mcgahat

So, I have not really been a Marriott regular over the years but am involved in a Plat challenge and am getting to know it. I might be missing something or doing something wrong but I really do not like the way the rates display on the searches on the app. For example, when I do a search on the web it says rates "from" but even that seems to be inconsistent as there are actually some nights on a recent search that are lower than the from rate displayed. I would say that even if that worked it is pretty useless in comparing rates in cities with a lot of properties. I literally have to select each property and then compare the total for stay on each one to get a realistic comparison.

Is this really the way it works or am I missing an "easy button"?

Jon Maiman

Nope, you're not missing an easy button. It would be better if Marriott showed a blended (average) rate per night for multi-night stays when searching.

--Jon

P.S. I'd love to be wrong and find out there actually is an "easy button" I have been missing all of these years.
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mcgahat

Ok, so if I am crazy then at least one other person is in the same boat! I could see how someone at Marriott is hard set that there is a psychological factor in seeing a lower rate displayed but I am pretty sure we are all smarter than that.

mahasamatman

Marriott will only show the rate for the first night, regardless of whether the remaining nights are higher or lower. That makes it pretty useless for multi-night stays.

CPRich

Last night I was trying to compare options for a family stay in Madrid this summer, and I had to spend quite a bit of time clicking through every property all the way to the very end to see my actual cost, to compare to a points stay.

For a 3 night stay, every night was different at just about every property. The "price" listed on the search page was the first night only for an advance/prepay/nonrefundable stay only, and without the substantial taxes. I.e., relatively useless.

Cledaybuck

I wish you could see multiple rates at once, not just the standard rate, AAA rate, government rate, points rate, etc.

UA-NYC

The 4-column SPG grid is great...I hope they keep that interface going forward, but I doubt it.

kennycrudup

I dunno if we want the SPG way of doing things, though- at least with Marriott, the rate will fluctuate throughout the stay, sometimes lower, sometimes higher- but I don't see that with SPG unless I make multiple, consecutive reservations for the same property; it seems as if the rate is fixed on the first day of the stay and remains for the remaining days.

mahasamatman

In my experience, SPG averages the rates and presents it as such.

CPRich

If I have a 3 night stay at $100, $120, and $170, I'd much rather see SPG's $130/night than MR's $100/night, as it's going to cost me $390 for the 3 nights.

CouponSurfer

While not ideal, you can set your dates to flexible and then Marriott will display the average rate for each date of check in for your length of stay.

Cledaybuck

The grid is nice. I would also take the Hilton way too.

kennycrudup

You don't see "The rate for this room changes to <new rate> on <date>" when looking? I do- plus if you select the property it gives you the breakdown for each date of the searched stay.

What I like about MR's solution is that if I'm searching with price in mind (so, about 99% of the time) I can vary my stay dates (or stay locations) to minimize prices. I have to make multiple-day bookings to see if that's the case with SPG.

mahasamatman

Yes, but you have to do that for each property. In places where there are 10-15 properties, this is incredibly tedious. Plus, if the rate changes twice, you still only get one change message as I recall.

LoganFlyer

I'd love to see a mixed version of Marriott & SPG. When you search for a hotel, it should show the average nightly rate like SPG does. But then when I drill in, I want to see the night by night rate like Marriott does. That way, if there's one night that's really cheap or expensive, I can plan around that.