Best time to book hotels

[Bazinga 39]

Hi, I’m planning for a west coast trip for next year and over the last couple of months I’ve been looking at possible hotels to stay at, for those of you that have done this before when do you find the best time to book to get the best prices, I’m looking at booking.com, hotels.com, etc

[cornishfrogboy]

I rather like ebookers (part of Expedia) as I get a good workplace discount and in addition have found them good when I have needed to cancel in recent months.

If travelling ‘peak season’, then popular Hotels, particularly in SFO near to Fishermen’s Wharf seem to sell out rather quickly.
The usual argument seems to be whether to book very early or leave it till late. Clearly with demand being high, then booking late may not be wise.

With this in mind, I book ASAP after having purchased my flights.. with free cancellation in the terms and conditions.
After these initial bookings, I then frequently check on both my chosen hotel and others. If I see a better hotel or better price on the same one, I simply cancel and rebook.

As an example, I was due to stay in the Hyatt in Oakland in a few weeks time for 4 days. I booked at £1120 inc breakfasts with a bay view. A month or so later it was down to £962 so I cancelled and rebooked. I was still checking afterwards and would have repeated the exercise in order to make a further saving. Obviously the whole vacation is now ditched and I have cancelled completely. This was simple to do as I could cancel at 48 hrs notice and in any case it was pay on arrival.

Hoping this helps.

[Bazinga 39]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

I rather like ebookers (part of Expedia) as I get a good workplace discount and in addition have found them good when I have needed to cancel in recent months.

If travelling ‘peak season’, then popular Hotels, particularly in SFO near to Fishermen’s Wharf seem to sell out rather quickly.
The usual argument seems to be whether to book very early or leave it till late. Clearly with demand being high, then booking late may not be wise.

With this in mind, I book ASAP after having purchased my flights.. with free cancellation in the terms and conditions.
After these initial bookings, I then frequently check on both my chosen hotel and others. If I see a better hotel or better price on the same one, I simply cancel and rebook.

As an example, I was due to stay in the Hyatt in Oakland in a few weeks time for 4 days. I booked at £1120 inc breakfasts with a bay view. A month or so later it was down to £962 so I cancelled and rebooked. I was still checking afterwards and would have repeated the exercise in order to make a further saving. Obviously the whole vacation is now ditched and I have cancelled completely. This was simple to do as I could cancel at 48 hrs notice and in any case it was pay on arrival.

Hoping this helps.

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Hi that helps a lot thanks very much, can I ask if you pre pay for your hotels or use the option to pay at the hotel?

[KarenG]

I have found it depends on the place I’m staying and what is going on there at the the time (sorry that’s so vague but it reinforces CFB’s point - if it’s peak season or a busy time (not always peak season in cities as the workers may be on vacation themselves!) booking early preferably on a cancellable rate tends to be good).

I despaired of getting an OK hotel in San Francisco because the prices were so high, but a very big convention got cancelled and loads of rooms came on very cheaply.

I would not use the option to pay in advance any more (accepting you can win or lose on the exchange rate) due to the issues people have had getting refunds from COVID.

So my long winded answer is that sometimes I book a year in advance and sometimes a few weeks. It all depends.

Hotwire and Priceline have usually ( not always) been great for us to save money and have nicer hotels.

I also wonder if old tactics will work in the COVID world, one would assume there are millions of hotel rooms lying vacant and they will want to fill them - which would reduce prices. But they may be obliged to shut hotels as capacity can’t be filled - who knows!

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Bazinga 39

Hi that helps a lot thanks very much, can I ask if you pre pay for your hotels or use the option to pay at the hotel?

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I prefer to pay at the Hotel. In the event of 'issues', then it is easier to cancel with no money yet involved.

As an example, I was booked to stay in the Tilt Hotel in Hollywood.. (to be taken in a few days time). I paid £456 up front.
When I cancelled a month or so back, they only initially returned £215.50. I went to EBookers/Expedia and had to explain the story, forward copies of my credit card statements and attempts at correspondence. I eventually got the remainder back, but it would have been one heck of a lot easier if no money had changed hands in the first place. Needless to say, I will not be booking with this Hotel wnen I reschedule my vacation to Aug of 2021.

[Bazinga 39]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

I prefer to pay at the Hotel. In the event of 'issues', then it is easier to cancel with no money yet involved.

As an example, I was booked to stay in the Tilt Hotel in Hollywood.. (to be taken in a few days time). I paid £456 up front.
When I cancelled a month or so back, they only initially returned £215.50. I went to EBookers/Expedia and had to explain the story, forward copies of my credit card statements and attempts at correspondence. I eventually got the remainder back, but it would have been one heck of a lot easier if no money had changed hands in the first place. Needless to say, I will not be booking with this Hotel wnen I reschedule my vacation to Aug of 2021.

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Thanks for that, I have been trying to pick hotels with that option so we part with as little money as possible at first

[Fireworks]

I always book hotels that offer free cancellation and pay on arrival, booking via topcashback or quidco, usually with ebookers or expedia.

By doing this you can book the hotel, locking the price in at the time you book and then keep cancelling and rebooking if the price goes down, and I also managed to get 12 or 13% cash back on all our hotels last year.

[kateb78]

Agree with what everyone has said already!

I booked all my hotels about 10 months in advance just to have “something” booked. During the next 9 months I changed some of the hotels a couple of times and rebooked every time I saw a better deal. I reckon I saved hundreds of pounds doing this.

Just before we went I was ready to lock in hotels at prices I was happy with - so in some instances I booked using various voucher codes (mainly from ebookers and Expedia, but sometimes with the hotels directly) or I used topcashback and prepaid for my booking. That way I was able to control my budget for what I was going to spend in the US without having any exchange rate calculations.

It could be time consuming but I quite enjoyed it as it felt like bingo! The cost savings definitely made it worthwhile.

[Bazinga 39]

Originally Posted by kateb78

Agree with what everyone has said already!

I booked all my hotels about 10 months in advance just to have “something” booked. During the next 9 months I changed some of the hotels a couple of times and rebooked every time I saw a better deal. I reckon I saved hundreds of pounds doing this.

Just before we went I was ready to lock in hotels at prices I was happy with - so in some instances I booked using various voucher codes (mainly from ebookers and Expedia, but sometimes with the hotels directly) or I used topcashback and prepaid for my booking. That way I was able to control my budget for what I was going to spend in the US without having any exchange rate calculations.

It could be time consuming but I quite enjoyed it as it felt like bingo! The cost savings definitely made it worthwhile.

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Thanks for your reply some great info there, I am more than happy to spend the time researching especially when it saves some money😀