If you’re trying to save money booking hotels for your next family holiday, there’s one habit that has saved us hundreds of pounds over the years, and it costs nothing to do. We’ve used this same approach for Disney trips, Universal Orlando, cruise stopovers, and now our California road trip, and it works every single time.

Life and living seem to cost more and more every day, and for a lot of families, it can feel like travel is the first thing that gets pushed off the list. But getting away together, even for a weekend break, matters. It doesn’t need to be a two-week holiday abroad to be worth it. With a bit of planning and the right booking habits, family travel is still doable, and it’s one of those things that’s always worth finding room for.

We’ve been travelling as a family since our boys were little. They’re grown up now, but the way we book hotels hasn’t changed, because it simply works. Along the way, we’ve also learned one very expensive lesson about why this method matters, which I’ll explain below.

Why We Book Through Booking.com and Hotels.com

We book almost every hotel through Booking.com or Hotels.com. We use both, and it’s worth having both open when you’re comparing, because the best price and the best cancellation terms don’t always sit on the same site. Between them, they tick the boxes that matter most for family travel:

• A huge range of hotels, from theme park resorts to family-run cottages and villas, plus campsites in Europe
• Clear filters for free cancellation; always book with a cancellation option
• Genuine guest reviews from other travellers
• No prepayment required on most rates
• Easy price comparisons across a trip

One extra perk with Hotels.com is that you can use Tesco Clubcard points towards your booking, which is an easy way to bring the cost down further if you’re already collecting points on your weekly shop.

There’s plenty of negative press out there about booking accommodation independently rather than through a travel agent or package deal. Some of it is fair: if you book badly, you can lose money. But if you book the right type of rate, you get all the savings of booking it yourself with almost none of the risk.

The Golden Rule: Always Book the Free Cancellation Rate

This is the single most important tip in this whole post, so it’s worth repeating: when you save money booking hotels, always choose the rate that lets you cancel free of charge, right up until or within a couple of days of a set date close to your trip.

It’s usually more per night than the non-refundable rate. But, that difference buys you real peace of mind, because:

• Flights get delayed or cancelled
• Plans change
• Illness happens
• Family emergencies happen
• Natural disasters happen (yes, really, as you’ll see below)

Never book the cheaper, non-refundable rate “because you’re sure you’ll go.” Life has a way of proving you wrong at the worst possible moment.

Our Iceland Volcano Lesson

We learned this the hard way. On one trip to Iceland, we prepaid for our hotel because we were “definitely going” and the non-refundable rate saved us a little money. Then a volcano erupted, our flight was cancelled, and we couldn’t travel. The hotel wouldn’t refund a penny, because we hadn’t booked the flexible rate.

It was a genuinely frustrating way to lose money on something completely outside our control. We’ve never made that mistake since, and it’s the reason we now always recommend booking the cancellable rate, even if it costs a little more upfront.

How We Save Up to £50 a Night by Monitoring Prices

Here’s the part that actually helps you save money booking hotels, not just protect the money you’ve already spent.

Because we always book the free cancellation rate, we’re never locked in. So once we’ve booked, we don’t stop looking. We check back on the price every so often, right up until the cancellation deadline. If the same hotel drops its price, or another hotel we like offers a better rate, we simply cancel the original booking and rebook at the lower price.

No fees, no penalties, no awkward phone calls, just a straightforward cancel-and-rebook. Doing this over the years has saved us up to £50 a night on family hotel rooms, which adds up fast over a week-long trip. On a two-week trip, that can be several hundred pounds back in your pocket.

A few tips for making this work well:

1. Set a reminder to check prices in the run-up to your trip.
2. Screenshot your original booking so you can compare quickly.
3. Rebook before you cancel if you’re worried about losing availability, then cancel the old booking once the new one is confirmed.
4. Check the cancellation deadline on every booking, since it isn’t always the same length of time.
5. Recheck prices after big sale events, as hotels often adjust rates around holidays and school breaks.

Family Travel Made Easier: Disney, Universal, Cruises and Road Trips

We’ve used this exact method across every type of family trip. It works well for Disney and Universal Orlando, where on-site hotel prices can shift noticeably depending on season and demand.

It’s just as useful for cruise port stopovers, where a flexible hotel booking means you’re never stuck if a sailing date shifts. We usually book the cruise itself through a travel agent, but we always book our own pre- and post-cruise port hotels using this method, so we’re not tied to a fixed hotel rate if plans change. And it really comes into its own on multi-stop road trips, where you’re juggling several hotels at once, so even small savings per night multiply quickly.

Right now we’re applying it to planning our own California road trip, booking each overnight stop with free cancellation so we can keep adjusting our route and our budget right up until each stay.

Quick Recap: How to Save Money Booking Hotels Safely

• Always choose the free cancellation rate, even if it costs slightly more
• Never prepay for a non-refundable rate “just in case”: accidents, illness and natural disasters do happen
• Keep checking prices after you’ve booked, right up to the cancellation deadline
• Rebook if the price drops, and cancel the older, more expensive booking
• Apply this to every hotel on a multi-stop trip, not just your main destination