We will be in NZ/Australia for three weeks in April and we wondered if anyone had opinions on the value of waiting until a week before our trip to take advantage of wotif.com discounts. Is it worth it? We'll be in Queenstown, Te Anau, Christchurch, Sydney and Port Douglas

Depends whether your trip coincides with school holidays. http://www.australiatravelsearch.com.au/trc/hols.html
If you have specific hotels you want to book, you might be advised to do do so earlier if your trip will clash with the school holidays. If you are more flexible, you could take advantage of the wotif discounts.

I think wotif lists 14+ days in advance.

I think Wotif let's you book 28 days in advance, but whether the best deals are 7 days in advance I'm not sure.

I've often found the hotels themselves are offering the same rate as Wotif, Expedia or GoStay etc.

Wotif does book 28 days in advance and FYI school holidays in New South Wales are from April 12 to 28 - and Queensland April 4 to 14.

Looks like NZ school holidays are from April 19 - May 4 (inclusive of weekends). Anzac Day is April 25.

Take a look here for details:

http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm?...ocumentid=3767

Lodging in Te Anau is rather limited. If you're there during school holidays I'd suggest booking in advance.

We visited NZ during school holidays one year and it does get pretty busy in some areas - in fact, the hotels in Fox/Franz Josef were completely booked over Anzac Day, which coincides with school holidays.

As mentioned previously, you can book through wotif up to 28 days in advance. I don't know if the price of lodging on wotif drops significantly the longer you wait, but inventory definitely disappears.

The best discounts on wotif come just a few days before you require a room. Hoteliers and B&Bs obviously have some system whereby that can list discounted unsold rooms on wotif a few days out. It is a very useful site, but take notice of its cancellation policies. If the hotel is offering a similar price I would book through the hotel. All the places you mention should have many accomodation options, but by waiting until the last minute sometimes means that all the reasonable places are booked and you end up at a 5 star that may cost a lot more.

Thanks to everyone for their response. I think I'll be safe and book ahead directly with the hotels.

My experience with NZ hotels and wotif is that if you email the hotels diectly, you may get a better price, equalling wotif, than if you simply use their website. It might be worth the effort, since you could book the room earlier with them than you could with wotif.

If you are going to wait, it would be wise to book a refundable room that you would keep if nothing turns up good at the end.