Help! My city is sold out!

By Barney Gimbel, Fortune writer

(Fortune Magazine) -- The answer was no everywhere. I was in D.C., and thanks to conferences and freshman orientation for Congress, there were no hotel rooms in the city. (People were even taking cabs to Baltimore!) With occupancy way up this year, it's a situation that's become all too common.

So what can you do? Start with hotels where you are a preferred loyalty-program member, and ask for the front desk directly (never talk to central reservations). If you fail, ask them where else to call. (When cities book up, hotels call one another to help place extra guests.)

It's always good to call around noon or 4 p.m., as that's when guests check out early or don't show up. If you're with a big company, press your travel agent to find out if your firm has blocks of rooms on reserve. As for me? After a night on a friend's couch, I finally convinced the Hotel Rouge to give me a room.  Top of page

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.