This is a bit long, but ends with a question, so:

A young lovely I've been messaging with for 10 days agree to meet me tonight for dinner and then private time. There was ZERO ambiguity in what I said to her. She agreed,  as follows:

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Me: So, $300/meet. I hope that's a reasonable number to you. Consider that I'll always be paying for some other activities and the hotel accommodations as well, and I do at least 3-star hotels, because I can't stand the cheap ones.

Her 9 days ago
Very understandable, I think we can agree to the arrangement because this is something I'm looking for.

Today she tells me, 5 hours before we're supposed to meet, that

"You're going to hate me, but I picked up a second job this week and unfortunately I have to go in tonight right after I get out of my first gig. So sorry, hope we can see each other soon"

Me: "Oh, I do kind of hate that, because I have a non-refundable hotel . Well, that's the way things go in this world, I guess. I'd still like to see you...and congrats on the second job."

Her: "I didn't even know we were staying in a hotel. I had already mentioned that I was going somewhere later this evening. But thank you."

Me: "Well, these things happen, I suppose, even though I try to get hotels with the most liberal cancellation policies. And, I did tell you 2 days ago  "I booked a hotel for us. Also, my text number is xxx-xxx-xxxx, since I find regular text less cumbersome than SA messaging, even with the iPhone app."
But, let's just try again when we can reschedule?"

Her: "No offense, but booking a room without an agreement seems a little weird. I had already had plans tonight so I'm not sure where in our conversation you thought that was necessary."

Me: "No, no offense taken. However, I think I said $300/meet, and you agreed, and I was clear about expectations. I don't want to make this a dispute, because I do want to meet you, but maybe we've been talking past each other?

If you'd like to reschedule, I'd like that. But look back our exchanges from 9 days ago and let's be sure we're on the same page."

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So, she accepts $300/meet and then is shocked, shocked I tell you, that I booked a hotel room!

Don't tell me to move on; I am. But here's the question:

This is twice I've eaten a hotel cost. So, how do you guys book hotels? The BEST cancellation I know of is the Drury Inns, which let you cancel up to 11 AM the day you arrive, but even that is not enough.

Unless I have gotten to know someone, I always want to meet for coffee first to make sure they show up.  THEN I book the room.

but I completely agree, I never book a room that I am going to be stuck with until after she shows up for drinks/dinner/or yes, even coffee. lol

 
It's very easy to call ahead to a few hotels in the immediate area to check on room availability and then double check an hour or so before your scheduled date. You have to remember these are not pros who have a "brand" to protect or who are worried about a bad review. It's a pretty easy game to play, you just have to use a little common sense to keep from blowing money needlessly.

...just thinking out loud, at $300 a meeting, the cost of a single hotel room would be somewhat insignificant, yes?

Maybe just chalk it up to the cost of doing business?

We usually meet for coffee, drinks, or lunch. If we hit it off and agrees on $, I then quickly book a room on Priceline or Hotwire. I live near D.C. so there are tons of hotels available. I always try to meeta POT SB after Wednesday because hotels are super expensive on the first 3 days of the week due to people attending meetings and conferences in DC. After Wednesday, you can easily get a 4-star for 70. The only time I actually ate the hotel cost was with an SB I had actually seen several times before and she was usually reliable. She told me her son had an accident so she couldn't make it. She was very reliable after that so I assume she was telling me the truth.

Let's say you were planning on a three hundred dollar date, would you just take a hundred dollar bottle of Champagne and throw it out the window because it was relatively "insignificant"

 
The room might be insignificant in the overall price of a date, but is it still insignificant when you pay for the room and she doesn't show up and it's total waste of money? Losing the money on the room kind of adds insult to injury.

Well, fortunately I've been messaging with other SBs, so I found a replacement! In fact, the same one I saw a few days ago for $200. So, lesson learned and no harm.

BTW, the one who was suddenly all "What kind of girl do you think I am? How did you get THAT idea?" has, of course, blocked me because she's outraged.....geez.

so I use Priceline. But one gal I see is very unpredictable so I pay the extra $50 so I can cancel last minute and it's been worth it.

RE the hotels. AsianMan and Gent GaGa (and others) know what they are doing / saying. I would add: NEVER book a hotel room in front of her. Get fast with the Apps, and do it when she hits the ladies room, or whatever.  

RE your situation, here's a theory/explanation:  

She thought the $300 per meet did NOT necessarily mean that she agreed to have sex--that would be tying sex to money (which, for many SBs, is a hurdle with which they struggle)--even though you mentioned hotel accommodations in your text. Now, if SHE decides to have sex with you (or had done so already), she's not sleeping with you for money--it's HER decision to have sex. But, because you got a hotel room in advance, and told her, it appears to her that YOU made the decision to tie money to sex. Also, maybe she thinks that you have to stay in the hotel room overnight if you book it! (I had an SB tell me that once....)

Her words and actions are consistent with this notion. But, so are alternate explanations, like: 1) she chipped a nail, 2) an ex-boyfriend texted her a nastygram, 3) some guy she likes isn't paying attention to her, 4) the sale shoes she *looooved* weren't in stock in her size, 5) phase of the moon, 6) the Beatles broke up, 7) she won't be able to see the solar eclipse, and ad infinitum.

PS: I recently had a M&G BCD with a gorgeous foxy young thing (and an agreement to meet again later in the week). Well, she sent me a text saying that she "needs to figure some things out, and needs to cancel our meet" (my interpretation: I just slept with a guy nearly 3X my age...WTF...?)  Now, I'm blocked on SA. We had a great time, too. Go figure. As the Soup Nazi says, "NEXT!"

"She thought the $300 per meet did NOT necessarily mean that she agreed to have sex--that would be tying sex to money (which, for many SBs, is a hurdle with which they struggle)--even though you mentioned hotel accommodations in your text. Now, if SHE decides to have sex with you (or had done so already), she's not sleeping with you for money--it's HER decision to have sex. But, because you got a hotel room in advance, and told her,"
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Bingo. If I'd been thinking better, I wouldn't have told her and shouldn't have. That would have kept a pretty good looking baby for a future date and I could have gotten points for "understanding". Lesson learned, and I think your "doublethink" explanation is spot on. As GaGambler pointed out, I have to get my head into the SB world and realize that what I know about pros doesn't apply here. And here's the other thing which is interesting, for anyone on this board, it is OBVIOUS that $300/meet damn well includes sex, but you're right, some SBs cherish the illusion (delusion) that they aren't doing sex for money.

The only other thing I can add to this discussion, is that had at least had the good sense to have a couple of other SBs in the queue, and in the end, after a bunch of quick messages, I got two volunteers from women I'd been chatting with, and here's the unexpected thing: I sent about 10 messages  "I'm unexpectedly in town for the evening and looking for a dinner companion. This can be just dinner, or...." and I got 3 more positive replies, from women I'd never contacted before. The odd thing here is that this was on a Saturday night.

So, gents, here's another lesson learned: Keep that profile out there, correspond a lot and then look to see who's ONLINE on a Saturday (or maybe Friday as well) evening. It might be just dinner/drinks, but who knows...

Seems to be a real thing. We need to have more discussions of this experience. I had a lot of luck recently sending out some batches of messages morning or afternoon of day to meet (during a drive, where I could choose where to stop).  

My guess is that the girls are likely thinking, "Well, I've got nothing *else* to do tonight...so, why not?" Versus, with a week in advance they *ALL* seem to think, "Well, there's still time for something really COOL to happen in a week, and I might be right in the middle of it." Some sort of cognitive bias I do not yet understand.

They're loathe to give up that option value, just as we are loathe to commit right away to an SB that replies, as we are thinking that "Babo-lisciousness" still out there might still get back to us....

Have you ever noticed a common theme on the other TER boards where it comes to NCNS and other cancellations? Most of them start with, "I scheduled the session well in advance" Guys like me who usually schedule same day almost never have a problem with cancellations or NCNS.  The same thing applies to SB's, even more so actually as hookers are professionals who do this for a living while most SBs are not.

 
That same " what the hell,why not?" philosophy also leads to a lot of BCD time with SB's who would never agree to fucking a total stranger for money.  If you have any game at least, the thing you want to do, just like a great salesman, is to get her in front of you. I have lost track of how many POT SB have jumped into the sack with me with ZERO discussion about compensation. It was a given of course that money was going to be involved, but there is a very large percentage of POT SB's who hate the idea of being a hooker, but who will easily get caught up in the moment and agree to going home with you just like a "real" date IF you don't treat her like a hooker. Now in 99% of the cases you still better give her some money if you ever want to fuck her again, but SB's are much different than hookers in many regards.  

 
Back to your original point, I love it when a POT SB wants to meet "today" The sooner you meet up, the less things that can happen to screw it up.

as I try to make all meetings close to my home, but when I do, it's usually when both of us are in the car on the way there.

We all learn from our mistakes, I have been there done that too. But now, I strictly book when the person shows up, I will generally meet in the lobby of a good 3-4 star hotel where they accept day use rates and once the sb shows up and I like what I see then I book the hotel using the app on my phone before walking to the front desk. Some hotels in DMV also have the digital keys now so I don't even use a access card anymore. In one case, I even walked out of the hotel after seeing the girl in lobby as she did not look like the her pictures.

A web site that may useful for this approach is:

   " hotelsbydaydotcom"