This is a bit of a rant. For several years I have gone to New York City over Labor Day weekend. I generally book something pretty early that I can cancel and then keep looking once in a while to see if things get cheaper later, which they usually do. I assume their algorithms look at demand and adjust rates periodically.

You are all probably familiar with the interface; when I put in New York City and the dates I get a list of hotels there. Each one says "From (some number) USD / Night," and below is a box to click that says "View Rates." The annoying thing is that right now many of them say "from" some number, several are less than or just over $200 per night, but when you click on "View Rates" the rates are often well above that, many over $350. In some cases the rates change during the period I enter (4 nights), sometimes going up and sometimes down, but I never seem to see the "from" rate. It's annoying to have to click on "View Rates" for almost every hotel trying to find the actual price for the stay in question.

So my question is whether there is any reason that Marriott puts the $200 figure, when there is nothing close to that rate for the dates in question. Are just trying to get me to click on the rates for those hotels? Does it mean that the rate is less than $200 on some date that I don't care about? What is the point of that? I've told them the dates I want.

It would be much more useful if they would just tell me the total cost of each hotel for the stay I'm asking about. Any suggestions on how I can make this easier? Thanks.