To further add to the confusion: I tend to think of hotels completely different if I'm in a suburban location vs. downtown in a large city.

To me, CY = suburban business hotel. I consider staying there because it's cheaper than the suburban full-service Marriotts that sometimes also exist.

When I see CY building a large downtown full-service hotel (e.g. Chicago), my first thought is "why would I stay there when I don't get elite benefits and I can often stay in a nearby Renaissance or Marriott for the same price?" Some of these Courtyards even put a nicer full-service restaurant inside, but why would I pay a 15-20 Marriott point per dollar tax to eat there?

Presumably, if I worked for one of these large corporations, I'd see great CY rates and the Marriotts and Renaissances would look much more expensive - so much so that I'm willing to go endure subpar treatment (or forced to do so by my company).

Perhaps I was lucky in that my last large-firm employer who had a Marriott corporate agreement had a flat city rate. For example, for the DC area, our rate was $180/nt. for any hotel, provided property had rooms available under our rate code. Granted, there were a few hotels that *never* showed up, but there were always a couple dozen that did, sometimes including the Ritz Tyson's Corner. (Kind of an odd place for a Ritz IMHO, but still...I stayed there a couple times.)