Hi Everyone, In 2020 I booked a holiday to the USA for late 2021. Room rates for the Marriott hotel where we wanted to stay were quite high, but because we got a ridiculously good deal for our flights we didn't mind so much. (It was of course a speculative booking because no one knew at that point when or how quickly a vaccine would roll out and hence when it would be safe to travel again, but the hotel was cancellable up until the day before, and the flights are rearrangeable.) Anyway, while in our case we will probably decide to defer our trip until 2022, I wanted to share a recent experience, in case it helps anyone else save some money. The other day, I went back to the Marriott website, searched for the same hotel and room on the same dates as before, and found the total booking cost was now $100s of dollars cheaper than when I originally booked! So of course, we rebooked at the now much cheaper rate, and simply cancelled the first booking. I suspect what had happened is that the hotel had received a lot of cancellations in the meantime, and room prices had been reduced accordingly. So I guess my tip is that if you have a trip planned for later this year involving a cancellable hotel room booking, it might be worth re-checking the prices for your dates to see whether you too could save a ton of money.
Cheers Richard! - Good tip. I'm currently checking my various IHG points reservations pretty much daily to see if a bargain rate pops up.
