How do you rebook?

When planning a trip to Vegas, it's not uncommon for me to book the first decent deal that comes along, then keep an eye out for a better deal and rebook.

When I call to cancel the existing reservation, I always wonder if I should try and rebook the better deal right then while I'm on the phone, but I never do it. It makes me feel sketchy for some reason. I just wait until I get confirmation of the cancellation, then go online and rebook the second (or sometimes third) offer.

How does everybody else rebook? I'm sure the reservation agents could care less, but I wonder if properties don't encourage them to keep people at higher rates somehow. Maybe I'm over thinking it.

 

I do it all the time.

Has saved us a lot over the years,the agents are getting paid to service customers,so dont worry about what they think. If you feel that an agent gave you good prof. service,get their name and take the customer survey and mention them.

 

My wife calls and simply asks for an adjustment to match the required deal and they usually do without any hassles.
No need to cancel unless they are giving you too much resistance.

 

Tex, I'm opposite of you. If I find a better deal I first book that better deal before I cancel my other booking. The reason is that I book through third party sites like booking.com and hotels.com. Sometimes the deal may go away if others book it before I do. I don't want to lose a guaranteed booking so I first would book the better deal before cancelling the other.

If the booking is through the same company I would usually call the third party reservationist and have them make the booking and cancel the other. Lots of times I find a lower price (hotels.com price matches so will credit you the lower price) and they sometimes actually find it easier to cancel the booking and rebook at the lower rate.

I do the same thing with my car rentals, I usually make the booking before cancelling my other booking.

I encountered that problem before, I cancelled my booking and tried to rebook the better deal. lo and behold, the deal disappeared and I was out both deals. After that I make sure that I have a firm booking before cancelling the other.

 

If it is a paid room I book through my husbands name....cancel and rebook through my name. If it is comped I cancel online and rebook online. CET charges you to book over the phone so all puter for me. I carry all my ressies and cancellations with me. I had to prove my room and rate back in 2007 at Flamingo so I don't trust any of them now.

 

Some of it depends on the hotel/chain involved.

CET, there used to be a little lag time between when you cancelled online and when it would accept a rebook. They seem to have fixed that and I've done it many times since.

Venetian/Palazzo, you have to call, but I've done it many times and never had a problem, and their customer service reps are particularly friendly and competent IMHO. They used to be a little sketchy with generating new email confirms with the changed details, but they seem to have worked that out.

MGM, I don't know if it's still the same now, but if you made your reservation online, for at least some of the hotels, you can book a 2nd reservation first, and then cancel your old one. To cancel, go to the hotel's website, and go in as if you were making a new reservation.

When the first window of the booking engine comes up, look at the bottom of the window for a link labeled "Guest Services". It will take you to a window where you can look up a confirmation and cancel it. Most of the hotels use the same booking engine app. You can't do it with every reservation (like probably reservations booked through the MLife site, which get tagged with a string of numbers instead of a 6-character code like 6GH4D).

 

I book the other offer first if at all possible. If the offer is for CET for example, I will cancel online and rebook online a minute later. If I'm booking over the phone, I verify whatever offer I want is still available. It seems very common for a mailer or an offer to not be available to me when I call for it.


Basically I go with whatever option gives me the lowest chance of not ending up with a good booking.

 

You are correct here, they couldn't care less: they will never meet you in person and there is even a good chance they will never even talk to you on the phone again. You are just a name and some numbers on the screen to them, just one of maybe one, two or even three or four dozen people they talk to in an hour.

I would just do the one call and just start it off with something like "Hello, this is ________ and I already have a reservation. I just received a new offer by (mail, email, text message, facebook, etc) for when I will be there and I wanted to rebook my reservation under the offer"

At that point they'll ask you for your details like name, arrival date, confirmation number, etc and make the changes for you.