If your going on a vacation, do you base your hotel stay off ratings, name brand or price?

A combo of ratings and price. Anything above 7.5 on booking is good enough for me (for the average trip).

Location and price.

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location

all i need the room for is to sleep and shower

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Pretty much this. Usually if I’m in a hotel I didn’t come to that city to chill at the hotel.

I blind book hotels if I'm traveling for leisure, which means you don't know what you're getting until it is paid for but you pick the area of town and the star level. There's a bit of learning curve/strategy to this, but you can get some nice stuff for less than $100 if you play it right.

I've stayed in La Pavillon for $60 three times now.

I'm staying at Le Meridien in 2 weeks for $66.

As long as you get 3-star or above, you make sure you don't pick any sketchy areas, and it has 80% or more positive ratings, you're all good.

Location is the most important. I tend to stay in the nicest place I can that’s also closest to what I want to do.

If I’m traveling for work I tend to just pick something next to whatever airport I’m at.

I usually look at the location, ratings and reviews

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I tend to stay in the nicest place I can that’s also closest to what I want to do.

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OT Baller.

Location definitely matters and I forgot to include that in the OP

ratings, location, and price are all huge factors. I have found that the difference in quality between a place like a Motel 6 and a Best Western is tremendous, but the difference between a Best Western and a Ritz isn't that big as far as my enjoyment is concerned. Ratings are important in order to assess the likelihood that the bed will be comfortable and the unit clean, as those are the two most important factors for a decent night's sleep.

RateDrop.com will show the Priceline Express, Hotwire Hot Rate, or Priceline Bidding. I almost always end up using the Hotwire Hot Rate, though, so I just go directly to their site now.

A few caveats: You absolutely cannot cancel for pretty much any reason. Only time I've been able to was when we had the flooding in 2016. You are charged immediately upon booking. I've never ever had an issue with 3rd party, but note that 3rd party is always slightly risky if shite was to happen like the hotel being full.

It is often the cheapest option, but not always. I use it mostly in New Orleans. For example, I just booked Savannah and the blind rate wasn't any cheaper than a huge 2-bedroom house on AirBnb so I went that route.