Photo by Tracy Nicole
Hotel calendars are the first thing I look at when I want to book a hotel.
This saves me hundreds a year.
They allow you to see different prices in cash or points for different days for months at a time.
This allows you to easily find the cheapest dates for your travel.
Not all chains have these flexible calendars.
Hilton and Marriott do though.
Here is how they work at both chains.
This should be your first step in the process to find the best deal on hotels too.
How Do Hotel Flexible Calendars At Hilton And Marriott Work?
Say you want to go to San Francisco.
You are not sure of what dates.
You must be somewhat flexible with dates for this to work.
You are doing a two day trip.
Most places that require a flight in the United States can be seen in two days, saving you money or points for bigger international trips.
Say you want to stay at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square in December.
Looking at the calendar, here is what you would see:
The prices ranged from $121-$324.
You see that the weekends are cheaper.
Now, you can pick the best Friday and Saturday dates with the lowest prices.
Here is what the calendar shows you:
- Dec 1: $164 & $131
- Dec 8: $149 & $157
- Dec 15: $121 & $130
- Dec 22: $121 both days
- Dec 29: $120 & $119
By using the hotel flexible calendar, you can see that the last three weeks would be best.
Imagine, if you only saw the day with the $488 price.
You might think your trip had to be more expensive if you were not looking at the flexible calendar.
San Francisco is not that expensive in December, so other cities would have more extremes in pricing.
Here is how you get access to the flexible calendar at Hilton.
How To Use Flexible Calendars at Hilton
You can get access to the flexible calendar at Hilton in 2 ways:
- by particular hotel
- by city
If you know the hotel you want to stay at, go to the specific hotel website.
For example, say you want to stay at the Hilton Union Square San Francisco again.
To bring up the flexible Hilton calendar at that hotel (or any other Hilton hotel), you go to the hotel website again.
After you get to the hotel website, you go to enter initial dates as you usually would.
You will not put any dates in.
You just want the flexible calendar.
As soon as you do that, the normal Hilton calendar will pop up.
You will see the “my dates are flexible box” at the bottom of the page.
You will check that box.
Now, you can exit.
To exit, hit the “x.”at top of box.
Now, you are back at the home page.
Then, just hit “book” like normal.
It will bring up the hotel flexible date calendars at Hilton.
You will see different months at the top of the page.
If you want points or points/ cash, just check the points box or special dates box.
That was the first way to pull up the hotel flexible calendar at Hilton.
Next, if you don’t know what hotel you want to stay at, pull up the calendar by city.
To do this, you will need to go to the Hilton.com website.
It does not work on the Hilton app (as far as I know).
Again, say you want to visit San Francisco.
Type in the city.
Like the first method, you click in the date box, like you are entering a date.
You will then see “my dates are flexible” at the bottom of the page again.
Again, you check that box, and exit.
Then, when you get to the next page, click the “find a hotel” button like usual.
You will now see a list of hotels.
You can pick any hotel, and it will give you the hotel flexible calendars again.
If you have several hotels in mind, you can click each one that interests you.
Again, with Hilton, know that you have to be on the website Hilton.com and not the app to pull up the hotel flexible calendar dates.
On the other hand, with Marriott, you can use the app.
Here is how to pull up the flexible calendar at Marriott.
How To Use The Flexible Calendars At Marriott
Like Hilton, to get the hotel flexible calendar, you will either need to know the particular hotel or the city.
For example, say you want to go to Chicago.
If you know you want to stay at the Marriott Autograph Talbot Hotel in the Gold Coast (great rates), you would go to the Talbot hotel website.
I stayed at the Marriott Autograph Talbot Hotel last year.
It was a great price, and a nice stay.
I even got upgraded with no status.
If you did not know which hotel you wanted to stay at, you would just go to Marriott.com.
Unlike Hilton, this can be done on both the Marriott app or website again.
At the Marriott Autograph Talbot hotel site, you go to enter dates as normal.
You will hit “book now.”
When you get to the next page, you will be given two choices: “specific dates” or “flexible dates.”
You want to check “flexible dates.”
At the Talbot Hotel site, you will now see the flexible calendar.
You can pick any month you want.
After you pick a month, hit “view rates.”
Marriott owns so many brands, and it looks like this is not the same wording at each hotel website.
So, I tried it next at Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile.
You hit “reserve” instead of “book now” to begin entering dates at this hotel.
Then, enter the dates.
Again, you are given the choice or “specific dates” or “flexible dates.”
You want “flexible dates.”
After you hit “flexible dates,” you can pick any month.
I choose December.
Then, you hit “continue with one night.”
Next, hit “view rates.”
Here is what it shows for December for the Talbot hotel.
That was the first method at Marriott when you know what hotel you want to stay at.
Remember, you use the second method when you don’t know what hotel you want to stay at.
You go to Marriott.com or the Marriott app and enter the city.
I used the Marriott app.
Again, type in the city.
This calendar pops up.
Like at Hilton, at the bottom of the calendar, you will see “my dates are flexible” box.
You just check that box.
Now hit “book for tonight.”
It takes you to the next page.
Now, it says “search with flexible dates” at the bottom of the page.
You click that.
Now, you will see the usual list of hotels in Chicago.
Now, pick any hotel you are interested in, and click “browse dates.”
Now, it will give you the hotel flexible calendar for that particular hotel.
if you want to see the calendar in points, just switch to “points” at the top of the page.
You can keep hitting the back button if you want to look at multiple hotels.
How To Use This To Stay At Other Hotels Besides Hilton and Marriott
Hotels run on supply and demand.
When there will be more people staying at hotels throughout each city or area, (like during a conference), hotels are more expensive.
When there is less demand, the prices are cheaper.
So, if you have the cheapest dates from Hilton or Marriott in the same city, they should be the cheapest dates for other hotels.
So, if you want to stay at a different hotel chain or independent hotel that does not have a flexible calendar, get the cheapest dates from Marriott and Hilton.
Then, enter them at the other hotels.
More Ways To Save On Hotels
This is one of many ways to save money on hotels.
Again, this is always my first step.
I generally only stay at Hilton and Marriott hotels though I will be adding more Hyatt hotels this year too.
Again, this is first step I take.
I even do this before I book a flight.
The difference in hotels savings is huge.
The Hilton Union Square San Francisco hotel in my earlier example ranged from $170 to over $440 in the month of December.
I look at hotel flexible calendars before even booking a flight, so I know the dates I will need to book my flight.
Hotel flexible calendars are not the only way to save money on hotels though.
Here are some other methods:
- sign up for hotel promotions
- get a hotel credit card
- use AAA
- sit through a timeshare presentation
- use points or points/cash
- travel off season
- travel on the least busy day of the week
- stay outside of city center
Summary
Hotels flexible calendars at Hilton and Marriott are the first thing that I check when I want to save money on hotels.
Again, sometimes, I check these before I book flights because I will know the cheapest dates for hotels.
This has saved me both money and time.
I guess if you had a lot of time, you could enter a whole month’s worth of dates.
Who has that kind of time?
Again, this saves me hundreds a year.
Not all chains have the flexible calendars.
Hilton and Marriott do, so I hope you make use of them.
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