It actually lists the first rate and the second rate- it Says 500, then says the rate changes to 220 on May 4. It does not then list the two other rate changes.

I agree on the 'average' rate comment. I often click through to then find out that 1 night is $200 and the other 4 are $450 ... very annoying to say the least. Don't think Marriott generates any business or interest in doing this, in fact the contrary might be true. Doubt they will change this because some supergenius believes this must generate revenue.

I believe the first screen always displays the lowest night during your stay and the second screen displays the first night, which may, or may not be the lowest.

In addition the room/rate type with the lowest first night, is not always the cheapest overall.

Thanks for your detailed posts. I now see how it works.

It does seem a bit odd to me and it was not intuitive to dig deeper to see that the rate changes during the stay. It's dangerous to assume, but I assume that most people do what I did: ick-through on the rate and,seeing a much higher rate on the next screen, think, "I'm done, time to check another hotel," and Marriott doesn't get the booking.

Ok, I'm seeing it now. The page listing all the hotels in the area has "from $X" by each one. When you pick one, the next page shows the first night rate, which may be a lot higher, and "the rate for this room changes on [date] to $Y per night." This only shows the FIRST change, it may not be the only change, and it may not be to the lowest rate. It is only by picking a room type and rate that you see all the rates for all nights (and taxes and fees, but that's a different rant).

In two specific examples, for the Labor Day weekend, Sept. 5-9, for the Lexington and Courtyard Midtown East, the FIRST rate change is on the 2d night, while the CHEAPEST rate is the 3d of 4 nights. But the Lexington shows "from $129" while the AVERAGE for 4 nights is about $215, for the Courtyard "from $189," average $281.

Part of the reason I didn't see this before is that the lowest rate is, of course, for the cheapest room, which is often a queen bed (sometimes a double IIRC) and I look for kings. My bad, I know.

And, to be fair, I would have to say that I think looking for the lowest "from $X" in general does tend to lead to lower overall, or average rates, although not always, and this is just from recollection, not tested in any way.

Having said that, IMHO this still makes the "from $X" info almost useless, as in many cases I still end up looking at 8 or 10 hotels in part of mid-town Manhattan to see which one is cheapest, although admittedly this is better than 15 or 20 I guess. But what would be the most helpful would be to have the website present me with the AVERAGE or TOTAL cost for each hotel for the dates I have entered.

Also, although I don't have an example of this right now, I have seen a different rate for a specific date based upon whether I say I'm staying for 3 nights or 4. In other words, in my example, the rate for Sept. 7 may be different if I say I want Sept. 5-8 or Sept. 5-9. I have no idea whether this is normal, or why it should be the case, but in some instances I have found two separate reservations to be cheaper than one longer one.

It's Marriott's website, and they can do what they want. I won't go far as to call it fraud as some have, but it's less than transparent and/or really helpful.

I'm sure those of you with better brains than mine (which is probably most of you) will enlighten me on the error of my ways. Thanks in advance.

Anyone else experiencing problems with the Marriott.com website since the redesign? When I search for available properties, I'm having problems with appealing hotel rates appearing in the summary results but then not showing when I try to actually reserve a room. Instead, the actual booking rates are much higher than what was shown in the summary. Never had this problem prior to the redesign.

The key word is "from", as in Rates from $nnn.nn on the summary page. When your requested period includes different rates on different nights, then the summary page will display the lowest rate in the Rates from $nnn.nn on the summary page.

FWIW, it's been this way for at least 10 months. You're just happening to stumble upon a situation now that has different prices for different nights. This frequently happens with international properties, with me particularly those in London, and also stays that span weekday and weekend nights/rates. A 7 night stay at SPR I've been monitoring the past 10 months has 3 different prices; �296.65/nt for 4 nights, �254.15/nt for 2 nights, and �220.15/nt for 1. Summary page shows Rates from �220.15.

Further discussion may be found in this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...riott-com.html

Wow, I just went and checked rates again at SPR and this time 6 different rates for 7 nights:

Now I see what you're talking about, aauupgrade. Thanks. I think I had never noticed it before, because I was staying at places that weren't experiencing a rate change during my term of stay. I'm not a big fan of this practice, as it's wasting A LOT of my time trying to book rooms -- having to go to each reservation page and look at the list of rates to compare.

I am really disliking this practice. It's taking me a long, long time to go through and click through on each potential reservation to see the total cost. I book a lot of Marriott/RC business travel on the site, and this is a huge turnoff.

I sometimes see great rates on the listing and those rates are NEVER possible. not even for a single night during my stay. it might say rates from 129 but every night is 199

This "lowest rate available" is kind of useful if one is flexible or willing to switch hotels in the middle of a trip. For example, I find in NYC that it is not always true the most expensive nights is the same night for all properties. So sometimes, one can save a little by doing a hotel shift in the middle. If the website only shows the lowest total cost of a stay, one may not realize another property have lower rates for a couple of the nights.

This is useful if one have difficult clients and need to stay below a certain dollar amount per night to avoid questions.

I also find it useful by expanding the dates of a trip (like if I have a two or three day trip but instead ask for a rate quote for 5 days) to see if I can lower the cost by coming in on different days than what I originally had in mind. The lowest rate available let's me see what is possible savings If I can be flexible, I find that sometimes it may save a couple of hundred dollars. Especially for NYC where room rate can be $170 for one of the nights and $350 the next night.

I have yet to see a verifiable example of this.