How to Find Last-Minute Hotel Deals

Whether you love to plan a trip ahead of time or prefer to book on the fly, it’s never too late to score last minute hotel deals. Thanks to advances in booking and inventory technology, hotels are able to be smart about how they manage their rooms on a nightly basis and pass on these savings to travelers. With the right apps and sites, you can still find great deals at short notice without compromising on quality or comfort.

The key to last-minute hotel deals is that a lot of hotels will have spare capacity on certain nights, and they are eager to rent out those rooms for whatever price they can get rather than let them go empty. Apps like HotelTonight and One Night are geared toward this, and they have been able to carve out a niche for themselves by offering a mix of upscale and more budget-friendly properties that appeal to many types of travelers.

Savings at Your Fingertips: The Top Apps for Last-Minute Hotel Reservations

Other generalized search engines like Skyscanner can also be useful if you’re looking to save money and don’t mind which hotel you end up staying at. In addition, Google’s Hotel Search feature will show you prices from a variety of booking engines so you can see all the options available to you.

Finally, some hotel discount apps will offer cheap hotel rates if you book in what they call “mystery hotels.” Hotwire is the best known example of this, and it allows you to choose your preferred neighborhood, star rating, and amenities but you won’t know which hotel you’ll be staying at until after you complete the booking.