What do you think are the best websites for finding inexpensive hotels in the US other that using Priceline? I don't like the fact that Priceline makes you pay up front and there are no refunds. I am looking for sites that are easy to navigate and it is easy to determine the price of the hotel.

Depends where you are looking for a room. The sites I like the best are region/city specific. The general sites like expedia/orbitz/etc. all have almost the same inventory/prices. More region specific would be places like vegasfreedom.com and quickbook.com. Some hotels are now starting to guarantee that their direct price will beat all internet pricing.

Make sure you look carefully on other sites, because many of their best rates are also prepaid and nonrefundable.

And I will add that it always pays to check w/the hotel to see if what they quote will match the price of whatever website you are considering, without having it be prepaid. Recently, I almost booked a room in NYC at an incredibly good rate (at Michelangelo) on Expedia, but it was prepay which made me nervous. When I called the hotel I was able to get the same rate (which is one half of their usual rate).

I've used travelocity.com and hotel.com (pre-paid) or, as other posters suggested, dealt directly with the hotel either on the web or by phone--got an incredible deal last year using a hotel website. What I like about pre-paid (have never had a problem in the States or in Europe) is expenses get spread out over billing cycles and are more manageable to pay for and there are no surprise, unexpected charges--it's been my experience that taxes, breakfast, etc. are included in the price. Hope this helps