I am paying 45usd a night at the crown plaza near lax. bidding on priceline is a little tricky, you have to use the options "name your own Price" Basically what happens is that you choose your location in LA and the hotel star rating. Then you would input a price that you would be willing to pay for (basically a very lowball! If you book my crown plaza through their website its 120usd a night, i lowballed 45usd and got it) Then you actually have to put down your credit card, because if they find a hotel that matches your description and they accept the price the reservation is made automatically.
It does seem iffy that you do not know what hotel it is until the end, but you save alot of money compared with booking through other websites. The good thing about this is that you are able to choose the area and hotel rating; so you will know with your bid amount you will get what you have chosen. There is a website/forum where people actually post what their bidding winners are, so you basically have an idea how much a night is for that specific area/hotel rating.
http://www.betterbidding.com/index.php?showforum=428&
So just take alook at what other people have won and you will get an idea of what you will pay in that area/hotel star rating. You save a lot of money by going through priceline as the rates are around half of what other websites and the hotel charge.
When my girlfriend and I booked through priceline, we were quite happy with getting a 3.5 star hotel near LAX for only 45usd, shitty motels/inns cost even more then that!