I Just booked our flights to DC in September. It will be our first trip without our son......

We are looking to find a nice, convenient Marriott family hotel(we are using rewards). We will not have a car, so a great central location is absolute! Not that interested in anything too fancy, but a continental b'fast or close place to grab a bagel, etc might not be a bad idea!

Any thoughts? We don't want to be much more than $100 a night, but realize that might not be possible......

Ideas? Thanks for your help!

The Mariott Courtyard Convention Center has the best location by far, though I have no idea of the rates. $100 a night is probably not realistic for a "great central location." But didn't you say you want to use rewards?

Yes, but as we are relatively new Marriott Rewards members so I am not sure what kind of reward we are going to be looking at. I had a hunch that $100/night was pretty unrealistic.

I'm going to book a hotel as a back up & try to do the Priceline thing, but that doesn't guarantee a Marriott, obviously.

I'll just do the best I can!

Actually, it doesn't matter how new you are to the Marriott Rewards program. It matters more how many points you currently have.

Courtyard Marriott Convention Center is a category 4 hotel, which means you'll need 20,000 points for the first night, and about 18,000 each additional night.

I would check on the Marriott website, find out what you like and is reasonable for you, and go to tripadvisor to get hotel reviews.

Good luck!

I also forgot, in replying, that the JW Marriott is in a pretty good location for sightseeing as well. But as I understand it, there are now a host of different Marriott "brands" for which you can use points (Courtyard, Renaissance, etc.), and frankly it is hard for us in-towners to keep up with all of the hotel name changes. agree with the advice above that you are best off starting on the Marriott site and seeing what reward options are available to you in the DC area, then narrow down options from there . . .