City...or anywhere else for that matter!

My parents are coming to visit me in NYC. Confident they don't want to share the futon with me and my roommates that include some sneaky cockroaches, I started searching for hotel rooms in Manhattan. What I found was disturbing. The cheapest, half way decent (2 stars) hotel room in Manhattan, on a weekday, was over $200!!!! Decent hotels were starting at $500! Anyway, I started asking around and heard that many NYC visitors stay across the river in Jersey or in one of the Boroughs for about $200 bucks a night to save...and compute in every day and night. This is ridiculous. If you are coming to NYC, you should stay in NYC.

Luckily, I am a student at Columbia University. I quickly looked up our guest housing options and realized that Columbia floors of guest suites, that act just like hotel rooms included TVs, private baths, housekeeping, etc, ranging from $90-150 a night. In the middle of Manhattan!

Intrigued, I began to research and realized that many universities have guest housing that can be used as long as a student reserves it.

So please, use your contacts, get out your address book, and find out whose kid is studying at NYU or Columbia or any other school that is in a city where hotel prices are exorbitant. They are able to reserve you a room by the click of a mouse usually in the center of town!

Here are some links to several guest housing options at Columbia and nearby.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/housing/docs/conference-guest-housing/guest-accomm.html
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/housing/detail.asp?id=Guest+Housing
http://www.ihouse-nyc.org/s/707/index.aspx?sid=707&gid=1&pgid=285

If you don't know any current students, but know alumni of Columbia that are currently member of their university clubs, they also have access to some of New York's finest guest rooms. The Columbia University Club (as well as the Princeton Club, Yale Club, etc) is located in midtown, a stone's throw away from Times Square and offers guest accomodations as nice as a 4-5 star hotel, bars, restaurants, fitness center starting at $190 a night.

http://www.columbiaclub.org/Overnight.htm
http://www.yaleclubnyc.org/Default.aspx?p=DynamicModule&pageid=222944&ssid=69397&vnf=1
http://www.princetonclub.com/bedrooms.htm