the op mentioned that this is a 'new' policy, so any mention of 'last year', 'what we did', etc. is pretty much not applicable.
i went to the website for each hotel that we've stayed at in the past couple of years (we don't get to travel as much as we used to so it wasn't a very large list). we always made it a point to check the hotel's cancellation policy when we booked so that if we didn't make it as far, or didn't want to stop as early, we had an easy out. sure enough, each one of the hotels has a 24 to 72 hr prior policy now.
and most of these hotels are not in 'high demand' areas either. i could understand a hotel in new orleans during mardi gras, but covington, la in march?
this is definitely going to impact how we do our trips, that's for sure.