To Pay or not to PAY (in advance)

nebbyn77, I would never think of paying hotels in advance or know anyone who has. You're assuming the exchange rate will be worse? It could just as likely be better. "knowing what the exact price is now. . . " seems like an insignificant comfort, since all your other expenses are unpredictable. Plus, too many things can happen between now and then to impact your plans.

Do a Search (top of page, gray box) on travel insurance, and you'll find a zillion threads on the subject. Insurance to cover the cost of your airfare and any nonrefundable outlays is one thing. Insurance to cover the cost of unexpected medical emergencies is another.

No, what happens if the exchange rate changes to the better? You have 8 more months to save more money for your vacation....do that instead.

No. You never know what will happen, ie sickness or illness. Also take a look at the fine print. Usually, pre-paying for a certain price means you can't cancel without losing the money..

We've never paid in advance because of the exchange rate. Unless you know something nobody else knows (in which case, I'll be PM ing you for financial advice), there is no way of knowing what the FEX rate will be in 8 months. However, we have sometimes pre paid a hotel reservation if that gives us a good discount on the room rate. This would usually not be significant enough to matter if you're only staying for a night or 2; but for longer stays, the savings may add up. If we had to cancel, insurance would cover it. ( knock on wood, in 30+ years of international travel, we've never had to cancel a trip).

As for travel insurance, it depends on the type of insurance you're talking about. Cancellation? Trip interruption? Lost luggage? Medical coverage? Medication evacuation? We never travel without full coverage (a combination of credit card coverage and an annual travel policy.)

We don’t book non-refundable hotel accomadations even with insurance. Reason is sometimes we cancel for reasons that are not covered. Like we read a terrible recent review, new construction in the hotel, other change of plans. Paying in advance betting on the exchange rate is folly, you simply are flipping a coin and, in the best case, in 8 months likely to save (or lose) little. Travel insurance: what coverage do you have, what do you want? Medicare offers no coverage in Europe. Supplements have some coverage. Commercial insurance varies. Few, if any, offer evacuation coverage. That and medical are what I focus on. Check https://www.insuremytrip.com. Know this: if you have a pre-existing medical condition most insurances require you to get a policy within 10-15 days of making your first payment towards a trip. So, if you’ve not paid for a tour, hotel, flight, you are fine. This is paid, not booked. When you look at the website you’ll see a toll free number. All the customer service folks are licensed agents. They are exceedingly helpful and have many top rated companies to choose from. I would never travel outside the US without at least medical insurance and evacuation coverage.

I agree with the others. I think an illness, injury or family emergency that requires you to cancel or reschedule part or all of your trip is likelier than significant movement in the exchange rate that would make you wish you had prepaid. Aside from the possible financial loss (I do not pay for trip-cancellation insurance), I wouldn't want the massive hassle of trying to get my money back if I had prepaid for a trip's worth of accommodations.

I do not prepay anything I do not have to before departing on a trip. Once I'm in Europe, I sometimes take advantage of lower hotel rates for prepaid/non-cancelable rooms if I'm booking not very far in advance. That often saves me 5% or 10%.

Try not to focus so much on knowing the exact cost of everything in advance. I suspect that desire is behind some of the non-optimum decisions travelers make, such as buying rail passes (seldom a good deal financially) and city sightseeing cards (sometimes worthwhile, but not always).

I use Booking.com & Expedia along with direct booking at hotel websites. I’d say that I’ve usually paid for half of the lodging for the trip upfront on each type as part of the price. Some of them are free cancellation.

We don’t buy travel insurance other than health travel insurance.

If you really want to lock in today's exchange rate, just buy currency now and carry it with you. (Of course, that exposes you to theft risk ....) I only pre-pay items that require it -- many apartments, train and plane tickets.

If the exchange rate is really good when we leave for home, I may get an extra $200 or $300 in euros to tuck away for the next trip.
For insurance, check what comes with the credit card(s) you used to book the trip. High-end cards may even include some evacuation coverage.

Expedia:
https://www.expedia.com/p/info-other/legal.htm

PAY NOW OR PAY LATER DETAILS

With certain hotels, you may be presented with the option to pay
online now or pay later at the hotel. If you select the “Pay Online
Now” option, Expedia will charge the amount to your credit card in US
dollars immediately. If you select “Pay Later at the Hotel”, the hotel
will charge your credit card in the local currency at the time of your
stay. Please note that taxes and fees vary between the two payment
options. Tax rates and foreign exchange rates could change in the time
between booking and stay. Expedia coupons may only be applied to "Pay
Online Now" bookings.

I booked an Oslo hotel mid-September via Expedia. Expedia gave me the option of pay now in USD or pay on arrival in NOK. I should have taken the pay now in USD. The effective exchange rate Sept 15 was 8.257 NOK/USD, about the Interbank rate on that day. NOK is now trading at 8.15 NOK/USD. But anything can happen between now and March.

I have prepaid via Expedia in the past and not experienced any problem.

I won’t prepay hotels. So far for May 2019 I cancelled one hotel in Venice because a more recent review said “Bedbugs”. Then after my sister-in-law decided to join me, I changed the Rome hotel from single to double with twin beds. I also changed the “new” Venice hotel to double from single and from five nights to three. Looks like there’s a chance i’ll have to change a Naples area hotel depending on car rental return days.
There is no reason to get locked into prepaid hotels. Just too many things can change in the next seven months. The exchange rate is insignificant to paying for something you can’t use.

I happened to be looking at London Premier Inns this afternoon for a stay that will begin sometime in July 2019. Just trying to get a vague idea of the cost, since this is the first time I've shopped for an air conditioned room in London. I was shocked at the rate difference between prepaid/non-refundable rooms and flexible/refundable rooms: It can be 35% or more. Still, I cannot imagine prepaying for a hotel stay ten months hence. Alas, my guess is that the rate gap narrows substantially as you get closer to the arrival date, even if the hotel still has quite a lot of rooms available. I'm sure those (often super-low) non-refundable rates will not be available when I'm ready to pull the trigger next year.

This is really helpful and pretty much unanimous! Thank you everyone.....

This is slightly off topic, but what are thoughts on booking the day of?
I need to get a San Francisco airport hotel. Theres a gazillion of them. My thought was to call a dozen or so when I get there to see what the walk in rate would be. If the hotel has rooms, this can be a significant savings.

You have another thread about your dive trip delema, but since you asked, here is my 2 cents: SF is a high demand city for hotel rooms. Even the airport hotels fill. You could take a chance but unless you want to sleep in the airport reserve a room now.

Rather than making a bunch of phone calls, I'd probably try Priceline. But you'd need to do some research on BiddingForTravel.com first.

Just to clarify, when I have paid Expedia or Booking at the time of making the reservation, there’s been several times that I have cancelled a reservation a month later, and I’ve always immediately received the money back on my credit card. I typically begin reserving lodging as soon as I purchase the flight (about 10 months before the trip), and reserve something within that month at each location. Then I thoroughly look through all of the options the following month and make a few adjustments, including making some reservations that can’t be cancelled.

I'm not sure that I fully understand the question. Once I book plane tickets, I start looking at hotels. I will prepay a hotel if it allows me to cancel up to x number of days in advance. Sometimes, that's the best rate.

As far as trip insurance, I alway look at it. The cost of the trip determines whether or not I'm willing to buy trip insurance. It depends on how much money you're willing to lose.

If you are a US citizen, always consider trip evacuation insurance (this can cost more than anything else if you pay for it at the time) vs trip cancellation/interruption which may be covered by a credit card if used at the time of booking.