Priceline

Have to give a special shout-out to Cousin Cory for giving me the idea of using Priceline's "Name Your Own Price" feature. Cory, you might not even remember, but you mentioned to me a while back that you snagged a four-star hotel in LA for a ridiculous price a year or two ago, a fact that I quietly filed away in the back of my head for future reference. I'd seen the ads for Priceline, but you were the only person I knew who had ever used it.

Flash-forward to this trip.

With just a few exceptions, I'm staying in hotels every night. My plan had been to stay at budget places like Motel 6, Super 8, etc. But remembering the Cory Story, I used Priceline to book a few nicer places for the the first few days (as well as the crappy Ramada in Cleveland -- but that was my own fault).

I'm now a total Priceline addict! It's like crack (or so I imagine).

As I write this, I'm staying at the absurdly nice Grand Hyatt smack dab in the middle of downtown Denver. How nice you ask? My room has better furnishings than my parents' house. The bed has three decorative pillows to go with SIX "regular" pillows for sleeping. There's a leather club chair with an ottoman, a 32-inch LCD TV, an alarm clock with an iPod dock, and the marble bathroom has its own phone.

Yeah, it's "Phone-Next-To-The-Crapper" nice.

For all of this, I paid $72 + tax. To put that into perspective, the going rate on Orbitz for the stinkin' AIRPORT RAMADA was $89 + tax.

So, if you're keeping score at home... I paid $17 LESS for one of the best hotels in Denver -- a 4-star gem in the middle of downtown -- than what I might have paid for a crappy Ramada by the airport.

I actually think I could have paid even less than $72 -- maybe somewhere in the mid-$60s. Unfortunately, I'll never know. I didn't want to get too crazy with my bidding, which, as I'm learning, is a somewhat nuanced art form.

Now, I'm not sure it's always as easy to get as a good a deal as this, but I've been having pretty good luck thus far. Logic would dictate that I could probably get 1- and 2-star places for next to nothing, but at some point you start to get diminishing returns. And I just took a shot at a 4-star hotel on a lark. In many places I think I could get an upscale 3-star place for $50-$60.

I've stayed in more dumpy roach motels on previous road trips than I can recall (had an actual roach in one outside of Richmond, VA in 2006 -- thing was HUGE -- I'm pretty sure its antennae received UHF broadcasts). Generally, I don't mind them. As long as they have (relatively) clean sheets and hot water, I'm OK. But I've had some looooong days behind the wheel on this trip and I've realized that there's something to be said for settling in at a place that's just a little bit nicer (actually, the jump in quality from 2- to 3-star places is more than just "a little bit") than the true budget places. I suppose it's the one quasi-luxury I'm allowing myself on this odyssey (I've been averaging two meals a day at Subway, which will be covered at a later date).

My whole point with this is not to dwell on where I'm staying, but rather to say that if you're not using Priceline's name-your-own-price feature, you're screwing yourself -- BIG TIME. If you're not brand loyal and don't need to stay at a specific hotel for an event, this is absolutely the way to go. I'm routinely saving 40+% of normal rates.

So just like Cousin Cory spread the gospel to me, I'm using this little corner of the Internet to pass it along to others. If Priceline were a cult, I'd be drinking its Kool-Aid by the barrel.

p.s. If you feel like screwing the system, here's a link with some advice.

p.p.s The bathroom came stocked with some pretty fancy looking "renewing body lotion with lavender & citrus extract" from some snooty sounding spa. Figuring that I could use some renewing, I availed myself of the freebie. Frankly, I've never used body lotion and didn't even know where to put it. The only exposed parts of my body at the time were my arms and neck (I'm assuming -- probably naively -- that one's face isn't considered part of the "body") so I decided to go with that. I'm not sure that I feel renewed, but I smell like a mix between a hot chick and Elton John.