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Originally Posted by ratbastid
Well, that's not at all true. Hotels have a minimum price they can rent a room at and still make a set minimum profit margin. Then they have a published rate that's anywhere from 30% to 100% above that, depending on the quality of their facility, location, their brand and reputation, etc. Discounts (AAA, corporate, senior citizen, etc) fall in that range somewhere.
Hotels routinely have a whole menu of prices they can offer to people with various discount eligibility, and they make plenty of money no matter which way you book your room.
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And don't forget seasonal demand. Resort hotels are less expensive in the off season. Rates even vary during the week. Hotels in resort areas charge more on weeknds, and you'll even find that hotels with lots of nearby office parks but no nearby tourist attractions charge LESS on Friday & Saturday because most of their customers are business travelers.
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Originally Posted by analog
I think that unless you're incredibly familiar with the hotel industry, like maybe you're a travel agent, or a person who visits hotels a lot on business, as in this story, you wouldn't really have any idea that such discounts exist.
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Well, I do because I've traveled a lot on business and I have been adivsed on several occasions to ask for discounts arrainged by companies I worked for or was visiting.
If you are visiting a city (as opposed to a resort area like Aspen) and you know (or the people you are visiting can tell you) of a major employer in the area, it's an easy thing to ask. Let's say you're visitng Bellevue, WA for a wedding. When calling around for hotels, you might ask "Do you have a discount for people visiting Microsoft?" and you have a good shot at knocking $20-$50 from your nightly rate. No hotel is going to agree to a rate that would loose them money, so I'm not sure what is wrong with this, except that you're telling a fib, which means lie you're trying to justify.