Competition and choice have made booking a hotel room online increasingly more complicated. It's always best to start with the large travel Web sites, like Orbitz.com, Expedia.com, and Travelocity.com. All of them offer competitively priced hotel rooms, as well as car rentals and airline tickets.

Because of the buying power of these larger sites, you’re bound to find a low rate quickly. Orbitz, for example, works with more than 14,000 hotels for its OrbitzSavers program. “We have specially discounted rates with them that can be 70 percent off retail rates,” said Kurt Weinsheimer, Orbitz’ vice president of hotels. “And we work with an additional 65,000 hotels at competitive retail prices.” Orbitz Saver Rates require prepayment, a feature that’s becoming common on these sites.

Then there are the nationwide hotel brokers, such as Quikbook.com and Hotels.com. They cover dozens of cities, promising a room at a discount, at anywhere from 10 to 40 percent off the published rate.

These more-focused sites tend to have perks that some of the allinone services lack. "Quikbook has a shortcut function," said Doug Greenberg, a spokesperson for Quikbook. "You access it on the homepage and you'll go to a menu with ten shortcuts, like hotels with high speed-Internet, petfriendly hotels, or hotels near an airport. This could take hours on another site."

There are also dozens of specialized hotel brokers that focus on one city, such as San Francisco Reservations, or on a few key destinations, such as Express Reservations. That site works with just New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Last, but not least, are hotel chain Web sites, like those for Westin and Hampton Inn, as well as individual hotel Web sites.

Many of these sites are selling the exact same room at the exact same time, but rarely at the same price. So who has the best price on a consistent basis, and which sites are the easiest to use?

How We Tested
The first test case was to book a hotel room in New York City for a twonight, midweek business trip.

We were looking for value, not just low price, in this expensive city. A low price alone in New York can easily land you in a bona fide dump, so we had no interest in checking out twostar properties, which are usually budget lodgings at the fringes of Manhattan.

Instead, we went after a threestar hotel in Midtown. The three-star designation covers a very wide range of hotels, prices, and amenities. We decided that the magic number was a threestar property at around $150, which is a very modest amount to spend on lodging in Manhattan.

For our second test, we decided to choose a specific property, the Prescott Hotel in San Francisco. This fourstar boutique hotel is a member of the cool Kimpton hotel group, and offers free WiFi as well as a complimentary wine reception every night. You’re a block from Union Square and within walking distance to almost everything in the city. Our test booking was for a weekend stay.

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