And, I’d like those which are “safe”- no spyware, pop-ups and such, if possible. Planning a few overnight trips here in CA.
I do have AAA.
I am assuming that you are already familiar with the ubiquitous Priceline.com and all, so I’ll go al little further afield.
Hotels.com has no-bidding discounted rates at a lot of hotels, and they can often, but not always save you some $$. Personally, I value them for being able to get me rooms when everything is sold out. Not always, but sometimes. It appears like they book blocks of rooms in some high-traffic areas and sell them like a middleman. In these cases, you probably won’t get much if any discount, but you WILL get a room. YMMV on this, though. But they are a good resource.
Some airline websites have packages available, flight+car or flight+car+hotel. On occasion, the deal can be cheaper for the package. I won’t go into it here, but some of my frequent flyer friends have booked a package and saved so much on the airfare that the entire package was cheaper than just the airfare alone. Caveat: This is not usually the case, but you should check out the specials.
Go to the hotel websites themselves. I’ve never found a deal at any of the aggregate sites that was appreciable better than what the hotels are charging themselves. Even if you find a good deal, go to the hotel website and you probably can do as well if not better.
Here is an amazing article on lifehacker.
To sum up, you go to a website called Bidding for Travel to see what some recent successful bids are.
You use that information to make a bid on Priceline.
The downside is that you don’t know what exact hotel you will get beforehand, and you have to pre-pay.
I managed to stay at the Sheraton in Houston for $40 a night. I think Econolodge would charge the same amount.
Priceline is very good. Bidding for travel doesn’t seem very up to date but is is useful as a guide. You really do get a Sheraton for the price of a crappy “Quality Inn”. I wouldn’t bid on the lower tier tho. One good strategy is to start with one area and add areas as you raise your bid, as long as you are willing to travel. If you bid 3 star or higher you are almost sure to get a hotel in a decent area. It is even better if you are flexible on dates so you can rebid. Good luck.