Rapid Travel Chai

The Rapid Traveler is making a last-minute holiday road trip from Atlanta to Savannah following a week in Atlanta on business. He usually uses Priceline but this time turned up no good deals and instead tried traditional booking, eventually choosing the Courtyard Savannah Midtown, located outside the tourist center so with lower holiday rates. Leaving aside all the various 3rd-party booking engines, there was tremendous rate variety on marriott.com.

A search for 7/1-7/4 turned up rates for $119/night for the room and $139/night including breakfast:

But breaking up the dates makes things interesting. A search for 7/1-7/2 was expensive and 7/2-7/3 resulted in no rooms available, but 7/3-7/4 turned up myriad packages with lower rates, starting at $109/night and deals from one with a $25 Visa cash card to another with breakfast for two adults and trolley tour passes for two adults ($26/adult if bought at full retail price) for only $124/night.

Going back, while individually searching 7/1-7/2 and 7/2-7/3 did not work, 7/1-7/3 came up with better rates than the original 7/1-7/4.

Put all together The Rapid Traveler booked reservations for 7/1-7/3 and 7/3-7/4 with the breakfast rates, saved about $80 plus taxes, could have gotten more value if the bigger packages were needed, and just needs to make sure the hotel keeps the same room for the 7/3 check-in/check-out to avoid the hassle of changing rooms.