Two trips in a row, I booked surprisingly inexpensive hotel rooms through a hotel-only super-saving web site. Two trips in a row, I made serious mistakes.

At this point in the article, I would ask that you stop reading for a few seconds, close your eyes, and imagine the shower-scene music from the movie, "Psycho." That music is apropos as mental background sound, as we describe the two surprisingly inexpensive hotel rooms.

The first, in Las Vegas, was billed as a three-star property. There's no other way to say it: This flea-ridden stink hole wasn't worth three stars during its last renovation, circa 1960. I've stayed in some shabby motels, but this one was an affront to all senses. I think I was the only occupant whose reservation was for more than an hour. I could have stayed another night at the Aladdin, but moved into this "three star" dump to save a few bucks. Was it worth it? No way!

The second reservation was in Orlando, or at least, it was supposed to be in Orlando. This experience was bizarre in a way that I have difficulty describing (or believing, even months later). This wasn't a hotel, but some sort of shoddily-built timeshare/vacation property club. Apparently, they sell space in these bungalows like a hotel until they've rounded-up a sufficient number of timeshare rubes. In other words, this joint had no idea how to act like a hotel, no motivation to act like a hotel, and an obvious disdain for people stupid enough to try to check-in like hotel guests (that would be me).

As it turned out, the place was miles and miles south of Orlando, and you couldn't enter the property at all before completing a full-page form reminiscent of a job application. Check-in was at 4:00, but they made me sit in my car and wait by their little guard shack for more than an hour while they found the key to my room. Each of the myriad of ensuing problems deserves paragraphs of elaboration, but in the interest of time and space, I'm going to list all of the problems in one giant sentence:

The smoke detector was blaring when I arrived and they didn't have a new battery, there was no phone in the room and they refused to bring one, the water pressure was so low that I couldn't take a shower, there were no curtains nor blinds in one of the windows and the peep-hole in the door was rather frighteningly installed backwards (so as to look in on the room).

So there. That was the Orlando "hotel" that I booked through the super-cheap hotel-only online web site. Was it worth saving a few bucks to prepay for a room at this nightmare nest? No way!

I learned long ago not to try naming my own price for an airline ticket. Allowing the airlines to choose your flight times and connecting-flight itinerary is to invite the exact sort of chronological creativity that I don't need in my life. I bought exactly one name-my-own-price ticket, and I think I'm still supposed to be waiting for a connecting flight through Keokuk. I don't know, I forget: I threw away the ticket.

Conversely, I actually stayed in the Psycho-music-themed hotel rooms, perhaps from a sense of frugality (I'd prepaid for both) or perhaps, due to sheer road weariness. Sometimes, It's tough to haul your junk back down to the car and start looking for a decent hotel room at the end of a long day. That's why it makes a whole boatload of sense to choose wisely when you make your reservations.

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