Any Hotel Receptionists.

[Flatbellyfella]

Unsure of my travel days & locations, so do not want to pre book acomodation, is it usually more expensive to just walk into a Hotel to get a room for the night, rather than book on line?

Yes, much more expensive. I’ve often paid less than £100 for a room, but the hotel will have its rates displayed in reception for walk-ins and they’re usually two or three times as much!

If you see a hotel you like you can still book it online at short notice

Yes because you’ll pay the rack rate i.e. the most expensive rate without any discounts applied, and also sometimes they might be sold out of the cheapest room category so you have to go for something more premium than you usually would, or worse they’re sold out of everything so they there’s no room available for you.

You could look to see if there’s a flexible rate that allows cancellation the day of. These aren’t massively common but do sometimes exist. Where this isn’t available cancellation up to 6pm the day before is very, very common - surely you’ll know your plans by then? And whilst the flexible rate will be more expensive than a pre-pay rate it’ll be cheaper than the rack rate so definitely worth doing it that way if you can.

the hotel tonight app can be great (esp cities) but some websites allow you to cancel bookings v late notice without penalty…