Pay in Full now via credit or pay cash later

Pay now if you are absolutely, postively sure that you will be staying at those hotels. Make sure you get receipts paid via email or snail mail. I have heard of hotels "losing" reservations that were not paid up front, a rarity I'm sure. The other side to the coin --- if the dollar goes down further as you stated, it will be more expensive when the time comes to pay; but, you will have an easier time to cancel since there was no exchange of money. I choosed the latter because I over reserve, hoping to find a better deal but satisfied if it doesn't show up. A month before I left for Paris, I found cheaper and better accommodations that more than made up for the euro-dollar difference.

RSVP with CC now if you need - but dont pay full until youre there. As the other poster said - you get flexibility and easier than asking for your refund. Just make sure you ask ahead about cash discounts (as Rick mentions in his books they may only honor discounts if agreed upon in advance).

Don't be a currency exchange trader. If the experts don't know which way the dollar/euro is going to go, you are even less likely to know.

Want to save money? Make sure you pay off those credit card bills each month. Will save you far more than what you might lose on currency transactions by waiting.

Thanks so much for the replies!
I understand the travel flexibility part of paying cash but I should have mentioned this is for a group of 12 people (student learning trip) that all need to stay in the same place so it makes it more difficult.

Who's talking about currency trading? When 1 reserves a couple of rooms for 400e /night and finds better accommodations for 200e /night, I do not call that curency trading but smart shopping. It's pretty obvious if 1 uses simple mental subtraction to take the 200e /night even w/ the lousy dollar rate.

And it doesn't take an expert to know that the dollar is NOT going to recover anytime soon with our current pathetic economy.

It really is troubling to see the dollar in free fall. And the future prospects seem even worse. That said, it seems risky to me to prepay travel expenses several months ahead - especially for a large group of people. Compound that if you are going to travel in unrated or one/two star type properties.

I haven't done this myself but I have met people who have opened an overseas/internet bank account. They keep their money on deposit in Euros or Pounds Sterling, etc. They then get a credit/ATM card and draw from this account as they travel. If you want a way to protect yourself from further erosion of the dollar's value, I guess this might work for you.

Alicia,

if you're going to be using any of the smaller Hotels listed in Rick's Guidebooks, keep in mind that some can be reserved by credit card, but must be paid for in cash.

Cheers!

I would agree with George, open a foreign currency account to save the money.

If you pay for everything with your credit cards now, the money you save on the exchange rate could very well be lost in the interest charges you'll have to pay.

Remember, a credit card is only free money until the bill comes due. Then it's very expensive money.