This is one of the hotels that's been incredibly hard to categorize for SPG. The tourist season in Hakodate is rather short, and for much of the year, rates are in the 8000yen range. They do spike in summer (although mid-week BRGs of under 10000yen are possible even in July and August), and go crazy on summer weekends (25000yen or more). The hotel used to be a Cat 2, which made it a steal during those summer peak dates, but not a strong buy during the (long) low season. Then, it went to Cat 4, fair for the summer peak, but completely outrageous for the rest of the year. It'll be interesting to see how Marriott will handle redemption availability here, and how low/normal/high season dates will be distributed.