Premier inn equivalent in USA ?Budget mid range accommodation in Virginia

I am typing this from a Premier Inn in central Nottingham, I paid £30 for a double room, including all taxes, booking in advance. The room is as good as any of the chains mentioned above but none of these chains have prices like that, not even Motel 6. The prices of the chains mentioned above are at least double, probably quadruple or even more, so there really is no equivalent in the US.

True indeed - we've stayed in the Super 8 in Culver City LA a couple of times (as just one example) - it is more like the equivalent of £100 per night, and there is nothing flash about it ... certainly not as upscale as the couple of Premier Inn properties we have stayed in.

From our experience, really cheap accomm (but nothing as low as £30) is generally only found in small towns or city suburbs with almost no tourist traffic, or in Las Vegas, where rooms are basically given away so you'll gamble on the premises.

Two big differences between Premier Inn and other UK budget hotel chains such as Travelodge (no relation to the US chain of the same name) compared to US chains is the big discount for non-refundable advance booking (often over 50%) and the big differential between different days of the week (Saturday can be more than double Sunday).

Las Vegas works on a constantly changing supply-demand algorithm, with its 155,000 rooms all in the mix. It was explained to me that the price of any given room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel could vary by 80 times, based on demand ... pretty impressive.

Thank you everyone for your helpful replies ....
Not having travelled to the States since the 80s, not too sure on how to get the best deals. Traveling in May this year , and normally when traveling in Europe I tend to book the night before on sites such as Laterooms etc , is this a good idea and available in the US . ? Thanks

There are numerous hotel booking sites--priceline, booking.com, hotels.com. Rates may or may not be prepaid or refundable--you need to check. There also are the major chains: Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, Wyndham--each has their website that covers all of their banners---the rates may be prepapid or not, refundable or not. The sites where you bid (and have to accept your choice if the bid is accepted) often have the best buys, but you really have no choice in the property---these probably work best for urban areas on weekends or resorts outside of their peak season. Otherwise, you're not going to find huge variations across sites.

The sweet travel party size for USA trips is four people who don't mind sharing beds, and can take advantage of the typical two double bed or queen bed room that comes with a very marginal or zero charge for the third and fourth adults in a room.

People have their favourite booking sites, and will defend their choice quite fiercely. Why not spend half an hour comparing the price for a typical roo that you will require? Sites to test could include:

• kayak.com, expedia.com, booking.com
• hotels.com, hotelscombined.com, trivago.com, agoda.com

But as noted above, they're going to be more similar than different. As to whether you can obtain good prices via last-minute booking, this depends very much on your travel plans. For much of the country where tourists are seen, it would not work ... places book out for much of the year.

And there have been many times when we have arrived at our pre-booked accomm in a marginal place, at say 5:00 pm, and it's dead quiet ... but by the morning the carpark is packed and the place is full. Americans travel a lot and they use these car-oriented motels a lot.

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