One night not available, adding an extra night makes it available
 

I was trying to look at the availability for a one night stay (with specific dates) at the Marriott website and didn't receive any results. I edited the search to add an extra (consecutive) night to those dates and lo and behold I did get results.

So I was wondering how this is possible. If there are no rooms available for a specific night, how can there be a room available if you choose to stay for that same night and an extra night? :confused:

Minimum stay at that property at that time?

One night not available, adding an extra night makes it available
 

Minimum stay required. Hotels tend to have this restriction during high demand periods.

Oh, that makes sense. So I'm guessing that you can't know this in advance until you try a search. Would there be any way around this aside from booking extra nights? Though I'm not having very high hopes for that. :(

Book it with the extra night - just not on a prepaid rate, and call reservations and tell them your travel plans changed and you need to remove the last night, and - in the past, that's worked for me.

Minimum Stays
 

Clearly, minimum stay requirements benefit the hotel as they help increase occupancy on the shoulder days. However, they also help any guest who needs to stay at a hotel for more than one night. These types of restrictions are only used when projected demand ensures a sold out night.

Purposely evading a minimum stay requirement becomes an ethical question. While it may personally benefit you, it means the hotel will effectively lose money. It also means that a guest who wants to stay for multiple nights will be turned away. Finally, tipped hotel employees lose out on the opportunity to earn a living because the room will be empty on the second night.

FYI - they do track this and will address it if it happens "often"

In this kind of situation can't we just book the two nights and in the morning following first night inform the desk we are leaving ?
I did it in a Courtyard (I mean, leaving before end of reservation), that was not a problem.

By that, I hope you mean they will address this incredibly lame practice with the hotel, and not with the guest that they are allowing to do it - if indeed they do allow the guest to do it. ;)

If the person was actually staying for 2 nights/room was booked, someone else who wanted to stay for 2 nights in an oversold situation would be turned away anyway, so I'm not quite buying the argument that booking a 2-day stay & then changing it to 1-night is affecting others. If anything, it opens up 1 night that might not have been available.

Who are these tipped employees you're referring to? Housekeeping? Not everyone tips the housekeeper. If you're referring to restaurant/bar, that's making a leap. Not everyone eats/drinks on site either, and if it's a property that doesn't give points on incidental spend, there's a good chance someone is going to go off-site. Can't speak for others, but I've never made a decision on length of stay based on a possibility that a hotel employee might not get a tip.

And re: tracking min & changing plans. Putting aside the OP's situation, we've all had experiences where our plans have changed & we've had to adjust length of stay. I doubt people run into minimum required stays on an everyday basis, so there wouldn't be much to track - ie, often.

And quite frankly, once a Marriott employee makes the change it's a done deal as far as I'm concerned. If Marriott is going to 'address it', they either need to stay firm on the minimum stay or address it with the employee who granted the waiver. It's not the customer's problem.

Cheers.

Although exceptions are aways a possibility, when I check in I'm asked to confirm my check-out date. This is a two-sided sword. One, you are agreeing to a stay of x nights at the rate booked. Two, you are agreeing to NOT stay longer than x nights. Some states have very strict eviction laws and it is very difficult to kick someone out of a room.

There's a reason I put "often" in quotes....yes plans change and the Marriott Police will not hunt you down for changes in your plans but (and here's a quote I like to use repeatedly) your grandmother just passed away for the 9th time in the past 4 weeks.....

Drat - I knew I was going to get caught. Poor ole grandma :D :D

But on a more serious note, I don't think it's the norm for there to be min stay requirements (resorts would probably be the exception or TS on NYE), so I'd be surprised if someone utilized the booking & then trying to change in advance very often.

Cheers.

The scenario I was thinking about was a single high-demand night. For example: When Saturday night will sell out but Friday and/or Sunday will not.

As for my comment regarding tipped employees, I was referring to the bell staff and food/beverage employees. (Housekeeping is not a tipped position.) Please note that I was careful with my words. I wrote that tipped employees will lose "the opportunity" to make money.

I don't make many comments here. When I do, it's generally to provide people information from the hotel perspective. I wasn't suggesting that every guest needs to consider tipped hotel employees when making travel decisions. Rather, I was presenting several data points as to why purposely evading minimum stay requirements can negatively impact the hotel.

I hope that clarifies my position.

It does - thanks for posting!

Cheers.