Walk in rate at hotel

Haven't done a walk-in in SF hotels, but i do use Hotel Tonight for last minute hotel stays and have received good discounts.

Yes, rather than call, consider one of several apps, I have used Priceline, Booking.com, and Hotels.com to find a last minute room. If you are not picky about which hotel, Priceline will book a however many star hotel you desire in a location at a deep discount, only letting you know the hotel when you book.

Haven't done it but I use Hotwire. But beforehand, you might want to double-check with the Visitors and Convention Bureau that there is no huge conference on your date that would monopolize airport hotels. Then you're good to go.

It is easy to check. When we travel in the US we live and die with Hoteltonight.com. It is sub group of Hotel.com They will have discounted room rates that come around noon for the day. You can log in and see what is available and booked. They also have a nice bonus of a 10% rebate after ten nights.

I have had really good results with the app hoteltonight. You can get great rates the day of your stay, sometimes at deep discounts. If it's shoulder season even better!

I’m sorry, I’m going to disagree. You’re already doing two flights and have a very long haul as the second flight. Just book an airport hotel and forget about any possible savings you can get by playing chicken with the room rates.

Bad idea. Advance planning is always best. You get to compare hotels or B&Bs, even air B&B. Location is always important to us, as well as price. Trying to do this on the fly is a huge risk. What if you happen to be in the city when a convention or special event is in town and hotel rooms are hard to find?

Planning is not hard these days, kayak, TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, and more make it easy.

You would think you wouldn't have to worry, but I wonder. I'm staying overnight near Paris DeGaulle next week. When I tried to book at the airport three months out from the trip, everything at or near the airport was full. We ended up about 7 miles away and paying more than we wanted. You never know when things can get booked up

I've called ahead earlier in the day and asked the rate. I only book if it's a good deal. I get less than the stated or advertised rate close to 100 percent of the time. They know they have rooms that will go empty that night so offer a good price for anything they can fill up at the last minute.

This is the sort of thing that's hard to test out, but I've seen speculation in print that you do better by calling a hotel than by just showing up. It seems logical to me. If you're standing in the lobby, you'd probably prefer not to have to leave and go somewhere else, and the hotel knows that.

And that is aside from the fact that if you have a car, you've had to find a place to park before walking to the hotel (and you must be sure nothing is left visible inside the car). If you are using public transportation, you've had to get from the train/bus station to the hotel--possibly with luggage. All in all, I can't imagine preferring to beat the pavement in this day and age. Heaven knows, I did enough of that in pre-internet days, and there was nothing fun about it.