Just cancelled a room at Comfort Suites

[LarkTruck]

It is 4:09 pm Sunday afternoon 7/22. We have been offered other lodging for the week, so I just cancelled our room at the Comfort Suites near the Fairgrounds if anyone wants to call and see if it is available the # is 574-291-3100, ask for Andrea.
Jim

[Jerry Forrester]

I think they have a long waiting list. Last week when I cancelled my room they said there's no need for me to post it's availablity on the forum, they would just call the person on the top of the waiting list.
OcrappyOne and I will be staying at Comfort Inn in Mishawaka. About $30 per night cheaper. $79.95 every night, not a different price for different nights.

[LarkTruck]

Yeah, speaking of crappy, what's up with the different price for different nights thing? That's crappy if ya ask me. :-)
Jim

[Stu Chapman]

I think they have a long waiting list. Last week when I cancelled my room they said there's no need for me to post it's availablity on the forum, they would just call the person on the top of the waiting list.
OcrappyOne and I will be staying at Comfort Inn in Mishawaka. About $30 per night cheaper. $79.95 every night, not a different price for different nights.

If you are eligible and ask for seniors rates it'll be about $8. per night cheaper.
Stu Chapman

[LarkTruck]

8:13 pm E.S.T. I have just rec'd a PM that the room is spoken for.
Jim

[JoeHall]

I think they have a long waiting list. Last week when I cancelled my room they said there's no need for me to post it's availablity on the forum, they would just call the person on the top of the waiting list.
OcrappyOne and I will be staying at Comfort Inn in Mishawaka. About $30 per night cheaper. $79.95 every night, not a different price for different nights.

When I saw your post, I cancelled Microtel and reserved at Comfort Inn in Mishawaka. They have a swimming pool, and that was the deciding factor today, since Microtel does not.
I have read here the motels north of SB are not that great, but I can't find anything south, except the meet motel, everything seems to be just off the interstate. The Comfort Inn is listed under Mishawaka, it is just off the interstate too.

[JimC]

Yeah, speaking of crappy, what's up with the different price for different nights thing? That's crappy if ya ask me. :-)
Jim

At some point in my thouroughly-employed past, I managed a front desk at a big hotel. The stuff I learned there...wow!

Hotels charge more on weekends and during special events basically because they can. there's no additional value being offered. Actually, quite the contrary, as the "weekday management" are hard to find over the weekends. You'll be lucky if the manager on duty isn't a college student.

Also, here's a few scary facts about high fill nights. For example, you had a reservation, but you might not have had "a room". Hotels almost universally overbook by about 10%. It seems crazy, but the statistics show that about 10-15% of reservations no-show. That means if you have a hotel with 100 rooms at $80 for the night, not overbooking means you'll probably have an income of $7040 for that night, versus the $8000 you can make if you're full to the gills. $1000 in one night is a lot of money, enough that most hotels are willing to overbook to near the statistical limit and risk upsetting a couple people over it.

What happens if you arrive and find out your hotel overbooked? The good news is that you're going to get a free night at another hotel. The bad news is that it's going to be the closest hotel with vacancies. Going to a huge event that has every hotel in town booked? Hope you like the next town over. Having said that, the hotel I worked at overbooked many times during my run as Desk manager (note: I didn't make the overbooking policy), and the one and only time we ever overbooked was due to a stupid bar manager deciding to give away two rooms without calling the desk first. (After that, the bar lost access to the reservation system, thank goodness!) It sounds risky, but even at an event like a meet, people cancel all the time (as evidenced by the existence of this thread).

Waiting list? What waiting list? Hotels usually don't have a formal waiting list. If they say that they're calling the next name on the list when you ask, that usually means that you were just one of the statistical cancellations. Congrats on that. On a rare occasion, the hotel might have a sort of waiting list. They basically make dummy reservations, not tied to any type of room or type. If, by some happenstance, more than 10% of people cancel their reservation, they will call these people and activate the reservation, tying it to a real room. Don't get your hopes up though. These dummy reservations are easy to forget about, and if someone walks in the front door of the hotel with cash in hand, well, you know what they say about a bird in the hand being worth more than two in the bush, and all.

It all sounds very scary, but the truth is, it's how hotels have operated for years, and it works very well. They don't talk about this stuff for the most part because it scares people. Some hotels deny doing business this way, but unless you're talking about a little mom and pop place, I'd be shocked if they didn't have 220 reservations for next week and only 200 physical rooms.