Guide to a great rate.(CR Investigates; hotel and motel management)

You're less likely than in years past to see vastly different rates from different hotel-room vendors, for two reasons. First, the chains aren't generally selling excess inventory to travel Web sites such as Hotels.com, Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity at fire-sale rates anymore. The old thinking was that it's better to sell a room for a low price than to leave it empty. And since the travel sites have a huge following--Priceline alone sold 5.7 million rooms last year, up 335 percent since 2000--they're all but guaranteed to put "more heads in beds," as the industry says. In hindsight, the chains realized that their strategy encouraged customer loyalty to the sites, not ...