While I try very hard to avoid red-eye flights<\/a><\/span>, which just make the next day so painful<\/em>, I recently found myself needing to take an unplanned red-eye flight from Hawaii back to the mainland when severe incoming storms<\/a><\/span> cut my family’s trip short.<\/p>\n That was all going to be bad enough, but landing at 6 a.m. at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) after flying with two kids through the night and facing the constraints of normal hotel check-in times (3-4 p.m.) were going to make a tough situation pretty darn miserable.<\/p>\n Luckily, there was a better option. Instead of spending the day as walking zombies until check-in time at our next stop, we got some of the best sleep of our lives for just $16.50 an hour by booking a day-use room at a hotel near LAX<\/a><\/span> via the appropriately named website Dayuse.com<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Here’s how “day-use rooms” work and what you need to know to save your sanity and get some rest when you need a hotel room on a schedule that doesn’t follow traditional check-in and checkout times.<\/p>\n Some hotels, especially ones at major hub airports and in big cities, offer rooms that you can book for specific hours during the day with no overnight stay included. (Note that this is different from booking a day pass to a resort hotel<\/a><\/span> that does not come with a room.)<\/p>\n Sometimes, you can book these day-use rooms directly with the hotel, but you may have to call to get that information or book. Thankfully, there are also some websites that let you search for multiple day-use hotels at once and complete the booking on that site.<\/p>\n For example, on the Dayuse.com site I used to book this room, you often just pay a small fee ($7 on my booking) to book, with the bulk of the payment due directly at the hotel at check-in. On my booking, I could even cancel for free until two hours before the end of the booking time slot in case our plans changed at the last minute, which of course happens with flights.<\/p>\n I’ve seen day-use rooms available as early as 5 a.m. and as late as 11 p.m., and sometimes for prices that are 50% to 75% less than if you booked an overnight stay. Some of the time slots are just a few hours, while others are for pretty long chunks of the day.<\/p>\n While it can vary, when you book a day-use room, you often have access to on-site amenities such as the pool or gym.<\/p>\n Reward your inbox with the TPG Daily newsletter<\/p>\n Join over 700,000 readers for breaking news, in-depth guides and exclusive deals from TPG\u2019s experts<\/p>\nHow a day-use hotel room works<\/h2>\n
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