Inexpensive hotels can be found and booked through the Internet. However, truly finding a bargain online is not easy. Most hotels will discount rooms for a short time daily as occupancy rates change. Using a service that provides you with a chance to bid low on hotel room rates or receive alerts of such discounted rates will position you to book an inexpensive hotel.
Access your favorite search engine and type in keywords such as "best rates on hotels in [named city]." Record the names and locations of well-known hotels to use as landmarks to where the cheaper hotels are located. Three should be enough within about a 10-mile radius of a city area. Carefully make note of the direct phone line to the hotels of interest. Note any guarantees on low rates.
Based on the published rates, know that you can get the rates even lower when a particular hotel's occupancy rate is low. The published rates will be used as your benchmark for the hotels of interest.
Place a call directly to the hotel to indicate that you have heard the hotel is not as well-known as the bigger name hotels but offers an introductory rate for new guests. Gather information details about the hotel: what is going on in the area at the time you wish to visit, and where the hotel is situated relative to a well-known hotel.
If the hotel rate you have is sufficient, book the room. If not, continue the web search for hotels that are less known but show promise of being of great value.
If the efforts in step 6 do not result in an inexpensive hotel booking, resort to going to bidding or special deal sites for hotel rooms such as Hotwire and Priceline. By now, you would have a good idea of what an expensive rate can be as a bid for a hotel room. Finding out the occupancy rate will help you since hotel room management prefer to have a room occupied rather than empty.
