Somehow the words ‘cheap hotels’ have a rather unsavory ring about them. While it is meant to denote good hotels offering cheap rates, it doesn’t quite come out like that. Nevertheless, I put these words in the search engine of my computer and hit the ‘enter” button and sat back waiting to see exactly what I would be offered. Most of the sites have the words ‘cheap hotels’ in their name, others are ‘hotels cheap’ and many advertise ‘discount hotels’. There are many sites which offer to surf all the other accommodation sites for you and bring you a list of hotels in order of cheapness, like this one: “Compare deals on hotels from 200 providers at Cheap Accommodation. We bring together in one place the best prices from the major hotel chains and specialists including Priceline, Ibis, InterContinental, Accor, SRS Hotels, Travelocity, Lastminute and many more. So whether you're looking for a cheap hotel in Amsterdam, Paris, Dubai, New York, or London, we'll make sure you can choose from the best rates available in the market. Don't forget we also list great deals on B&Bs, villas, apartments and hostels.” Then there are hundreds, maybe thousands of websites which offer accommodation at hotels, not necessarily cheap hotels, and with the added facility of being able to book online. I spent an entire evening some months ago sitting in front of my computer looking for cheap hotels in New York. We wanted to be there for about a week. After looking at dozens of sites, and looking at the pictures of their rooms and checking the services they offer, I eventually selected a hotel. I put in all my information and pressed the ‘book it now” button, gave the information on my credit card, got back and even printed out the receipt so that I would have at least of paper in my hand to prove I’d booked and paid for it. We arrived in NY and took a cab. I was already impressed when the cabbie said he knew the place. The hotel was alright. It was everything the website said it would be. But I exploded when I got the bill and discovered that I had not booked my cheap hotel straight with the hotel – the website belonged to a travel agent and he will feature in my coming article on expensive travel agents!