Originally Posted by
Smiley90
So my situation is that I saw a room available for one of the Best Westerns on the solar eclipse path. I've kept checking more or less daily for open rooms after it was always booked out, hoping to catch one.
But when I looked, it was only available for booking August 19-21, NOT August 20-21. Weird, I know. Compound it, I only have enough points available for one night, not two. So out of fear the room would become unavailable I booked it with a flexible booking for two nights. Now, my options in terms of priority are as follows:
1. Convert the two-night cash stay into a one-night points stay (only 20-21)
2. After I collect more points to cover two nights, convert the two-night cash stay into a 2-night points stay.
Would those things be possible without cancelling, e.g. by simply phoning in? The alternative would be to cancel and then hope the room re-appears and I'm around to snag it again as a points rate.
Now the real question is, why was the room only bookable as a 2-night stay and not as a 1-night? The hotel definitely allows 1-night stays on other dates. Should I have just dialed in and said that I can see the room available for a 2-night stay but I'd only like to book it for one night?
Paying cash isn't part of the equation because unsurprisingly, eclipse nights are crazy expensive.
So you figured out the latter, but not the former? The answer is the same, the hotel gets more income from two nights than one, and so for this very special event, they instituted a two-night minimum. Lots of hotels (in lots of programs) do multi-night minimums during certain events, even though they have 1-night minimums at other times.
I doubt you can do it if you don't have enough points for both nights, and I'm not ever sure you could do it (without cancelling and rebooking) if you did have enough points for both nights.
The hotel is likely to be sold out by the time you do A or B, even if it's not sold out today. (But it really still not sold out today?)
And many Best Western only have rooms available on points a long as the "cheapest" room is available. Once that room sells out, other rooms may be available with cash, but no rooms may be available on points. For this reason, I'm not at all sure you could convert the cash stay to a points stay no matter what, depending on whether the exact room type you got is the type that's available at that hotel on points.