Thank you for those tips.
The sites that I have fund the lower rates on, in the past, were ones like orbitz.com , travelocity. com , expedia. com , roomsusa.com , and arestravel.com for rooms in California.

I have checked all of those, and then some, all to no avail, for the ones I am currently looking for. I will I guess keep checking...but the availability has certainly tightened up on them.

I am still aprehensive re the above situation, where the hotel owner called me immediately upon received the $0 rated reservation, saying he could not do that, etc...it will be interesting to see how that plays out.

If you have any more booking sites to share, that would be great.
I found one today called hotelclub.net but it seems to work a little differently...and when I read the About Us page, it is owned by Cendant Corporation!!

Thanks again!