Starwood Preferred Guest - Westin Website Pricing--WATCH OUT!!

Westin Crown Center, Kansas City 4/5-8/01

Accessing through the Internet only rate icon at http://www.westin.com for the above hotel/date range $151

Checking dates individually through same link:

4/5 $80
4/6 $98
4/7 $98

This is an ongoing problem with all Starwood websites. The average consumer will not think to check dates individually. Hotel pricing displays need to be regulated just like airline ticket pricing displays.

Sheryl:

I've noticed this on the Marriott.com booking engine also: specifically, marriott.com won't split rates, so if you are staying Wed - Sat and there's a cheap rate available for Thurs-Sat, it will just quote the most expensive rate for the entire stay. You have to check each day and each combination to really find the lowest rates.

What did you mean by "just like airline ticket pricing displays"? No one booking engine will necessarily give you the lowest available fare, at least in my experience. I didn't know that the displays were regulated.

-David

Yes, I'm aware that Marriott's website does that. That's not the same thing as the example above, however, where a significantly higher rate is assigned to the date range than what is available on any single day. If Westin was doing what you describe Marriott does (and I concur with your Marriott example), then the date range should have been $98, not $151.

What I meant by airline pricing displays being regulated was that the airlines are not allowed to advertise a fare that doesn't include all non-government imposed fees in the base fare. You may remember that when the "fuel surcharge" was initiated last year that it was listed in the fine print or on a later screen. That's illegal. The U.S. Dept. of Transportation mandates that all non-government imposed fees must by included in the base fare. DOT is monitoring this and has been fining the airline violators. In fact, as recently as last week, I noticed that Sun Country was still not including the fuel surcharge in the base fare on their website.

Also, if you call an airline for reservations, they must tell you that a lower fare may be available on their website. Spot checks of this are being made by DOT.

Unfortunately, IMO, there is no regulation whatsoever of the hotel industry.

Sheryl,

Your three lowest rate for three nights might not necessary be the same room. Hence if you book three consecutive nights, you might need to pay a more expensive rate plan.

I selected the exact same parameters with each individual date search, so how can you say it wouldn't be the same room? The room description was exactly the same each time.

Something else to be aware of is the phoney "sold out" status. Not had this happen on Starwood, but have on other hotel sites.

What happens is that during a busy period, a hotel imposes a minimum two-night stay, for example, so if you want just one night, you get a sold-out message. Simply book two nights instead. The website gives you a booking reference with no conditions imposed other than 4pm day-of-arrival cancellation policy, say. Before that time, you call the hotel and amend your booking. Most times they let you do it, because they didn't advetise on the web site that there was a minimum stay requirement.

Now I've mentioned this, expect this loophole to get closed. Not saying which hotel companies it is though!

MKB Starwood actually does this as well. I'll respect your wishes and not name the property where I experienced this so as to not close any loopholes, but it just happened at a Westin property for President's Day weekend.

So is there a way of getting the lower individual day rates if they exist?

Yes, you just need to book the individual days as separate reservations and then when you check in, just tell them to combine the reservation. Hopefully, they won't make you check out and check in again, but even if they do, you should not have to change rooms.

Sheryl,

When I say same room, I meant the "same" room physically. There might be hundreds of identical rooms in one hotel. To get one “physical” room for three consecutive nights might give you different rate than three identical but physically different rooms.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think there is a problem with SW’s reservation system. I was just trying to figure why the reservation system gave such a stupid rate quote. Your situation happens to me all the time. There was once I couldn’t book a hotel for 3 consecutive nights at all. By breaking the reservation into a one and a two nights stay, I was able to stay at the same hotel. And yes, I also found hotels that don’t allow a one-night reservation on the weekend during summer time.

Anyway, here’s my theory. Of course, this is purely my speculation.

For example, there are 4 identical rooms as follows:

Room A: Free on 04/05, book on 04/06-04/07 for one guest
Room B: Book for one guest on 04/05, free on 04/06, book for another guest on 04/07
Room C: Book for one guest on 04/05-04/06, free on 04/07
Room D: Free for 04/05-04/07

If you only book a room for one day, there are always two rooms available (Room D and either Room A, B, or C), hence the cheaper rate. If you book a room for three consecutive nights, only Room D is available, hence more expensive.

The example looks simple and obvious that you can easily shuffle around so that two rooms will be available for three consecutive nights. It does get complicated when you have hundreds of rooms with hundreds of guests and different period of stay, not to mention people cancel their reservation all the time. Therefore, the reservation system might only be able to rearrange the room assignment daily, or even weekly, but not real time. Hence the price different.

This situation will not happen to airlines. The closest analogy I can think of is people who fly multiple segments. But in general you will have a different connection flight, or even different seat assignment for same flight on different segment. For hotel, you sure cannot switch a guest from one room to another every night.

Of course, my big assumption is that the reservation system is trying to assign room while making reservation. If that’s not the case, my theory fails. And I also wonder why they want to do that. Anyway, I don’t think the hotel intentionally charge for a higher price.

Originally posted by OnePassLover:
Of course, my big assumption is that the reservation system is trying to assign room while making reservation. If that’s not the case, my theory fails. And I also wonder why they want to do that. Anyway, I don’t think the hotel intentionally charge for a higher price.

There's your problem. Your assumption is incorrect. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Rooms are not assigned until checkin. Think about it. If a room was assigned at the time of reservation, no one would ever be walked due to overbooking.

I have to say that I do think the hotel is intentionally charging a higher price because they are aware of this pricing anomaly. I've written to Westin specifically about this in the past. If it wasn't intentional, they would correct it.