The “sweet spot” for booking a hotel room is just 8 to 14 days before travel, according to a new report from Hotels.com.
The booking engine’s 2026 Hotel Price Index—based on internal data, “app usage analysis,” and a global survey of 10,000 travelers—found that hotel guests who wait to book a room until around 2 weeks before a trip save an average of 23% more than those conscientious planners who make their reservations 4 months or more ahead.
It’s a refreshing claim, given that travel planning advice tends to favor Aesop’s killjoy ant over his carefree grasshopper.
There are caveats, however.
Booking a hotel room far in advance vs. the last minute
The presumed reason hotel rates go down at the last minute is that the properties are trying to fill up unsold rooms. But if you pursue the grasshoppery late-to-book strategy during your destination’s peak travel season (summer, more often than not), room availability is liable to be limited by the time you get around to shopping for hotel options. And the combo of high demand and low supply will probably make rates more expensive.
So waiting to book a hotel until 2 weeks or less before your trip will likely be more effective, on the money-saving front, in shoulder season or slow months for tourism at your chosen destination. (On a related note, the Hotels.com report found that January is the cheapest month for hotel says.)
Many hotels let you lock in a room rate well in advance so that you don’t have to worry about not having a place to stay or not getting the type of room you want during your visit. But taking that anxious, antlike approach can cost you extra if the rate you’re locked into is nonrefundable, leaving you stuck paying more if the rates go down closer to your trip.
A smarter way to go, especially for travel during peak season, might be to make a flexible advance reservation you can cancel (skip the nonrefundable option), and then continue to monitor prices in the lead-up to your trip. If prices go down significantly, you can cancel the original reservation and rebook at the lower rate.
That might sound like even more work (the ant wins again!), but most online booking engines have tools to help you set price alerts to make the monitoring process fairly easy.
To find the best rates online, take a look at our ranking of the top hotel booking engines and aggregators.
And to read the full Hotel Price Index for 2026, go to Hotels.com.
