priceline.com works great in a depression

In the last couple of weeks, I have used priceline.com twice for hotel rooms. In big cities where higher-end hotels were asking $250-400 per night on their Web sites and through Expedia, I was able to get rooms for $125 per night. It seems that hotels are afraid of tarnishing their brand by offering deep discounts at the last minute, but they are happy to do it through Priceline where only the buyer knows that they sold off a room that otherwise would have gone vacant. In a growing economy there would be a serious risk of ending up with nowhere to sleep, but in our current depression there is virtually no chance of all of the hotels in a town selling out. Unless you need to stay in a specific hotel for an event, priceline.com a day or two before seems to be the way to go.