Talamhireland.com

Together with last minute flights, last minute hotels are big business nowadays. The idea is that you take a room that would otherwise be empty (often because of cancellations), and in return you get a steep discount. However, as ever, it’s a case of buyer beware.

It can be a very common experience to arrive in a hotel and find that there’s actually no-one in it who didn’t come on a last-minute travel deal. This is either because the prices the hotel is trying to charge normal customers are too high, or because it’s a terrible hotel. To avoid these places, check whether the hotel you find a last-minute deal on is otherwise fully-booked or at least busy – if not, you should probably stay away. (more…)

There’s no shortage of websites offering last minute travel deals. The idea behind these deals is that if a hotel is going to have a room empty or a flight is going to have an empty seat, it’s better for them to offer it to you at the last minute for a steep discount than it is to just let that spare capacity go to waste.

The big contradiction of last minute travel, however, is that while the places with a lot of spare capacity get cheaper, the places with very little get much more expensive. Booking Christmas flights at the last minute, for example, will never get you a good deal, simply because so many people want those flights. Instead, you will probably end up paying much more than you would have if you had booked early. (more…)