cnnmaverick

Hi all,


Long time lurker first time poster.
Just noticed that there's some weird availability stuff going when on when I was trying to book a vacation at the St. Regis Punta Mita with a start date of 10/24.

• When I use 10/24 - 10/29 (5 nights), the only availability is a 1BR suite for $2,200
• When I use 10/24 - 10/26 (2 nights), there's seemingly "no availability"
• When I use 10/24 - 11/1 (8 nights), there's a ton of rooms available

>>>> How can this possibly be the case unless I am either not in the loop on how these things work or am I just assuming something nefarious? Shouldn't shorter stays always have more availability options (if any) than longer ones, especially when trying to book with the same check-in date??

Can someone help explain this to me?

LovetoTravel83

There could be a minimum requirement for the number of nights.

My suggestion is to book the longer period then call Marriott to adjust it.

writerguyfl

This is a process known as revenue management. Virtually all hotels on the planet use it in one way or another. It's not nefarious. While is undoubtedly benefits the hotel, it can also benefit a guest. If you've ever stayed at a busy hotel for more than one night, it's likely that happened because the hotel "saved" that room for you.

Being for-profit endeavors, hotels want to maximize the use of their rooms in order to make money. In order to accomplish that, they will use a variety of methods to fill the most rooms at the highest rates. The one technique that's most easily explained is the minimum-stay requirement.

With a minimum-stay in place, the hotel is saying they only sell a room if the guest meets that minimum-stay. In your situation, it appears that there is a minimum-stay of at at least 6 nights for "standard" rooms.

Essentially, the hotel is betting that between now and those dates, there will be enough people booking 6+ night stays to fill the hotel.

Keep in mind, although you say there are a "ton of rooms" showing for that 8 night period, you don't actually know how many rooms there are. I'm seeing 5 room types for those dates. Three of them say "1 Room Left" and the other two say 2 or 3 rooms left. If those are accurate, that "ton of rooms" is actually 8 rooms.

Revenue management is all done by computers. The software is incredibly complex. It analyzes thousands of data points to come up with these minimum-stay requirements. As someone who used to be a Revenue Manager, I can say with confidence that the likelihood that this hotel will be sold out by the time your dates arrive is very high.

Basically, the hotel is saving rooms for people willing to stay longer. There are far fewer people that want longer stays when compared to people who want a short stay. Without minimum-stay restrictions, the people with short stays will book all the rooms first. When that person wanting a long stay tries to book, that won't be possible.

Because demand isn't even across days of the week, without the use of minimum-stay restrictions you end up with days with availability for only one night. Filling one-night stays at a resort would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

It is very unlikely this will work. When you make a reservations, it's based on the criteria given. Whenever you modify a reservation, you must meet whatever restrictions are in place at that time. If a 3-night stay is not available and you book a longer one and immediately try to change it to 3 nights, you wouldn't get it.

Although it's not crystal clear, Marriott does hint at it with this note under the Rate Details on the website:

Modifying Your Reservation
Please note that a change in the length or dates of your reservation may result in a rate change.

boolean64

are you looking at 10/24/2020 or next week? If 2020, they may be in the process of loading inventory for next year which might be contributing to this.