These aren't top-drawer chains, but I've stayed at two hotels at low special rates: the Colchester, Vt., Hampton Inn at the rate for people visiting patients at Burlington's Fletcher Allen Medical Center, and the North Dartmouth, Mass. Comfort Inn at the rate for the local UMass campus.

In both cases I got everything I asked for or could have expected, including piles and moints. Nobody ever implied that I was a second-class citizen because of the rate I was paying. (BTW, Comfort Inn has a great promo going on now for repeat stays - a bonus of 5,000 Choice Priveleges points after every two stays through year-end.)