Originally Posted by
DrSeuss
I stay at Marriott's quite frequently. I went on-line this evening to make reservations and was disappointed to find that rates advertised on the main page were far lower than the actual overall cost for my 5 night stay. I caught this when I was just about to make the reservation and realized the cost had doubled from what it should have been based on the advertised price. I find it interesting that all of the hotels listed seem to reflect a lower price for the first night and the rates increase exponentially after that.
In this particular instance a prepaid rate advertised as $87 per night for 5 nights is totaling $735, but they clearly state that they are going to actually charge my card $823.20. How did they come to this total? Well, when I actually view the summary of charges, it lists $87 for the first night, $158 for the second, $175 for the third and fourth nights and $140 for the fifth night, plus the $88.20 in taxes and fees.
I just find this extremely deceptive. I looked at multiple hotels on their site for he same date range and they all seemed to be doing the same thing.
I find this typical at many hotels. They want to suck you in with a bogus low rate stating "from $x/night" which is the lowest in the date range given. Some sites will offer up the average given the total of the available rates and divide by the number of nights. As a customer you must watch how each night shakes out. I also find booking different night configurations just might yield lower total rates.
I am a gold member with Marriott and could be well on my way to platinum for the year. I could reach it by the middle of October, but am now starting to question my comfort level in booking at their hotels given this current practice.
If you are Gold now, then you should be Plat at the merge.