Marriott 20% Weekend Savings – rejuveNATION Weekends Promo
Offer: 20% discount off of regular room rate for weekend stays from Thursday through Sunday, beginning Friday, September 12 through Sunday, December 21, 2008. Some resort properties offer 20% discount rate for other days. Some properties may have multi-night stay requirement (Thursday night discount may require Friday night stay, Saturday night discount may require Sunday night stay). There are over 2,500 participating hotels.
Promotional Code: Must ask for promotional code “F5X”. The F5X rate already includes 20% discount.
Booking Period: Must book F5X rate between September 8 and September 22, 2008 for stays from September 12 to December 21, 2008. This is 15 eligible weekends for discount rates.
Restrictions: Link to promotion terms. Offer not applicable to groups of ten or more. Some blackout dates may apply. Some hotels are not participating. Rejuvenation promotion only valid for participating hotels located in Continental USA, Canada, Caribbean, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and Ireland. (Hawaii, Continental Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East, and Africa are not included).
Promotion is not combinable with other promotions. This condition seems to exclude these discount rates with the Marriott 25,000 points Fall Megabonus promotion.
Loyalty Traveler Analysis
Loyalty Traveler tested the promotional rates with searches of San Francisco hotels. Findings revealed mixed results for 20% discounts for the major Marriott brand hotels located in the city center for the months of September and October, the high season for San Francisco. Renaissance Stanford Court showed the most availability for 20% discount rates for weekends in October.
JW Marriott, Marriott’s luxury hotel for San Francisco, offered the 20% discount for a 2-night stay for arrival on Thursday October 9 and check-out on Saturday, October 11 with rates as low as $207 per night. Any other weekend stay combination of nights including a Saturday night raised the rate to $329 per night. The $207 rate for the JW Marriott was widely available for November and December stays.
Searches for Marriott San Francisco appeared to not have any 20% discounts until November when hotel rates in the region annually move to lower rates. Renaissance Stanford Court did show some 20% discount rates for weekends in October including a Saturday night.
The best value seemed to be for Thursday-Friday two-night stays which offered a substantial discount compared to the normally high-priced Thursday night rates for San Francisco city hotels. AAA rates for these dates were more widely available among the region hotels offering a 10% discount off prevailing rate. Loyalty Traveler tip is to try different combinations to find the best promotional rates.
Combinations: Thursday-Friday, Thursday-Saturday, Friday-Sunday, Saturday-Monday may all provide different rates and the best rate may be from any combination of nights between Thursday and Sunday for the particular location searched.
Thursday, Oct 9-Saturday, Oct 11 San Francisco Hotel Rejuvenation 20% Discount Rates
JW Marriott $207 (AAA rate $246/night); Friday night only rejuvenation rate: $255
Stanford Court, Renaissance $199 (AAA rate $224); Friday night only rate: $199 rejuvenation rate
Courtyard San Francisco Downtown $151.20 (AAA rate $199);
Friday night only rejuvenation rate: $159.20
Comparative Value of Marriott’s Discount Rate for a Friday-Saturday stay on October 10-12, 2008
The Stanford Court Renaissance $199 Rejuvenation 20% discount rate matched the lowest rate for Marriott brand hotels in San Francisco for the weekend of October 10-12, 2008. The Courtyard Downtown also had a $199 non-discounted rate. The Marriott Rejuvenation rate was highly competitive for a Thursday-Friday stay, but showed much less availability for stays including a Saturday night.
Here is how other hotel brands in San Francisco were priced for the Friday-Saturday weekend October 10-12, 2008.
Hilton San Francisco, $220.15 (nonrefundable) AAA rate $25 higher
Hilton Financial District, $211.65 (nonrefundable) AAA rate $25 higher
Starwood Le Meridien San Francisco, $259 (nonrefundable); hotel also has special offer rate for 3rd night free from October 9-12 for $638 for 3-night stay.
Starwood Palace Hotel, $296.10 (AAA rate); hotel also has special offer rate for 3rd night free from October 10-13 for $658 for 3-night stay.
Starwood W Hotel, $336 (nonrefundable); hotel also has special offer rate for 3rd night free from October 9-12 for $778 for 3-night stay.
InterContinental San Francisco, $278.10 (nonrefundable)
Mark Hopkins InterContinental San Francisco, $207 (nonrefundable)
Hyatt Regency San Francisco, $332.10 (AAA)
Grand Hyatt San Francisco, $269.10 (AAA)
In this study of one October weekend in peak season San Francisco, the Marriott rejuvenation rate is competitive with other brands’ hotel rates even though the 20% discount special rate was only available at one of the six San Francisco Marriott brand hotels for the sample weekend searched. Thursday-Friday stays showed much greater availability of the 20% discount rate at Marriott hotels and were highly competitive to other brands’ rates. JW Marriott for $207/night is quite a bargain even when compared to Starwood’s 3rd night free rate at the San Francisco W for $257/night.
3-night stays using Starwood’s 3rd night free promotional rate made some of the Starwood Hotels highly competitive with Marriott’s rejuvenation rate for long weekend stays including a Saturday night.
Loyalty Traveler tip: Link to the Category: “Fall 2008 Promotions” in the categories list on the left side column of this blog to see posts on all the major hotel loyalty program promotions currently available for Fall 2008.
