I’ve just saved HUNDREDS on my hotel room in New York City with this tip!
Hoteliers hate this hack, even though they set up their systems to actually allow us to do it…
I’m off to the US soon, it’ll be my seventh visit to New York in the last three years, and I’ve been watching my hotel room dropping in price by the day.
Let me explain how to take advantage of that, if you are doing your own hotel bookings.
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First, months beforehand when you’re in your initial planning, use a site like Booking.com and select a property that you like, the price, location – and if you’re also going to New York like me, check the room sizes! 20sqm is very small, especially for two people.
Then reserve a ‘refundable’ room. This is the key. It must be refundable. But this is just a placeholder.
Once you’ve got a hotel locked in for the dates you need, put an alert on your calendar (I set mine in my phone!) to come back and check on the price a few days before your payment will be taken. This is usually about five days before you check in.
Then go back into Booking.com and add your dates in again and see what the prices are. I am finding that the closer I get to checking in, the more the prices are dropping.
Of course if they don’t, and they’ve gone up, then that’s ok too because you already have a room booked.
Then do it in this order: go ahead and reserve a cheaper room, and even choose non-refundable – which will be a bit cheaper again – and once that is confirmed, go into your original booking and cancel it. Voila!
I was paying NZ$1932 for three nights in New York but as of this morning that same room is available for NZ$1402 – a saving of $530!
Now my conundrum is do I take the $500 savings, or do I upgrade somewhere fancier…
I’ll let you know soon!
Meantime to speed up your research, I’ve found these lovely and affordable New York hotels that are often under $300 a night.
But this next list is fun because I’ve researched the best NY hotels with skyline views to make your stay iconic.
