Bargain luxury in the City
We travel with our two young children to New York 5-6 times a year from the UK to visit my wife's family in Long Island.
For convenience, we usually book a Manhattan hotel for the first night when coming  in on a late flight via Newark, rather than travel across town.
As we are only in the hotel for a few hours we look for a central location, comfort for the whole family and a good deal.  We have consistently found decent value for money midtown hotels using expedia. Our budget for a one night stay is up to £150 per night. In the past we have stayed at Doubletree suites at Times Square which is great for families, this time round it was coming in at £180 so was out of our budget.
I was very surprised to find the New York Palace being offered at £150 per night for all of us including rollaway bed and crib for our kids. This was all the more surprising since the Palace is on the approved hotel list for my work which includes such other luxury properties  as The Regis and The Plaza. The room rate was much below the $450-$550 one would expect for property such as this.
I was trying to find a catch, and thought I had when I spotted that the Expedia description suggested that the room may not have AC which we found not to be the case,  AC was working brilliantly on the July night we stayed. 
This is a great great hotel, immaculately presented, fantastic city views (we were on the 34th floor), and all the facilities you would expect from a hotel in this category. It's very well located being a stone's throw from the Rockefeller centre and numerous other midtown attractions.  The rooms are large and great for families, the toiletries are Molton Brown which pleased my wife, there are many many cable channels available on the large plasma TV. 
All of our interactions with the staff, from the the doormen to the room maids to the desk staff were very positive, this is a hotel that does not disappoint. 
We requested a late checkout and stayed until 1pm. We didn't opt for the $40 breakfast but instead got the concierge to recommend us a nearby diner. The NY Luncheonette was two blocks over and whilst not amazing value for money served great food and was cheaper than the hotel by a long stretch, especially since the hotel would have charged the full $40 for my two year old's breakfast.
Following the huge diner breakfast I worked out in the fitness centre which overlooked St Patrick's and was modern, very well equipped and clean.
In summary, although we didn't stay very long we would definitely go back although I very much doubt we will get the same rate again - what a bargain!