HotelChatter

Check out this horror story from the Post article:

On Oct. 27, a week before Sen. Barack Obama won the general election, [a guest] logged on to Priceline.com and reserved one night in a suite at the Bolger Hotel and Conference Center in Potomac for $159.

But on Nov. 18, [she] received a letter from the hotel.

"In order to protect your reservation," the letter informed her, "it is necessary for us to process a non-refundable advance deposit equivalent to a two nights stay. . . . If we do not hear from you, your reservation is subject to cancellation and will be given to another guest on our waiting list."

Ew! It seems like hotels in the area are just kinda doing whatever they want with their prices and changing their rules up just 'cause, well, they can. Some hotels are doubling or tripling thier usual rates, requiring minimum stays of four nights and collecting full payment up front with no refunds. Ugh. But we get it; it's business.

Oh, and our favorite part of the article is a simple explanation of why this is going on, courtesy of the brilliantly honest president of the Hotel Association of Washington:

"What you have is a lot of venues that don't normally face this kind of demand," said Emily Durso, president of the Hotel Association of Washington. "They're dealing with it for the first time. They were dumb enough to give out rooms over the inauguration dates months ago at a low price. Oops -- now they have to fix it."

Yeah, good one.

Our advice: if you already have a reservation, call your hotel to make sure nothing's changed since you booked your room. If not...well, start hitting up your pals in the D.C. area and call dibs on a couch.

[Photo: ABC News]