walk
attrib.— «Hotels will overbook to improve their chances of selling out for a night. To safeguard against homeless travelers, hotels in the same class and local area usually phone each other every day to compare occupancy rates and give each other “walk” rates—that is, how much hotel A will charge hotel B to put up their overbooked guests, if they should show. When it becomes appearant there will be more guests than rooms, the front office begins their “walk” strategy.…Another hotel may choose “walk candidates”—that is, pick people from the arrivals list that might not mind being bumped—leisure travelers, first time guests—and ask them, when thy arrive, if they wouldn’t mind moving to hotel B.» —“Are fully booked hotels holding back?” by Rubythursday Metafilter Feb. 13, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Martha shares a funny story about her five-year-old great-niece, who misunderstood the name of her adopted home state, California. Then again, Unicornia does have a nice ring to it. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “The Republic of...
What’s a word for the act of being so focused on documenting an important event, such as a wedding or an eclipse, that your effort to capture it distracts from experiencing the event itself? The A Way with Words Facebook group has some creative...