Commute in on the first day. And only as early as necessary, so if you don't get assigned anything, come in the evening of your first day. May not be the right choice if you have a long or multi-leg commute, but its very doable with a single leg and positive space. Remember that they usually wont assign anything that starts before noon on day one and if they do it will never be before 10. I will continue to bid reserve because its always commutable on the front end, unlike 90%+ of our lines.

Crash Pad. It seems to be the norm that pads are month to month so even if you're NYC based for 3 or 4 months you can gain comfort pretty cheaply by getting a pad instead of rolling the dice on which AirBnB you want or booking it and then finding out you got tagged with flying.