Hut to hut hiking in Austria

My husband and I had a trip all planned in Berchtesgaden National Park. (starts in Germany but crosses into Austria) I have lots of information on the hike and where we planned on staying. Unfortunately, we were snowed out. We got up the morning we were due to leave, and all the huts were closed because of snow. This was the middle of September and it was kind of a freak snow storm. We never got to take the trip. We were planning on hiking 3 days and staying 2 nights. What we liked about this hike was that you could not take lifts up to these huts. You had to hike to them making them more isolated. If you are interested, private message me and I will get you more information. We also looked at a hike out of Gosau (by Hallstatt) that was not as difficult and was only one night at a hut.

I haven't taken the trip yet but started planning one a couple of years ago.

The best brief advice I can give is look online for the mountaineering clubs in the area. By joining one of the clubs you gain access to staying in the huts. They also have information on hiking routes, difficulty, when trails are open, how to plan for using huts, what to bring, etc.

I can't recall if the huts were available to non-members or just that members had priority or a better price (or both).

I suspect the rules would be similar to German huts - non-members are allowed, but you pay anywhere from 5-15 euro/night extra. Many huts in Germany either do not have private rooms, or only have a few. The rule of thumb in the German huts for these rooms is that they can't be reserved ahead of time as they try to give older/disabled/special needs guests priority for these spaces. I know you may think not many may fit that category, but there are enough to make this an unwritten rule. My brother-in-law worked in a German alpine hut and told me this (b/c I once asked if he could hold a smaller room for us).