Don’t Believe the Brochure

For New York hotel room prices quoted here, I have used so-called “rack rates,” also known as brochure rates. Fortunately you can’t take them all too seriously. Though the hotel industry publishes these rates in brochures, they are 10% to 50% above what most people pay.

How do you get those discounts? Some travelers get their lodgings as part of an air-hotel package or escorted tour. Some use travel agents who have a direct or indirect pipeline to discounts. (For instance, the Kitano Hotel’s bottom rack rate is $285 nightly, but anyone who books through an American Express travel agency can get the same room, if it’s available, for $215. If your travel agent can’t beat the rack rate most of the time, you may need to find another agent.)

Other travelers get discounts by using a hotel booking agency such as Hotel Reservations Network, telephone (800) 964-6835; Express Reservations, tel. (800) 356-1123 or Quikbook, tel. (800) 789-9887 or by using a 25% to 50%-off discount book such as those sold yearly by Entertainment Publications, tel. (800) 445-4137. Sometimes simply finding a hotel’s Web site on the Internet does the job: A $225 room at the Casablanca Hotel goes for $199 if you book through the Web site.

If other approaches fail, the New York Convention & Visitors Bureau runs a “peak season hotel hotline”--tel. (800) 846-7666, fax (800) 511-5317--to match travelers with rooms at more than 80 hotels around town. Also, a growing number of bed and breakfast operations rent out rooms and apartments at prices that are usually lower than hotel rates. (See box on page L15.)

At virtually all of these places, prices fluctuate seasonally with demand. Generally, November is cheaper than October, and except for Christmas, the second half of December is much cheaper than the first half, when shoppers fill the city. And whatever the season, just about everyone is looking for someplace nice in Midtown for under $200 a night.