Well, perhaps the generally-strong hotel market is working against you. Those are low rates you were able to get from Fairfield in the past. That's great. But now, maybe that FI isn't having a whole lot of trouble getting $70-80/nt.

I feel for you: $110 is a tight per-diem. That's lower than I've ever heard for anyone on a full per-diem (as opposed to just a meals per-diem, with cars & hotels on receipts). That truly does squeeze you down into a Fairfield Inn, and even then it assumes you're eating cheap and not logging many personal auto miles. (Definitely not renting a car!)

Are there any Baymonts in the area? I stayed in one of those once and it was tolerable as roadside motels go. The Sleep Inns that I've seen tend to have a nice, clean look to them, but I've never been inside one.

Whenever I do a motel stay, it's almost always at Hampton Inn. When I start to get tired, I just start looking for the next Hampton sign along the highway, and usually it pops up within a half-hour or so. The catch is that Hampton is rarely priced below Fairfield, so across 100's of nights where the exact room rate is important, it probably won't be a good option for you unless it's a really skeezy Hampton Inn.