I was told we had to book a hotel as soon as possible for next years parents weekend. We aren’t positive we are able to go then but when I tried to book they wanted non refundable payment. We probably wouldn’t go at all if I had to make non refundable payment now. But paying with my rewards points I could book now and get a refund 24 hrs in advance. Much more flexibility.
The same is true with flights home and back : Booking with miles allows for last minute changes ( prof cancelled class the day before break…sorority wanted kids back earlier than we had planned etc…)
I guess it’s not really surprising ( or shouldn’t have been for me) but the desire for flexibility was something I really hadn’t thought about before. But it sure is nice.
I wasn’t sure if this should be in " parents cafe" instead so feel free to move.
Most hotel reservations can be made without needing to prepay, although there may be some discounted rates for prepaid reservations. However, a credit card is necessary to reserve a hotel room.
Be careful, some of the plane reservations made with points can end up having a penalty that costs more than the plane fare. That was the care for D, so we just threw away the plane ticket (that had been bought with points) and S bought another one with points. It was less than paying the change fee and rebooking.
Ucbalumnus. . What we have found and several friends have found is that if the college is located in a college town and not a city for the parent weekend only you actually have to pay in advance and it’s not cancelable. Came as quite a surprise. And we have also found that with the airlines own credit cards ( as opposed to ones where you transfer from other rewards) there is no change fee.
For graduation weekend in New Haven the local hotels doubled their rates (already high) and required 3 night purchase, no refunds. For the “fancy” hotel there, that’s $1500 per room for the weekend. Yikes. We are staying in the dorms
