Expedia allows you to very quickly sort by price, but the best selection in Manhattan this site could come up with close to our target price was $167 for the Skyline Hotel, located close to the Javits Center, in Hell’s Kitchen. While Hell’s Kitchen has cleaned up considerably and even goes by the nickname Midtown West, it’s not a short walk to most Midtown business destinations, and there are no subway lines in the vicinity. Anything else in this price range was even further away, in Queens or New Jersey.

In San Francisco, Expedia found the Prescott for a rock-bottom $179 a night. There are some special touches, like virtual tours for selected properties, but the hotel blurbs read like ad copy. For example, the fitness center at a Radisson Inn we considered is described as “well-lit.” Overall, we found this site to be speedy but somewhat inconsistent.

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