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Think You're Booked? Think Again.
Demand for inauguration-week lodging has created some vexing surprises for those who reserved rooms months ago.
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Although hotels are reportedly sold out in locations as far away as Richmond and Baltimore, Nancy Riker, co-owner of Washington D.C. Accommodations, a hotel reservations service, said there are a few rooms left in the District -- that is, if one is willing to pay between $800 and $1,000 a night, equivalent to a deluxe room at the St. Regis in New York City.
If that's too steep, Riker said, she has a couple of rooms for $599 -- near Dulles International Airport.
"The normal person coming from Florida or North Carolina and bringing their kids -- these are not the people buying these rooms," Riker said. "The people buying the rooms are the production companies for the movies," she said, referring to Hollywood types who want to be close to the action.
It's not just hotels, but also the dozens of bed-and-breakfast boutiques in the region that are seeing green. Steve Lucas, general manager of Bed and Breakfast Accommodations Ltd. of Washington, D.C., which books rooms for 30 properties, said typical prices range from $125 to $145 a night in the off-season to as much as $250 in peak season.
For inauguration week, rooms are going for $550 to $700 a night, Lucas said.
"The day after the election, I sold 75 percent of my stock," he said. "We had four phone lines between two employees and myself. They were ringing nonstop from 9:05 a.m. the day after the election until 5 p.m. each day."
Durso estimated the average price of a D.C. hotel room during inauguration week at about $650 a night, despite her organization's asking member hotels to try to keep prices down.
"We said: 'Let's not go overboard. Let's be sensitive,' " Durso said. "But it's not looking good next year economically. Many of these hotels are trying to do what they can to make that extra bit that can carry them through the year and make budget."
Colm Owens, 38, an American who works in London, can empathize with Flanagan. He wanted to take his mother to the inauguration, so in September he booked two rooms from Jan. 17 through 21 at Yesteryear's Treasures, which he found through the Alexandria & Arlington Bed and Breakfast Network. The cost was $150 a room each night -- a total bill of $1,500.
Owens provided a look at several e-mails between him and Linda Egerton, who handles reservations for the bed-and-breakfast network. In one, Egerton wrote: "I can book the 2 room suite for you at $150/night per room."
But when Owens got his credit card statement on Nov. 17, he had been charged $2,648.29, he said.
"I was never told the rate would go up and would never agree to an escalating rate. Who would?" Owens said.
