When do prices change?
 

They can change at any time.

Just based on my observations, they change primarily from occupancy levels. Because of this, the rates will change as others book rooms throughout the day & night.

It also appears that hotels can seed the dates, ie: 4th of July/New Year's/events. I don't know how true this is now, but back in the day the rates were never supposed to go back down.

I've worked in a number of different hospitality jobs in several different hotels. My longest tenure was as a Revenue Manager. I also worked as the Night Manager at a smaller hotel. Due to size of the property, I handled all Revenue Management tasks there. So, I have a lot of experience in revenue management.

I've never once heard anyone in the industry say that rates are never supposed to drop.

TL;DR: It's unpredictable.

There are two ways for rates to change: human and automated.

Generally, a well-run hotel will have the Revenue Manager, Reservations Manager, Director of Sales, and General Manager work together to come up with a coherent rate strategy. (Some hotels might not have all those people. Huge hotels might have additional people involved.) In all the places I worked, this was an annual event.

Any rates on a contract will not change. Those types of rates are locally-negotiated corporate rates, in-house meeting rates, and wholesale rates.

Although all other rates can change, it tends to be a "set it once-a-year" type of thing. At least, that's how it was where I worked.

Without question, all chain hotels rely on automated software to control their inventory. As long as the data is good, revenue management software is smarter than humans. The software can run thousands of different algorithms in the same time it takes a human to do one.

Where I worked, the software ran automatically every couple of hours. After it completed the run, rate and stay restrictions were updated and an exceptions report was generated. That exceptions report was a list of rates and dates that didn't match what the software that should be happening. Theoretically, a human being should investigate those exceptions.

Revenue management software is great for "normal" situations. Where it gets confused is when out-of-the-ordinary events happen. Examples: major weather events, sports play-off games, large city-wide conventions, labor actions like strikes, and infrastructure failures like when airlines or air traffic control computers go down unexpectedly.

That's kind of the Reader's Digest version of hotel revenue management. It's actually a lot more complex, as any given rate can have quantity limits and unique rate/stay controls. Plus, different software will use different methods to accomplish the same task.

So to summarize, it's basically unpredictable from an outsider's perspective.

This is why you book a flexible rate to lock in your maximum rate and set a price alert on one of the aggregators to alert you to reductions...

Superb detailed explanation. ^ This is what makes FT an unparalleled resource. ^

I actually saw/heard it in a documentary on the Marriott corp, but it's been well over 15 years since I saw it.

IMHO this is very property specific. Now, I have found that while rates change all the time it seems the "sweet spot" for booking the best deal seems to be a few weeks prior to the actual stay date! As if you book very last minute the rate can be high as either the advance purchase discounted rate has closed or the % occupancy is high so the rate goes up. And, if you book well in advance, say several months prior to the stay, it seems that the rate is artificially high. But of course this is not the end all be all as some properties will just put a fixed price out and that's the price unless actual occupancy deviates significantly from expected occupancy, while other properties may deeply discount the rate for either well in advance purchase and/or last minute deals etc etc etc.. Now, my simplification method is I tend to stay at the same properties over and over so I both have an idea of fair price & also seem to get better loyalty treatment, which is sort of a win win



Butttt, to ask another question - what I actually thought this thread was asking- is there any info on when Marriott will be starting the new peak, off peak reward pricing. I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere but I was just planning an anniversary trip to Hawai'i and can't seem to locate any firm information about this! Is there anywhere any documents about when starting or any lists of specific hotels and when they're peak vs off peak???


Thanks in advance for any info!

I see rates drop all the time.

The new rate 'algorithms' in larger cities are changing daily & vary between brands. (maybe the new software) Post 4 above is spot on.

So, this is very specific, but I booked on government rates about six months in advance once. The rates were based on the current year's rates. And, come six months later, the government rates had gone down. But Marriott was still charging me the higher dollar rate.

I called and asked to have the rate changed (during my stay, actually), and they told me, "just this once", they lowered my rate to the current government rate.

I'm not saying they were trying to pull a fast one on me, and they can't know the new rates before they come out, but, I dunno, it would have been nice to be notified.

Having said all that, I could also have paid attention the week before my stay.

After that phone call, I re-booked quite a lot of trips to make sure I got the true government rate.

I was a little annoyed, though, with the manager saying "just this once" we can change the rate. Like I was asking for this all the time. Meanwhile, I had/have probably stayed at that hotel 50 times over the last two years.

Which, by the way, always makes me wonder...just how much information are they privy to regarding a customer? Sometimes they will say, "Welcome back, I see you stayed here last week, or last month, or last year". Sometimes they ask me if I've ever been there before, What gives with that?

The difference in experiences is likely due to the quality of the employee. Every Front Desk staff member will have access to the same information. If someone asks if you've stayed at their hotel before, it means they didn't take the extra 10 seconds to look at your stay history.

Or, it's just an automatic thing due to repetition. After you've checked in a couple hundred people, a Front Desk agent will develop a spiel. You could be looking right at the screen where it shows that the guest is a repeat one and still ask the question. It can be hard to break out of "auto pilot" mode sometimes.

What is the timing for the advance purchase discounted rate ​​​​​? Cut off at one week? More? Less?

What is the timing for the advance purchase discounted rate ​​​​​? Cut off at one week? More? Less?