In message
, at
09:12:18 on Tue, 22 Mar 2011, Neil Williams
remarked:

Steve seems to be describing a hotel which doesn't require advance
payment[1], but nevertheless keeps you room for you, except past some
undisclosed trigger point at which they start to re-let it because
you've failed to turn up.

This tends, IMX, to be something like 1800, which makes it pretty
useless, so these days credit card guarantees seem pretty universal at
all but the smallest hotels.

I remember when I used to book visitors into the Posthouse [now a
Holiday Inn] in Brentwood, in the mid 80's. We always had to rush them
down there after work, because of a real danger that they'd re-let rooms
from 6pm.
--
Roland Perry