Hotels.com.... have you tried it yet?

We have a few family trips coming up in the next few months, so I've started working through the travel details.  We'll be heading to Nashville in a few weeks, so that trip is the one I'm currently working on, and I've started with our hotel.

Have you tried hotels.com yet?  I'd heard of it for a while, but it wasn't until a year ago that I started using it.  In the past I'd usually search Expedia for hotels, then compare what I found there directly with the hotel's site, but I think I'm now a true convert to hotels.com. 

What I like about hotels.com:

• After booking & staying 10 nights through them (at an assortment of hotels & chains - doesn't all have to be the same one), you get the average price of all ten stays in a "credit" to use at your next stay.  Basically, you get a free night, but one worth the average price of all your previous stays.  This average price "credit" can be used toward any hotel, even one that costs more than your credit (you will just have to pay the difference in price).  My husband uses hotels.com when he travels for work, so we can use business & personal nights to "log" our 10 nights, getting us to a free night faster! 
• You can put a location - a city, a highway, etc. that you want your hotel near, and it will pull up all the hotels around your location, tell you how much each costs at a "quick glance", and the exact distance from your location to the hotel.  I LOVE this feature.  I used it last night as my husband will be doing research at an archives in Nashville, so I put in the archives building address and was able to see all the hotels around it so we don't end up staying 15 miles from where we'll have to drop him off & pick him up each day when I take my little men off to play.  I've also used this feature when I was going to be driving from IN to NY - I put in my location as the highway I was going to be on (right outside a city I knew was about half way), and found hotels right on my path so I didn't have to veer too far off the highway when I pulled over for the night.
• You can enter your search parameters, including price range for hotel, pool, free breakfast, etc. so you only see the hotels that fit your criteria!  LOVE this.  Unfortunately, I can't tell if something has free internet, which is one thing I'd change if I could... you can only select "internet".  
• The hotel's cancellation policy is clearly laid out.
• REVIEWS in order of most recent to most distant.  This option is an important one, as I thought I'd found the perfect hotel last night in my price range with all my criteria, when my husband said, "What do the reviews say", at which point I found out that a week ago a reviewer found BED BEDS in the room.  That piece of info changed my mind 100% about staying there (I'm not taking a chance!)
• Price Match Guarantee:
  
  The hotels.com Price Match Guarantee protects your pocket book and takes the worry out of booking a hotel room. After you book with hotels.com, if you find a lower publicly available rate online for the same dates, hotel, and room category, we will match the price and refund you the difference.
  And unlike some of our competitors, we will match the price right up to the time of the property's cancellation deadline, whether that is three days after you made the reservation or three months. So stop worrying and start booking.
• Pictures of the room, eating area, pool, etc., a "know before you go" section, and additional info all clearly laid out.  I like that all the hotels I'm looking at through hotels.com are laid out in the same format, making it easy to quickly scan through.  

 The only thing I DON'T like about hotels.com, is that when you make your reservation the ENTIRE cost of your stay is charged on your credit card right then.  If the hotel allows for cancellation, you can get your $ back in accordance with their cancellation policy, but if you're not ready to pay for your trip when you book, it can be a bit intimidating.  Still, as long as I determine from the hotels cancellation policy that I can cancel later, I will book my room (my husband calls me the "Queen of Returns").  Remember, each hotel has a different cancellation policy, so check out their rules (thankfully they're easily found on the hotels.com site).  

So, if you have a trip coming up - try it out!  Happy traveling.