I am about to do some of you an enormous favor, saving you a heap of cash by again recommending Travelaxe. This is a piece of free software that works as follows: You download it from here. You install it on your computer. Then when you're thinking of going out of town, you call it up and enter your destination and dates. Travelaxe goes online, searches a dozen or so different travel agents' websites, and presents you with a chart of available hotels and what it will cost to book them through each agency. You will usually find that you can save hundreds of smackers by booking through one agent instead of another. I just did a search for a trip I'm thinking of taking. Travelaxe found me a rate of $479 for three nights via one travel agent. The same room in the same hotel for the same nights was $929 from another. That is, as advertised, a heap of cash saved.
A lot of you reading this are planning on attending the Comic-Con International in San Diego from July 17 through 20. If you are, you should go directly to the con's website and book your room immediately. Like right this second. Based on the way it's gone in recent years, they'll be sold out any day now.
As long as rooms are available through the convention, you should book that way. It should give you the cheapest rate, and it helps the con to get credit for filling San Diego's hotels. But once rooms are no longer available through them, Travelaxe is your next resource. It covers many hotels that are not available through the con site. The current Travelaxe software (2.1) also has a feature that lets you arrange the hotels on its chart based on their distance from an address you enter. If you select "San Diego" and enter the address of the convention center, which is 111 W. Harbor Drive, you can see exactly how far each hotel is from the action.
Travelaxe — in which I have no financial interest, no matter how it may appear — is completely free and works for more than 465 cities. It's especially marvelous for finding cheap rooms in Las Vegas. My last trip there, it led me to a rate at the Orleans significantly cheaper than I could get from the Orleans' website or their phone reservations clerk. I'm so confident that this will save you serious bucks that I'm going to put my tipping box right under this item. You will all save so much money that, in gratitude, you'll use the link below to send me a nice gratuity. (I'll let you know in a week or so if this yields more donations than a picture of Julie Newmar.)