The other week my boss had to fly to Sydney, Australia for work. And almost every hotel was booked out. The few rooms available were at astronomical prices.
The Boardingarea community came to the rescue! Through a brilliant article on Magic of Miles on what to do with non refundable hotel rooms, I discovered Roomer, one of several websites that allows people to sell non refundable hotel rooms. As a result, I found a hotel room at my boss favourite hotel for less than half of what was being asked for. Win for the employee (me).
There is also:
All of these sites allow you to buy and sell non refundable hotel rooms. Note. The prices rooms are being sold at are not always cheaper than making a new reservation. Compare carefully!
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Thanks for the hat tip, and I’m glad you found the information useful!
How does this work? I had the pre-conceived notion hotels don’t look kindly on people making a reservation (especially prepaid) in their own name and then transferring it to someone else.
I guess if loyalty points and numbers aren’t involved (like if I’m not trying to get stay credit for myself while someone else stays in the room) they don’t care if you change the RSVP name?
I don’t understand how this could work. You provide a name when you pay for hotel room and must provide ID to check.
Also recommend using Hotel Tonight. I used them on a recent trip to Santa Fe and I got a great deal on short notice.