I always book directly with hotels. I've never once used a middleman. I figure it's just better to deal with where you will be staying one-to-one right from the start. I often don't even use the hotel's website to book, rather email in and try to "talk" to someone on staff directly. Chat them up.

I usually book directly with the hotel, but I disagree about Priceline. We've gotten very nice hotels in exactly the location we want for less than half of what the hotel was charging.

"the only deals you can expect to get are on undesirable hotels in undesirable locations at undesirable times"

If you get undesirable hotels in undesirable locations - put it down you your own lack of research. Priceline isn't the be all and end all - but for some places it is brilliant. Great for London, terrible for Paris. Wonderful for SFO, very good for San Francisco, bad for Los Angeles.

I've never used Orbitz/Expedia for hotels - no need. And I'd never even consider using them for Europe.

But occasionally they are useful for complicated flight itineraries. Maybe 20% of the time I can get better fares/schedules using Orbitz than w/ the airlines.

For Europe, you're using the wrong sites, no wonder you're getting bad results. Look at booking.com, eurocheap.com, venere.com, maybe even agoda.com (better for Asia). But the hotel website is often the best place, especially if you're willing to pay ahead of time.

Oh, I see you did mention booking.com, don't know why you're getting bad results with them, I've found them very useful. Of course, I deliberately avoid high season, no desire to fight the crowds.

"For Europe, you're using the wrong sites, no wonder you're getting bad results. Look at booking.com, eurocheap.com, venere.com, maybe even agoda.com (better for Asia). But the hotel website is often the best place, especially if you're willing to pay ahead of time."

I've looked at all these sites. These are exactly the ones that are useless. Agoda is particularly deceptive. They never actually show you the added total of hotel and tax. A few others show price *per person* or some other trick.

Priceline has lost a lot of it's value due to it's increased popularity and because most hotels now offer advanced/nonrefundable rates at 10%-20%. This really cuts Priceline off at the knees. Further, with Priceline you don't know what amenities you are going to get. The hotel may not have free wifi. If that matters, this could ad $10-$20 to your hotel cost. You don't know about whether you are getting breakfast, etc. Another small point: with With Priceline you sometimes don't get travel points.

"If you get undesirable hotels in undesirable locations - put it down you your own lack of research. Priceline isn't the be all and end all - but for some places it is brilliant. Great for London, terrible for Paris. Wonderful for SFO, very good for San Francisco, bad for Los Angeles."

I put this comment down to your lack of actual research. London is one of the places I've been looking. I'm going to guess that you haven't tried to book a London hotel on Priceline during high season. I've already tried bidding and have given up at a level where I was within 25% of what I could get with direct booking and advanced purchase directly with the hotel. Priceline came up with nothing. A place like London has no inefficienies in the market, as economists would say. You get what you pay for and no slimey middleman is going to change that.

imhornet: >>I'm going to guess that you haven't tried to book a London hotel on Priceline during high season. <<

Oh - only 6 or 7 times . . . The last about a year ago. Yes - it takes work and perseverance. But it also depends on what you are trying. Longer bookings (more than 2 nights) are harder, and for 5 or more nights one usually has to break it in to two bookings. I normally only bid for London when on a 1 or 2 night stopover. For longer stays I usually rent an apartment.

On another thread you 'accused' me of giving bad info and that certain hotels I mentioned didn't have discounted rates. They do - but again it depends on what you are trying for. London hotel rates can be VERY date sensitive. One may have a great rate for two nights, but the third night may be sky high because of occupancy numbers.

"On another thread you 'accused' me of giving bad info and that certain hotels I mentioned didn't have discounted rates. They do - but again it depends on what you are trying for. London hotel rates can be VERY date sensitive. One may have a great rate for two nights, but the third night may be sky high because of occupancy numbers."

You obviously miss the point. Of course, room prices can vary greatly. Sure, it would be cheaper to go in March than in June. But so what? Deciding to go during on or off season is a whole other discussion. But If you are going to be in London on specific days, you have to live with the rates applicable then. Given this constraint, you aren't going to get any deals at all from hotel booking sites or any great bargains from Priceline. There are ways to save money if you want to work hard and hop around daily from hotel to hotel depending who was cheaper. But even this doesn't change he central point - you can do as well or better from the hotels than from booking agencies and Priceline isn't going to get you any great bargain. Priceline is just a ship that rides up and down with the rate changes. In places and times where there are a lot of empty hotel rooms, maybe you can catch a break. But it isn't going to happen during London tourist season.

BTW. If you can show me how to book a room at the Radisson Blu in anywhere in central London for $200 this summer, I'd be real glad to hear about it.