I've never been able to find a room last minute by stopping in a hotel and asking to stay the night. They always say they're full.
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Interesting. I rarely have a reservation when driving on a multi day trip. Instead, I use the fact that it's already late as leverage to get a lower rate. I'm about 50/50 on getting that to work. I'm not the best sales person, so I bet someone who is more persistent would be more successful. I have the best luck when the hotel clerk is younger.
I tend to drive mostly in the western US, specifically Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, the Dakotas, or Nebraska. Where are you trying it?
There's an industry term for that. It's called the Fade Rate, and it's offered at a large portion of hotels if you arrive very late and ask about it.
Fade rates, or manager's rates, are becoming a problem. Some big online booking schemes require "best available rates" be given to online bookings. Ad-hoc discounts to late night walk-ins are thought a violation of that agreement unless they are also made available to the online scheme. A manager's ability to turn away horrible bookings is also undermined. That group of drunken fratboys have now booked through a smartphone app. Try to pull the "we are overbooked" routine with them and you will be downrated very quickly, likely triggering action from your chain.
A while back I read a fun article about how online booking contracts were "unchristian". The christmas story sees a hotel manager make available a sub-standard room at a discount rate to a desperate walk-in family. Do that today and travelocity will be on your back about not publishing that "best rate" online.
> A manager's ability to turn away horrible bookings is also undermined. That group of drunken fratboys have now booked through a smartphone app. Try to pull the "we are overbooked" routine with them and you will be downrated very quickly, likely triggering action from your chain.
Why not go with "we don't want you here", instead of something they know is a lie?
As if that would not lead to bad feedback and a potential PR nightmare... if you accept someones booking and then don't let them in when they arrive there is (rightfully) going to be trouble, regardless of the reason you give. (outside of very exceptional circumstances)
I'd be curious to know the difference between your experience and mine. U. S. here, and its rare that a motel turns me away. Now, there are several distinguishing characteristics of my travel. First, mostly by motorcycle, and second is that because I'm on the bike I'm probably in some out-of-the-way place and not downtown SF. My mode of travel is important, I think, because sometimes I think they feel sorry for me (especially when my wife's with me). Who wants to turn away a biker when it's 10C and pissing rain? (Never mind that I'm perfectly content to put my tent up if I don't find a room.)
Anyway, I'll bet I'm turned away from ad hoc hotel stops 10% of the time at most.
>(Never mind that I'm perfectly content to put my tent up if I don't find a room.)
Just curious: where exactly do you pitch a tent in a situation like that? It doesn't seem like it's that easy to find some open ground where some cop won't harass you for trespassing or something.
There are several phone apps that will tell you where the campgrounds are. Personally, I've never tried to camp where I'm not allowed (I don't count sleeping on a picnic table at a rest stop). One can often (usually?) find a campground either actually in town, or a few miles down the road. To my knowledge, I've never been turned away with a tent; there's always a 10x10' spot of grass to rent me.
Alternatively, if you're in a U. S. National Forest and can find a spot off the road, you can camp anywhere you want. It's how we do the majority of our camping in our VW Westfalia, where in Washington there are a plethora of spots 90 minutes from our house (no, I'm not telling <g>).
But that's for my mode of travel, which is usually off the beaten path. If you're looking for a place to stay in SF during WWDC, my advice will do you no good. OTOH, I rode to a conference in San Diego, had some room trouble and found a campground smack in the middle of SD a few miles from the hotel. So, I dunno, there might even be a campground in SOMA I don't know about. :-) (EDIT: curiosity got me: there's one out by Candlestick Recreation Area, if you don't mind paying $89/night!)
Same. I do multi day trips up and down both coasts as well as cross country trips. I generally drive until I'm tired then let the gps find me a hotel along my route. I've never tried to book ahead and never had any problems with the drop in. If a place is full (rare) I drive another 20 minutes down my route and do that one. Easy peasy and I travel by car.
I used to work at a hotel. 100% of late-night bookings meant trouble in one way or another.
Really? As a younger man, with more stamina and less money, I'd drive as far as possible each day and check in very late, crash for seven or eight hours, tidy up the room, check out, and go. Can't imagine the hotel people weren't thrilled to have that kind of guest.
Was the place you worked at within sight of the interstate / highway?
In the last year and a half, I've driven the Baltimore <=> San Diego route three times, and I've never planned ahead for a motel room, nor have I had a problem getting a room. Maybe I was lucky.
I've done the Dallas, TX -> New York drive twice over the past six years, and we've never pre-booked anything either. Maybe my traveling companions and I never seemed like the "100% trouble" type like cgvgffyv suspects.
Wow. What causes you to have to drive so much?
Yeah, I always try to book by 6-7PM. Booking at 11PM generally winds up with a lot of failure.
The problem when I'm booking hotels is that:
1) I'm driving a long distance west of the Mississippi, and the stop points are very discrete and far between--so everybody wants to stop at the same point. For example, Austin to San Diego--El Paso is a bit short for the first day, so you go to Las Cruces which is a lot smaller and more likely to have fully booked up.
2) I'm doing a tourist thing which puts me in with a lot of other people.
Huh - I've done that tons of times. Out in rural Australian and even at a castle in Germany using part of my three-word German vocabulary - "Zimmer?"
I'm the opposite: I can always find a room last minute. It has reached a point where I started to suspect hotels leave at least one room unbooked so that they can charge last-minute bookers through the nose for it.