Discount Hotel Rooms: A Rose by any Other Name?

The New York Times Practical Traveler has a good how-to on using opaque booking sites like Priceline for hotel room discounts. I, for one, am not a fan (of the booking sites—I’ve got no beef with the Practical Traveler). I have a list of no-go properties in most towns, no matter how discounted their rates, so the opaque strategy is too risky for me. Plus, some people believe that the rooms booked through those sites are the worst in any given property, and that your chances of getting walked should the hotel be overbooked are higher.

How do you guys feel about spinning the wheel of fate with these auction-style sites—yay or nay?

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