hotels.com charge your card immediately, long before your hotel stay, but don't tell you that Nationwide
On October 6 2014 I made hotel reservations for Raleigh NC on November 7-8-9, going thru motels.com and using a credit card. No one mentioned that my card would be charged immediately.
When I received my card statement, I was charged $224 for a hotel stay that had not taken place. I didn't think about the hotels.com reservation, but thought it was a fraudulent charge, so contacted my card provider and they cancelled my card and issued a new one.
I later cancelled this reservation directly with the hotel, but they said only motels.com would be able to issue a refund. When I called them, I was transferred to several different people and finally put on hold for over 10 minutes before hanging up. It seemed like no one could or would settle this in a straightforward way. I strongly recommend that no one use motels.com for any reservation, but unfortunately many motels will not let you make direct telephone contact with them and refer you to motels.com