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Most hotel chains offer a discount for booking a prepaid, or non-cancellable hotel stay. Admittedly, the temptation to save money can be high. I highly recommend that you don’t book prepaid rates, however, and eventually I’ll write a full post explaining why.
But for now, I wanted to share my recent experience with booking (and re-booking, and re-booking) a short hotel stay in Las Vegas. I was going to spend a few days there, moving around between a couple of hotels to pick up stay and night credits to finish off my annual requirements for elite status with SPG and Hyatt.
Initial Booking – 4 October
I decided to book a couple of nights at the Excalibur hotel.
This is nobody’s idea of a luxury hotel, but it does have the substantial advantage of being the cheapest hotel on the Strip that participates in the MLife programme. I’m not sure whether anybody has written about this at InsideFlyer UK, but World of Hyatt members can earn points and night credit when staying at Mlife properties in Las Vegas.
Since I typically spend little time in my room during my trips to Vegas, I booked this…
Checking Back Again – 10 October
After a few days, I took another look at room rates, and the rate had dropped. So I cancelled my first booking and made a new one…
The Next Day…
It didn’t take long for the rate to drop again, so yet again I cancelled and re-booked…
And Finally…
The rate was so low that I decided to stay an extra night – cancelling a separate reservation elsewhere using points – so that I would earn an additional Hyatt elite qualifying night.
Conclusion
This might be an extreme example due to the impact on hotel occupancy of the recent attack in Las Vegas. But I managed to receive three nights for the price of the original two. I only managed this because I:
- Didn’t book a prepaid, non-cancellable hotel rate when I confirmed my trip to Las Vegas
- Spent a couple of minutes per day to see whether room rates had changed
What about you? Do you have a similar story to share?
Are there any tools out there which can automatically check for price drops based on your booking?
Not that I am aware of. I believe there used to be something called Yapta, but last time I checked they didn’t support hotels any more.
Hi Craig, thx so much for this. I thoroughly agree, my only slight caveat would be if you need something very specific (e.g. a family room) – these tend to run out more quickly so less chance of discounting if you wait? We are often in that position so I sometimes just take a judgement as to whether I think the prepaid rate is reasonable or not? ?? – xxxxx
I’ll definitely write a full and more generic post at some point. But even for family reunions or really fixed dates / hotels, the only harm in booking a flexible rate is a slightly higher room rate that won’t increase post-booking. But if the rate goes down you can save big. Nothing worse than booking a £159 prepaid rate and then you notice a month later than the rate has dropped to £119…
Definitely agreed!! I think only ever go for the prepaid if you really can’t envisage it dropping any lower? We had a recent one (Glasgow Courtyard Marriott) where we were getting a family room for £72 & this did seem like a real bargain?
Watch me be proved wrong & it’s down to £52 now??!! – xxxxx