We are very excited to have three weeks in Spain (May 2011) and have planned our itinerary as follows:
4 nights - Barcelona
4 nights - Malaga as a base - for Nerja, Granada, and Marbella day trips
5 nights - Vejer de la frontera - for some downtime, and also day trips to Cadiz, Ronda, Arcos
4 nights - Sevilla (day trip to Cordoba)
4 nights - Madrid
Most accomodations (Barcelona, Malaga, Vejer, Seville) have been booked, so I am looking for some specific recommendations for a nice, central, apartment or hotel in Madrid. We have been very lucky in securing very well-priced accomodations so far (all in apartments with the exception of Malaga) but I have not spent much time looking at Madrid. We are not fussy, and are mostly looking a for clean, central, and reasonably priced place to stay in Madrid. However, as we were able to save so much for our other accomodations (all have come in very close to or under 100 CDN -after euro to Canadian dollar conversion per night), plus the fact that it is our last stay in Spain, I was thinking we can splurge a bit more and have a max of 150 euro per night for either an apartment or hotel. I am partial to apartments as when we travel it is nice to come back "home" and settle in - plus in our experience apartments are almost always more spacious than hotels!
If anyone has recommendations for Madrid apartments (or hotels) that feel more luxurious than the price per night indicates I'd love to hear about them! I have also been looking into VRBO, and many other rental places online, but I have always found the best recommendations come from the lovely Fodors posters!

we have used Spain Select last year..I think it was about 140 euros for 2 bed.
http://www.spain-select.com/en_US
majority of their apt. are monthly rentals, but there are also daily rentals.

We stayed at Hotel Prado in October. It was clean, comfortable and in a very convenient location. The price included a good breakfast buffet. There are restaurants on a small street that runs in back of the hotel. The hotel is within walking distance of the major art museums and you can take a longer walk to Atocha Train Station or take the subway there for a side trip to Toledo. Check it out-just google it to get the hotel web site.

Pat

Jann_Mitch,
If you don't mind, can you please share the info about apt. in Barcelona and Seville Area. We just booked the flights for 10 days in Spain and now I am need to find accomodation which is reasonably priced (prefer apt. over hotels as it has some cooking facilities and have more space). Thanks.

I began a long thread about Barcelona apartments and received a lot of good leads; look at the link for the HomeAway apartment in Born, with two bedrooms. The owner was a delight to deal with although I did not end up renting from her.


http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-valencia.cfm

We were very pleased with the Hotel Mario - not luxurious but very nice in a simple, modern boutique-style, and a good location. Plugging in random dates in May the website comes up wuth €99-123pn for a double.

5* Madrid (Old Madrid) Westin Palace

Usually can pick it up from $120-150 bidding Priceline

through www.betterbidding.com with www.spg.com get room/suite

upgrades for FREE...awesome value for me save a tonne.

Wow, if you can get the Westin Palace for that amount in Priceline I would go for it. I had looked at Priceline for Madrid a couple of years ago and didn't think that was a regular occurrence.

I can also recommend Hotel Prado. I have stayed there twice, last time was last summer. No bells or whistles , but very clean and decent size rooms, modern bathrooms. Also , great location.

Thank you so much for the helpful leads - very much appreciated!
Travel0102 - we looked at the apartments in Barcelona and Seville on http://www.spain-holiday.com/ It was Ramblas Romantic for Barcelona, and I forget the name for Seville - but I will dig it up and get it for you. When is you trip? I'll be sure to post a trip report which will include reviews of where we stayed!

There were lots of options, depending on the area you wish to stay in, and there were certainly some good deals. Good luck - I found it hard to narrow down the choices!