Anyone ever collect those Travel Coupon Guides you find in rest areas?

[Pete from Boston]

I find with Priceline that if you're booking in a small enough area that you can usually guess the hotel before you book it. If you're booking into a town that only has one Days Inn or Holiday Inn and you see that your star rating matches up with one of those chains, odds are that that will be it. In bigger cities, it can be a crapshoot.

I've never had a bad experience with Priceline.

Best experiences with it: stuck overnight at an airport in places with a glut of hotels nearby. 

When I have more time, my hotel app of choice is Kayak because it aggregates several major sites, most of whose prices vary little anyway.

[jeffandnicole]

I've used Priceline and Hotwire on very rare occasion.  Same goes with Expedia and any 3rd party site where you can see the prices.

I prefer to use Hilton and/or Marriott branded hotels because of the points I collect with them thru credit card usage, and I almost always book direct via the website.  I generally look around to see what deals are offered, and will look at the various price points of cash, points, and points+cash.  I don't travel for business so I don't accumulate a whole lot of points, but by being smart when I use credit cards and staying at hotels, I can make those points last a while.

Sorry, but I'm not willing to prepay for an unknown hotel sight-unseen, even if I save a bunch of money. I want to know where I'm going to be staying. Plus, I've heard stories of nonsmokers being put in smoking rooms and other unpleasantries.

That can occur in almost any hotel, no matter how you book.  Since many hotels have very few smoking rooms, it doesn't happen as often anymore, but the lower class hotel you book, there's also a chance the non-smoking room has been smoked in, so you can be screwed either way.  In one recent case in Atlantic City, I was there at check-in time and supposedly they only had smoking rooms available, even though I booked directly with the hotel.  The excuses were a large group checked in early, and they were having issues getting a large group from the night before to leave.

It's funny how hotels work- I worked at a 425 room property, and on busy nights when I'd get in the pickings were pretty slim as far as room assignments went. All the "good" rooms get taken by demanding guests at the beginning of the day, and they tired people who limp in just wanting to go to bed would get stuck with the shittiest rooms as far as possible away from parking or in rare cases would have to be relocated to other hotels.

All travelers can be picky.  I know myself I prefer top floors but rarely get them, even with being a member of the hotel's rewards system.  But sometimes it can be a pain...top floor may mean waiting longer for the elevator, and longer elevator rides. 

When it comes down to it, most travelers simply are going to use the room to sleep in, get ready, shower, etc.  Except when they first arrive, they will probably never look out the window.  For those tired late night guests, they aren't even going to look out the window, they just want a bed.  They'll complain if they're too far down the hall.  Yet, they'll complain if they're too close to the elevators, because the elevators are too noisy and the people walking down the hall will keep them up late or wake them up early. 

[GCrites]

One thing that people into bikes, cars racing and all that hate is how motels are all being built now 5 stories tall with inside access only. Crooks love to steal race cars out of hotel parking lots. At least you could mitigate it at the old 2-story, external access kind. And the bad guys knew it too, they didn't want you running out the door 5 feet away from them with a gun. Now if you see someone fooling around with your stuff you get to call the cops who will not show up in time since you're stuck on the 5th floor inside.