Originally Posted by
quincyc
The hotel in Nihombashi seems more conveniently located but the one in Shirakawa is more expensive, suggesting that it's the better hotel.
No, the Shirakawa is
not more expensive! For the night of Jan 16, 2013, the Nihombashi is starting at 9600 yen, while the Shirakawa is starting at 8200 yen.
What, you say, those aren't the dates you checked? Precisely! I picked those dates because they're far out, on no special date that I can tell, and therefore presumably very lightly booked so far at both hotels.
Hotel rates often go up once a hotel is booked more highly, so one possiblity is that you checked on a date where Shirakawa, for whatever reason, is booked up more. For example, some company whose offices are down the street from the Shirakawa might have booked a bunch of people for a meeting/conference/whatever on your dates, while the Nihombashi didn't have anything equivalent and so for your dates is more lightly booked at this point. That could be the whole and only reason for the price difference that you saw.
(And on points, they're exactly the same right now: 8000 points/night each.)
So while I don't know if one is a better hotel than the other, if the sole evidence you're going to go by is price, I'd say you got it backwards!
