bhatnasx

Quite a bit of experience actually. I was a consultant for the hotel industry for several years and am very familiar with the ecommerce and OTA side of the business. There is a contingency of PL travelers who are in fact business transient guests, but there's a greater contingency that is not. The business traveler, or frequent traveler, IMHO, is more likely to publically participate in this and other forums as they are the more involved in the travel world - however, a great many travelers that use PL will never post on or refer to a travel forum at all - so you likely don't get their persepective.

If you actually buy breakfast, lunch, or drinks (and I'm not talking about a soda from their market area), then you're an exception to the majority of PL travelers.

The profit margin on a $35 room is minimal at best. An average 2* hotel (non-unionized) probably has a CPOR (cost per occupied room) of about $20 - a $3* non unionized is probably about $25-$30, and a 4* is about $30-40. Unionized hotels are generally higher. So, yes, anything above their CPOR is technically profit, but there's also wear/tear on the rooms.

Also, the majority of 2.5* and below hotels do offer breakfast inclusive rates & likely don't have lunch or bar service. Many 3* hotels also offer complimentary breakfast these days as well. Pretty much the only hotels that don't offer complimentary breakfast are independent hotels, full service chain hotels, casino hotels, resorts, and some limited service brands, like Hilton Garden Inn and Courtyards (many of which qualify for 3* ratings on Priceline) - and with the exception of HGI & CY hotels, those are mostly 3.5*+, which you generally won't find for $35 unless you have a desperate hotelier who has no concept of yield management.

One other point to make is that, IME, the traveler paying $200 for a room is less demanding than the traveler paying $75 for that room, who generally has a higher sense of entitlement. You'd think its the other way around, but ask any general manager of a hotel & they'd rather that the less high-maintence premium travelers (who travel more & therefore understand that things happen when traveling - ever notice that the people who are complaining at the airline counters are rarely, if ever, the experienced biz travelers? Same thing goes at the hotel front desk).

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Total side note...by "trashing of rooms", I don't necessarily mean like a rockstar trashing a room - I mean other things, like smoking in the room in a non-smoking hotel, spilling beer on the carpeting that now makes the room stink of alcohol and carpeting/desks being overly sticky with residues & requires a deep cleaning so it doesn't mildew, leaving bloody towels, broken glass that can injure housekeepers, stealing towels, etc, etc...these are just small examples of things seen in the hotel world. For what its worth, many hotels no longer take cash paying guests unless they have a credit card for incidentals because cash paying guests are usually even worse...it's okay to pay cash at checkout, but many won't take cash at check-in because of things like this.