DC area hotel - 3x more weekday versus weekend
 

Well aware that in areas frequented by business travelers prices are often considerably more on weekdays than weekend. But this is extreme. Found a rate at upper-end chain in DC area and price is $84 per night for 3-day weekend this spring (when I am going). Price was so low that out of curiosity I checked mid-week that week and one after - price was almost $300/night.

How could there be such an extreme difference? Could this be a mistake? I made a reservation and have printed confirmation, so I assume they will honor rate if it was a mistake.

At the JW Marriott two years ago, we paid about $120 per night for Friday and Saturday.

I found the checkout sheet for the previous guest who had paid, I think, $374 each for Wednesday and Thursday.

So what you are finding hasn't changed percentage-wise since 2011. Actually, nice to know!

It could be an error but wouldn't any decent business honor the price? My guess is that something else is driving the very high work week rates.

>>How could there be such an extreme difference?<<

One or more conventions and/or conferences can drive the availability and price of weekday hotel rooms pretty dramatically. But even something small in the hotel's microclimate can have an impact.

Many hotels these days use a pretty sophisticated algorithm to get real time snapshots of their own & their competitors' prices and occupancy rates. With that and some other variables they can make and adjust pricing decisions hourly if they wanted to. Some of itis common sense (hotel rates in a college town on graduation weekend) but a lot of it isn't intuitive.

Anyway, yay for you! Great rate.

I also stayed twice at the JW Marriott in DC - both weekdays and I was there on business. Once the rate was $179 and the next time it was $500+. They call it dynamic pricing (or what we used to call "supply and demand" :-) ).

I'm afraid what you're seeing is typical for business mostly based on government business so if Congress is not in session (weekends, holiday periods--are you going Easter weekend?) rates are lowered much much more than they would be in other scenarios. So the weekday rate is the bsse and the weekend is just an extreme (but real) example of discounting.

Lots of things can trigger the discrepancies. I was in a hotel recently for 5 weekdays and one of the days was 5x the price of the others. It was a combination of a wedding in the hotel and a conference at the same time.

<I>"How could there be such an extreme difference?"</I>
Supply and demand - I've seen MUCH wider differences in D.C. hotel prices ($100 vs. $450 for Fri. vs. Thur.)

<i>"Could this be a mistake?"</i>
'Could' meaning a 0.0001% chance? - Yes.
Is it likely to be a mistake? - No.

<i>"I made a reservation and have printed confirmation, so I assume they will honor rate if it was a mistake."</i>
You got a good price and of course they will honor it.

No mistake. All of the lobbyists go home and the places are empty til Monday night - unless there is a big congress in town.