We usually ask the hotel the night before departure for a room extension, and so far have been lucky that they agreed at no charge to us.

I suppose it all depends on how busy they are. Obviously new arrivals will take priority.

Mark

Hi Nels,
We always do this when we book the holiday.This way we stay in the same room till late checkout.
Ok, it is cheaper if you do it over there, but you can only do this 24hrs in advance(in the hotels we have stayed in anyway) and sometimes they don't have any, and if they do, chances are you have to change rooms.
So IMO I would say book it when you book the holiday or before you pay the final balance.
Good luck.

Thanks everyone, will get onto the company in the morning to book it.

If we need to book a 'Late Check-Out' room we do this direct with the Hotel as we find it tends to work out cheaper. One year Thomsons wanted to charge us something like £80 for this facility but booking it direct with the Hotel it cost us a little under £50 taking into consideration Exchange rates.

My advise.....book direct with the Hotel, and send an email prior to your arrival. Whilst you cannot actualy make a confirmed booking until around 24 hours prior to your departure, your name will at least be on the list and you should stand a better chance. Yes you might not be able to remain in the same room, but does that really matter? You are not going to be sleeoing in it, you only want it to make use of the facilities, toilet, shower, wash and change clothes etc. Your suitcases will probably be packed by this stage anyway, so its only a question of moving your suitcase out of your room and into another if you have to change rooms.

However, I have known several people that have booked late Check Out rooms and they have not had to move.

Hiya Nels
IMO: to be absolutely sure, then I would book with the TO.
You will then have it in black and white on your holiday invoice breakdown.
Depending on the time of the year and how busy the hotel is, the hotel sometimes cannot guarantee a room .
It also is a case of first come first served and availability .again depending on the season, as they will give priority to new arrivals and sometimes the "turn around" from you leaving to someone else occupying your room is very short.

I have booked my room until 6 pm with Thomson for my next holiday, as we do not fly until early evening.....
The cost £22

sanji x

Thanks for all your help everyone. What would we do without this site!

Just thought I would let you folks know what happened when I tried to book a late checkout room through First Choice. I was told that she could not book them in Bulgaria.... she thought we would probably be picked up just after lunch.. for a 23.50 flight, I said that even having to arrive at Varna airport 3 hours before checkout I could not see us having to leave Albena at lunch time as it was not that far. Got the reply that well other hotels have to be picked up from.. heaven only knows where the pick ups would be from and how many. I will try and book at the hotel on arrival and no way are we spending the afternoon trailing around the resorts on a coach. Have a friend who lives over there for part of the year and know she has a 'tame' taxi driver so may well spend the afternoon with her and get him to drop us to the airport.

May only be a minor point, but if you can't book a late checkout room direct with the hotel because the room may be needed for new guests, how then can the tour operator guarantee that you get a late checkout room? Surely this would mean that arriving guests would have to wait for the room as it has been booked anyway!
Never had a problem booking late checkout direct with hotel/apartments at any time. It usually works out a lot cheaper to book direct with the accomodation.
I know some places have specific rooms they use for late checkout, and in some cases this may mean packing your stuff and changing room for a time, but I think that would apply irrespective of who you booked through.

Andy.

Andy.
I think it works because the hotel knows way in advance that you will be in that room until X hour, therefore, they manoeuvere, working around that fact when allocating rooms to new guests.
This may explain why, when you request a room on say the 1st floor and they say they will try their best to accomodate your request, but when the actual time arrives, it is not possible and they then say....one will be available tomorrow....when the maid will have cleaned that room first thing.

sanji x

a little under £50

My god, BHIC,
They saw you coming!
The most I have ever payed is £22 and that was prebooking in UK with Thomsons.

I paid 20 quid for mine in Cyprus with First Choice

We paid 24 euros in Gran Canaria (Hotel Barcelo Las Margaritas) this Easter to have a late checkout room until our transfer coach arrived for us at midnight - so we had the room for a total of 12 hours for just 24 euros - not bad at all!
Unfortunately we weren't able to keep our nice spacious family room, we had to move down the corridor to a tiny single room, but as we weren't planning on sleeping there, it was OK just for a nice shower, and plenty of time to get changed and ready, and stash our last-minute shopping, wet swimwear, grubby day clothes and suncreams etc into the suitcases.
I don't think there was any option to book a late checkout room in the brochure at all (First Choice), I just asked at reception the day before our last day.

Twenty euros last year in Benidorm to keep the same apartment till evening was a really good deal I thought. Didn't have the option to do it when I booked so arranged it when I got there In October we will be in a 5 star luxury resort in Cyprus - cost for late checkout with the TO would be £36.00 if we wanted it, but £50.00 BHIC??? Wow - you were ripped off big time.

Yes, it would appear we were based on what has been quoted in this thread. But at that time it was a lot cheaper than the price quoted by the Tour Operator, an we were happy to pay knowing we could make use of my parents double room, but maybe I should have queried the price at the time. It was not quite £50, I think the conversion worked out to something like £44 and some odd pence at that time, I've just rounded it up.

That the hotel knows in advance is a good point Sanji, but I've spoken to people who have booked late checkout through the tour operator, and payed a lot more than I have, and they have still had to move room.
We have only once had to change room, but to be fair booking late checkout through Thomas Cook doesn't seem to be an option in the brochures (Greece), and we've never considered booking through the travel agent.

Andy.

Whilst in Turkey, we booked direct with the hotel... I think it was about 30E, but can't really remember now... we got to keep our room and found it was well worth it