Truth is, in many big cities a night or two at a nice hotel may end up costing you as much as your airline ticket. But there's hope.
Consumers pay way too much for hotels.
Bob Diener is founder of the Hotel Reservations Network, one of about a dozen hotel discounters. Companies that buy huge blocks of rooms at big discounts and then sell them to you at substantial savings, all without charging you an extra fee. Well, we asked one of the hotel discounters to give us their lowest rate on hotels in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., London and Paris. Now, I'm going to call those same hotels myself, ask them for their best price, and we can compare the difference. Hotels aren't crazy about everyone finding out about these discounters.