Hotel Price Drop Rebook Tracker
The experienced traveler playbook is simple: book the refundable rate, then track it. Per a March 2026 r/TravelHacks roundup (nomadlawyer.org, as of Mar 2026), prices drop about 40 percent of the time, and rebooking plus canceling the old reservation takes a few clicks. The failure mode is equally simple: nobody remembers to recheck, and cancellation deadlines slip by unnoticed. This skill removes the remembering. It holds your ledger, nags you on schedule, and turns every spotted price drop into a clear rebook or keep decision with the savings math done.
How it works:
- You add each refundable booking: hotel, dates, rate, currency, and the cancellation deadline.
- You run the list command any time to see every booking with days left, sorted by urgency, with deadlines inside 3 days flagged.
- You run the schedule command to get your recheck plan: every 3 days, then daily in the final week.
- You spot a lower rate on the booking site and run recheck with the new number. The script does the savings math after fees.
- It writes the action note: REBOOK with the savings and steps, or KEEP with the reason (below threshold, not refundable, or deadline passed).
Who it is for: Frequent travelers, road warriors, and vacation planners who book refundable rates and want the savings without the mental overhead.
What you get: The price_watch.py script (Python 3, standard library only, no installs, no accounts, no network calls). The bookings ledger format with every column explained and example rows. The recheck schedule format and the rebook action note template. The rebook decision rule: rebook when the new rate plus fees beats the current rate by more than your minimum savings. Two fully worked examples: a standard three booking trip with a successful rebook, and a tricky non refundable booking edge case.
