What about the travel auction sites such as Priceline and Hotwire? Then there is the support forums to these sites such as betterbidding.com and Biddingfortravel.com.

I think you could dedicate a whole term to the strategies sometimes involved in getting the hotel you want at the right price.

Other tasks "how to identify the mystery hotels" that some of the discount sites offer - i.e. they give you some information but don't tell you exactly what hotel you're getting until you book.