UpTake delivers hotel reviews and information from across the web

UpTake is an enormous warehouse bursting at the seams with hotel information.

But we wondered, as travelers’, what is going on with room rates ? We decided to painstakingly create a snapshot of  hotel rates in the U.S.  to determine when a traveler must stop procrastinating and book a room to get the best rate and to have a selection of places to stay during popular three day weekends.

How did we define our snapshot?  It  includes hotels with a 3 or 4 star rating (as defined by Expedia)  in major metro areas and hotels within driving trips to popular destinations from each city. It does not include deals or packages and the hotels had to have their own site for ease in rate checking. We then looked at travel booking scenarios.

We wondered, should we book three months out? A week before stay? What about the impact of destination choice? Is the East Coast more difficult than the West Coast versus the Midwest?

What about a combination of factors – location+holiday weekend+booking window? For example – Which is more difficult for a last minute booking – New York for the 4th of July or Napa Valley for Labor Day?

First we chose the cities and drive destinations:

Monterey Plaza Hotel offers a great hotel experience

1. San Francisco with driving trips to
• Lake Tahoe
• Napa
• Monterey

2. Manhattan with driving trips to
• Hudson Valley
• Cape May
• Atlantic City, New Jersey
• Mystic, Connecticut

3. Chicago with driving trips to
• Wisconsin Dells
• Lake Geneva

4. San Diego
• Anaheim (Disneyland)

This snapshot is, of course, just a sampling of what’s available in the market for consumers, but we  our data provides  insight into the hotel rate market in the US,  where it seems everyone is suddenly on a budget or looking for value.

Let’s start with San Francisco, and each day this week, we’ll provide a rate-check review for another market.
We started the test on June 19th, when all rooms were available in San Francisco and surrounding destinations- except for Harrah’s in Tahoe – for the 4th of July weekend. Rates were significantly jacked up in Monterey for the 4th of July weekend, but not as much in San Francisco and Napa Valley. For example, on June 19th, the first week we officially began tracking, we compared rates four weeks out versus the 4th of  July weekend.  In the three hotels in Monterey, the price differences were startling:

• Intercontinental,  The Clement Monterey: four weeks from June 19th it was $270 per night, July 4th it soared to an incredible $499
• Monterey Plaza Hotel and Spa: at 4 weeks, a room night was $220, on July 4th weekend it peaked at $555
• Portola Hotel & Spa:  4 weeks a room night was $209, on July 4th weekend a room night flew to a high of $339.

At these rates, we recommend you stay home, light some sparklers and go a few weeks later.

The continued sampling of room rates, all the way up to Aug 30, proved to be much more interesting with reference to bookings for the Labor Day weekend.

Booking rates for the Labor Day weekend held steady during seven separate rate checks taken in between June 19 and Aug 6. The samples taken in between Aug 6 – 30, however, showed rates increasing  as we neared Labor Day. For example;

On June 26th, if you booked through the hotel site, the rates were:

• Marriott Timber Lodge , the room rates was $189 per night
• Harrah’s Lake Tahoe the lowest room rates was  $149  on Friday, but skyrocketed to $459 on the Saturday
• Harvey’s Tahoe the room rates varied from $119 on Friday and then up to $329 on Saturday

On August 18:

• Marriott Timber Lodge was still available but at $269, an $80 increase
• Harrah’s Lake Tahoe was  sold out for the entire weekend, but had isolated nights available from $149 to $359
• Harvey’s Tahoe had rooms varying in price, depending on the night from $ 119 to a high rate of $469, which is slightly higher than when we looked in June’s for Labor Day rates.

But 0n August 30, 2009, the week before Labor Day weekend, rooms were sold-out in two of the Tahoe hotels, except the Marriott, which held steady  at $269 per night.

Also during the same period (Aug 6-18), the sold-out signs started popping up all over the place, led by hotels in Tahoe. Tahoe is also the first to start hiking prices, followed by Napa Valley, Monterey and then San Francisco.

Based on this data, you can put off booking for the Labor Day weekend in and around San Francisco until the first week of August without having to pay a premium, but not beyond Aug 6. You are officially too late.

Next up, we’ll take a look at the data for the New York market.

Photo by Brian Solis via flickr.