How to get a good hotel deal in San Diego?

[Marvin_Hecht]

Hi,

I'll be driving down to San Diego next week for a family vacation. We want to stay in some kind of Beach Resort Hotel on the Ocean in or right around San Diego (e.g. Oceanside, Del Mar), but we want it to be right on the beach. For example http://www.paradisepoint.com/ looks really good. There's the famous Del hotel but that one's kind of expensive.

How do I get the best deal? It seems a good deal is something like $150-$200 a night since they normally run more like $200-300. I'm pretty good at scourering the net and it's hard. I've searched Hotels.com, Expedia.com,
travelzoo.com and come up with some OK deals.

I might be open to Priceline, but the one time I did Priceline, my significant other got really sick on those dates, but we drove there anyway to stay in the hotel (sick) because we couldn't get our money back -that sucked.

If any of you are local and just know a place that is a good value for their regular price, I'm open to that too.

Thanks Marvin.

[der affe]

it's been a while , but you can get a better deal if you stay on the "bay side" rather than the "ocean side" . if you stay on the last bay...i think it is called mission bay also even though the whole thing is called mission bay.... then it is almost a matter of going across the street to the ocean. if you want to stay in a hotel you can stay in the bahia (sp) i remember that it was not cheep , but reasonable, or you can stay in one of the MANY beach condos/casitas/apartments for decent $ too. if you are dead set on staying on the "ocean side" the surfrider and the beach cottages weren't bad either.
greg

[browntown]

find a hotel you like, see if they list "events" on their home page. Find a wedding reception the weekend you want to stay, call up and ask for the special rate for the "jones-smith wedding".

Generally you can get a 100$ room.