As inspired by the “items found at truck stops” thread, and about ten hours on the Interstate, I found that there’s certain keywords that almost always indicate a lodging establishment is going to be spartan at best.
Anything missing?
After my last stay in New Orleans, I would have thrown Radisson on that list. But my only additions would be Econo or Micro.
[Name of town] Inn
(I had to rack my brains to come up with that. Evidently you came through on our interstate.)
If you’re referring to the Radisson New Orleans Airport, which is in Kenner, 20 miles from New Orleans, you should’ve been clued in by the word “AIRPORT”, which is my submission for this thread.
(The only Radisson in New Orleans didn’t make it through Hurricane Katrina, which is unfortunate because it was an old historic hotel and was very nice.)
Vacancy
.
Per hour. 
Well, round here, that’d just be rare. 
I don’t know if they do this in real life (never been to any motel/hotel I’d call really bad yet), but in shows like the Simpsons they’d give their hotels names like “E-Z Sleep” or “Slee-Z Motel”, so maybe “If the hotel/motel name is spelled in text-speak, you know it’s a bad hotel”
Chalet.
Not entirely pertinent to the thread, but when we first moved to Madison, there was a motel I was a little worried about. We had driven by it a few times, but only at night and the lighted sign announced: MOTEL MAY LOWER. I finally saw the F when we drove by during the day.
Or, V [fizzle fizzle] Y
See also: Now Cooled By Refridgeration!
Free Color TV!
Magic Fingers!
Which, after a few more hours on the road, reminded me to add:
On a sign, AMERICAN OWNED is usually a bad indicator. It’s usually an indicator of a fairly basic independent motel that isn’t owned by Patels. Appeals to racism make me think “what kind of folks would stay there?”
Usually some word in the name is misspelled to be…what, cute? Folksy? Illiterate?
I never understood why a company would deliberately misspell a word in their business name.
Not too far from me is a motel that has its name on a sign visible only to northbound traffic.
Approaching from the southbound side of the highway it appears to be called the
TURN RIGHT OVER BRIDGE
M O T E L
Albuquerque’s “American Inn” and “Express” Motel have been demolished after turning into drug dens where the occasional bizarre murder or suicide took place.
A “Super 6” got locked up after inspectors found numerous meth labs along with faulty gas and electric connections–the sort of thing which could have led to the place being renamed the Sky High Motel (with the slogan “You’ll have a blast!”).
Have pretentious-sounding names…like the “Beverly Hills Arms” or the “Planatation Resort”. You usually have a dirty little swimming pool (with algae scum), and a ratty shuffleboard court as well.
Avoid any establishment that calls itself the “Bates Motel”!
Bates
An ampersand in the motel name: e.g., J&M Motel
:smack:
Okay, I’ll offer up any hotel with “View” in the name.
A highway designation in the name like US 35 Motel is usually not a good sign.
Although now that I think about it, I guess that goes under the OP’s suggestion of any number.