Recently stayed on an award night at a Holiday Inn in the Portland, OR metro area. I actually tried to check in one day early and pay for the first night.

I spoke with a night audit employee and asked if she could give me a lower rate than the standard $169 her sales system was coming up with. She told me she'd like to do so, but the new sales system recently installed at the hotel prohibits employees from selling rooms at prices other than what the system offers.

This was a surprise for me as I've had success in the past getting lower rates by contacting hotel employees directly. Come to think of it, this has been harder to do recently. Is ICHG cracking down on this system-wide? Or perhaps this is confined to a few hotels - this particular HI may have been one of the rare corporate-owned properties.

I really hope ICHG isn't trying to restrict employees' authority to offer lower rates to get people to stay. Someone out there may have done a cost-benefit analysis to show ICHG that this would be more profitable in the long run, but all I know is I ain't paying rack or a best flex $5 short of rack because ICHG feels like tying the hands of hotel employees - I'll just stay somewhere else.

Has anyone else run into this? Perhaps this is a bad idea ICHG adopted from another hotel chain? I can imagine Marriott or Hilton having a policy like this in place.