Exploiting price variations

[Alaric]

From time to time I would like to book weekend breaks at various UK destinations. It's for chess tournaments so my dates are fixed and I have a short list of suitable hotels.

Recently I locked in a price for the Easter weekend on the grounds that the website (and nudge adverts on this site) were claiming "last room available". I now find a cheaper offer through another booking website at the same hotel, also through the adverts on this site. I think the offer is lower quality as not being possible to cancel, but that doesn't matter much as my dates are fixed.

But when do these offers become available and is it just manipulation to claim a hotel is full when obviously it isn't? Or is it an effect of cancellations?

Unlike buying shares where future prices are unknown, perhaps supermarket pricing and hotel pricing is more conducive to buying on the dips.

[redsturgeon]

I am guessing that the offer was couched in terms just as " last available at this price" or it was the last room available from the allocation to that particular third party seller. It is always worth checking the actual hotel and seeing whether they can match or beat the price you have been quoted.

John