why to book your hotel early | reason # 5

The Carlyle where I once booked room for a PI to conduct a sting!

This is the final post in my five-part series on why you should make your hotel booking early. Here are the first four reasons:

1. it puts a ceiling on your room rate
2. the room category you want will be available
3. we have plenty of time to VIP your stay
4. the cancel deadline is your friend when you book early

Reason # 5: there's time to work on your special requests

Sometimes we have to work our relationships to get you what you want.

Requests to clear space. No availability is showing on the hotel's website or in our system (due to popular dates), but you want a reservation. By phoning our contacts, we can sometimes get space cleared for you. But our ability (and their ability) to do this for you is severely hampered when you book late.

Tip: Be strategic in timing your requests. Hotel reps typically leave the office at 5 p.m. and have weekends off. Avoid late afternoon requests, as they won't be handled until the following morning (at the earliest). Avoid last minute Friday requests, as they won't be seen until Monday morning (which is the most hectic time of the week). 

Requests for upgrades. I request an upgrade for you every time I make a reservation. While upgrades depend on availability, it does matter when the request is made. When you book far in advance and the sales manager sees a lot of unsold rooms, sometimes we can get your upgrade confirmed at the time of booking.

Standard requests. If you have a set of preferences for any hotel stay, we keep those on file, and we pass them along in our VIP emails. If you make your booking at least one week before check-in, that provides adequate time for us to convey your requests to the hotel ... and for the hotel to provide the experience you want.

Unusual requests. Anything out-of-the-ordinary takes more time. Need connecting rooms? Special arrangements? Planning to pop the question and want your room set up with candles, flowers, and chilled champagne? Want a suite with a piano so that you can conduct a sting? I'm not kidding! I actually got this request once, and the Carlyle arranged the suite for a successful operation).

copyright (c) 2016 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.