Did you use Trivago or Expedia or hotels.com? Or did you just look at the hotel sites?
I used hotels.com just to get a general idea of a hotel's rates, then crossed-checked that with the hotel and other sites. In almost every instance, hotels.com had the better buy. For me anyway, ymmv.
Reserving the hotel early is a no-brainer because you can always cancel, and in a lot of cases as it was with the Cambridge Marriot (and everywhere else I stay), you don't have to pay anything up front. It's the flight that gets tricky because airlines make canceling extremely difficult if not impossible, even with flight insurance. It's for that reason alone I wait as long as possible before pulling the trigger on the flight.
If you book through the hotel, you can always book a refundable room. Unless they take away that option given the high demand.
I believe I reserved my room in late April of 2015 for the 2016 race and the deals were already gone. I still made out okay because staying in Boston proper was not a priority for me.
Also, for the procrastinators, rooms open up during registration for the unfortunate few who do not make the cutoff. But there is also heavy demand for the ones who did make it who didn't register, so I didn't want to chance it.
A quick glance indicates every last one of them is ridiculous already.
Dave
Hi y'all, thanks for tracking .
It was not an optimal day to run a marathon, but some people pulled off pretty good ones. (Michael Wardian ran a 2:28 or something like that. Lollerskates.)
Boon! I saw that guy with the scoreboard sign. He did not appreciate my hasty verse of "Let's go Buffalo".
Next year Mrs. Jay716 runs!!