[Abridged] If both the day-side and night-side effective temperatures of a planet can be measured, it is possible to estimate its Bond albedo, 00.8 micron- to estimate day-side effective temperatures, T_d, and thermal phase variations -when available- to estimate night-side effective temperature. We strongly rule out the 'null hypothesis' of a single A_B and epsilon for all 24 planets. If we allow each planet to have different parameters, we find that low Bond albedos are favored (A_B<0.35 at 1 sigma confidence), which is an independent confirmation of the low albedos inferred from non-detection of reflected light. Our sample exhibits a wide variety of redistribution efficiencies. When normalized by T_0, the day-side effective temperatures of the 24 planets describe a uni-modal distribution. The dimensionless quantity T_d/T_0 exhibits no trend with the presence or absence of stratospheric inversions. There is also no clear trend between T_d/T_0 and T_0. That said, the 6 planets with the greatest sub-stellar equilibrium temperatures (T>2400 K) have low epsilon, as opposed to the 18 cooler planets, which show a variety of recirculation efficiencies. This hints that the very hottest transiting giant planets are qualitatively different from the merely hot Jupiters.