The beagledave pack will be going to Chi-town for a few days at the end of July/start of August. (We will be going during the middle of the week, not the weekend).
What kind of techniques do you use to get hotel rooms?
Do you go to places like hotels.com? Do you deal with the hotel directly, either by website or over the phone?
What kinds of techniques have worked for you?
TIA
I booked a weekend break online a while back, congratulating myself that I had found a bargain (Two nights, Double room, bed & breakfast in a *** hotel with pool & health club for £192), when I checked out, the receptionist said 'ah, you booked this online, didn’t you?, winked and charged me the ‘normal’ rate (£140).
My advice: find the hotel online and phone them direct.
Most hotel reservationists will “fade” ie lower prices if they sense some resistance on the part of the caller. "Close the sale " is what they are trained to do. You don’t get that with an internet transaction. So do call.
What dates are you gonna be in Chicago? If you are here while a convention is in, there will be no deals anywhere.
If you want some help, flip me an e-mail, I may be able get something for ya.
I’ve found hotwire.com has very good rates for big cities…
In California we have a free newspaper thing called the Traveller. In it are coupons for
way cheap rooms. catch is you have to come in after 6pm to get the discounts the first night
but after that you get them each night.
Someone just told me about Quikbook.com. It should include Chicago. Supposedly has hotels that are having some portions remodeled, so they drop prices in the available rooms. Haven’t tried it. I usually go online to hotels directly. Sometimes check out the auto club site.
CHeck out hotels that are on online services (hotwire, yahoo travel, etc.) then check out the hotel listings in the area (yellow pages). Find one that doesn’t show up on the hotel online services and give them a call.
A lot of times I want to stay on the cheap. Do my research and find what looks like the lowest rate. Then when I get there I see some fairly nice looking local places advertizingb rates lower on their signs.
Okay,
find out if your employer (or your wife’s employer) has a travel dept or is associated with an agency. See if they would be able to make your reservation for you at the company rate, if that’s doable have them quote you some options at their convenience. If you end up getting the best quote from them, they can make your reservation then you’ll pick it up w/ your personal card.
Get some online quotes to compare. For online travel quotes I usually use Expedia or Orbitz at work, but they aren’t necessarily the big “bargain” sites. They generally will only show major chains or well rated hotels, non-corridor (no exterior door entry, like yer classic Motel, which can be a safety issue in many neighborhoods).
Take the the best quotes you get for hotels that sound like somewhere you’d like to stay (to evaluate hotels, both Expedia and Orbitz have rating systems, plus you can just type in most hotel names and find many “travel booking websites” that can give a quick idea of what they offer/how they are generally rated)
and call the hotel’s front desk. Don’t call their 800 “booking” number, that’s often an out-of-town reservation center, and they have no particular incentive to get you to stay at any particular property, the in-house reservation people are more likely to give you a discount based on how booked they are.
Your online or traditional agencies get a fee from the hotel, but sometimes they also buy large blocks of rooms to get a reduced rate, so you won’t know unless you call if the individual hotel will give you a bigger discount by reserving directly…
You still could always just show up and might get a cheaper rate, or find a cheaper rate next door, but often that will be the sales manager trying to fill an empty hotel in an off week by beating the hotel next door.
Super Cheapskate (Daaaad, stop ruining our vacation) Tip 
Make your reservation not guaranteed (and make sure you don’t get there late or you’ll lose your room), then stop by a couple of other properties nearby and see if they can beat it, then cancel your original reservation… I did this once by accident in Oakland, got completely lost in construction, couldn’t find my way to the road to get to my reserved hotel, stopped at another hotel completely at random to use the phone or stay there if it seemed like too much trouble. Ended up in a suite w/ a jacuzzi for 45$ 
Seems like too much trouble to do deliberately tho… once I’m on vacation I want everything to be aaalll set up so I can relax.
Yes look for a non guarantee hotel or mor elikely a cancelable reservation. Most major chains will allow you to cancel up to 4 or even 6pm the night of. If you are getting there sooner you can check out the competition.