Do Hotels Change Prices Hourly? [2022]

Have you ever wondered how often hotels change their prices?

After doing a lot of research, I saw reports of some hotels changing their prices every hour which got me wondering how often do hotels typically change their price?

Could it be the case that by booking early in the morning you could capture the cheapest rate or vice versa?

We were very curious to find out this answer so our research team dug into around 500 hotel price data points.

Below, I’ll talk about our findings and provide some context based on our prior research to help you better understand how hotel pricing works.

Do hotels change prices hourly?

Our research team reviewed close to 500 data points and found that around 20% of hotels changed their price throughout the day. About half of those prices went up while the other half went down. So, yes, some hotels do change their prices throughout the day but they appear to be a minority of properties.

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Putting all the research together

Our past research revealed a few interesting findings.

We found that a lot of different variables can affect the pricing of a hotel.

Some hotels use special software that picks up on what competitors are pricing things out and takes into consideration things like events, holidays, and even weather and flight patterns.

In terms of the best time to book a hotel, we discovered that when staying at chain hotels in the US, booking three months out is usually always cheaper than booking the next day or even booking several months out.

Specifically, compared to last minute prices, booking three months out was about 14% cheaper on average and booking nine months out was just under 1% cheaper.

Also, what was interesting is that some chains were better for last minute bookings than others.

• Marriott and IHG offered the best discounts for booking 3 months out
• Hilton offered the best discount for booking 9 months out
• Booking last minute was most beneficial for Hyatt

We also found that when it comes to booking a last-minute stay you may want to wait until after 4pm to make your booking.

Our research showed that on average prices decreased by 2% when making a booking after 4pm for a same day stay.

However, several hotels dropped their prices much more than 2% allowing customers to save up to 25% at specific properties.

During all of this research, we noticed that some prices were changing on a very frequent basis.

For example, some price changes were happening multiple times a day.

So we wanted to test out pricing to see how often prices really fluctuate.

We focused on two of the biggest cities in the US: New York City and Los Angeles. (We plan on testing out this methodology on other big cities in the future.)

We looked up the same standard room prices for a hotel at 6am, 9am, noon, and 3pm.

We also did this for booking dates that were two weeks out, three months out, and nine months out.

To keep our findings consistent with other studies we’ve done, we focused on major hotel chains such as Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, and IHG.

Within each brand we also included a wide array of properties including luxury properties and mid to lower tier properties.

Research findings

The majority of prices stayed the same throughout the day but for 22.5% of hotels, prices did change throughout the day. So for most properties, you probably don’t have to worry about crazy (or any) price fluctuations happening throughout the day.

When price fluctuations did occur, sometimes the price went up and sometimes it went down.

These fluctuations could be very small as some had only a $2 increase or decrease. But in other cases the change could be a big swing.

The biggest downward swing that we saw was $130 while the biggest increase we saw was $121.

Both of those instances are kind of crazy to think about because you could literally save yourself hundreds of dollars or end up costing yourself hundreds just by waiting a couple of extra hours to book!

In total, we saw five prices drop and six prices get more expensive. So the conclusion here is that it is roughly 50/50 in terms of whether or not a fluctuating price will go down or go up.

One interesting find was that a couple of the properties that had fluctuating prices had them multiple times.

For example, the The St. Regis New York and Conrad New York Midtown both had prices that fluctuated during different time frames.

So once you identify a hotel that changes its price throughout a given day it’s possible that they are more prone to changing prices on many other days.

This means that you might want to track that hotel over the span of a couple of days before booking because it could end up saving you something like $50 per night.

If you want to check prices, I would recommend checking prior to 6am and then checking every three or four hours throughout the day.

The data points

As always, we like to share our data so you can check on all of the data points below.

2 Weeks	6AM	9AM	12PM	3PM
Conrad New York Midtown	$695	$695	$695	$695
The Hilton Club – New York	$527	$527	$527	$527
New York Hilton Midtown	$590	$590	$590	$590
West 57th Street by Hilton Club	$705	$705	$705	$705
The Quin Central Park by Hilton Club	$508	$557	$557	$557
Hyatt Centric Times Square New York	$439	$439	$439	$439
Hyatt Union Square New York	$519	$519	$519	$519
Park Hyatt New York	$1,095	$1,095	$1,095	$1,095
Thompson Central Park New York	$639	$639	$639	$639
InterContinental New York Times Square	$379	$379	$379	$379
EVEN Hotel New York- Midtown East	$265	$265	$265	$265
Hotel Indigo Brooklyn	$559	$559	$559	$559
Holiday Inn Express Manhattan Times Square South	$270	$270	$270	$270
voco The Franklin New York	$297	$297	$297	$297
The St. Regis New York	$1,367	$1,269	$1,269	$1,269
The Westin New York Grand Central	$332	$332	$332	$332
The Chatwal, a Luxury Collection Hotel, New York City	$760	$760	$760	N/A
The Algonquin Hotel Times Square, Autograph Collection	$636	$636	$636	$636
The Times Square EDITION	$720	$740	$740	$740
The Beverly Hilton	$439	$439	$439	$439
Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills	$1,004	$1,004	$1,004	$955
Hilton Checkers Los Angeles	$191	$191	$191	$191
Hilton Garden Inn Los Angeles/Hollywood	$161	$161	$161	$161
Hilton Los Angeles North/Glendale & Executive Meeting Ctr	$185	$185	$185	$185
The Shay	$429	$429	$429	$429
Thompson Hollywood	$299	$299	$299	$299
Andaz West Hollywood	$319	$319	$319	$319
Hotel Figueroa	$199	$199	$179	$179
Hyatt Regency Los Angeles International Airport	$319	$319	$189	$189
InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown	$220	$220	$220	$220
Kimpton Everly Hotel	$275	$275	$275	$275
Kimpton La Peer Hotel	$398	$398	$398	$398
Hotel Indigo Los Angeles Downtown	$172	$172	$172	$172
Holiday Inn Express & Suites Los Angeles Downtown West	$166	$166	$166	$166
The Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles	$469	$469	$469	$469
W Hollywood	$303	$303	$303	$303
Sheraton Grand Los Angeles	$185	$185	$185	$185
JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE	$264	$264	$264	$264
SLS Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Beverly Hills	$377	$377	$377	$377
3 Months	6AM	9AM	12PM	3PM
Conrad New York Midtown	$621	$621	$621	$619
The Hilton Club – New York	$341	$341	$341	$341
New York Hilton Midtown	$329	$329	$329	$329
West 57th Street by Hilton Club	$358	$358	$358	$358
The Quin Central Park by Hilton Club	$387	$387	$387	$387
Hyatt Centric Times Square New York	$399	$399	$399	$399
Hyatt Union Square New York	$279	$279	$279	$279
Park Hyatt New York	$795	$795	$795	$795
Andaz 5th Avenue	$605	$605	$605	$605
Thompson Central Park New York	$559	$559	$559	$559
InterContinental New York Times Square	$294	$294	$294	$294
EVEN Hotel New York- Midtown East	$170	$170	$170	$170
Hotel Indigo Brooklyn	$134	$134	$134	$134
Holiday Inn Express Manhattan Times Square South	$297	$297	$297	$297
voco The Franklin New York	$252	$252	$252	$252
The St. Regis New York	$809	$848	$848	$848
The Westin New York Grand Central	$322	$322	$322	$322
The Chatwal, a Luxury Collection Hotel, New York City	$534	$545	$534	$534
The Algonquin Hotel Times Square, Autograph Collection	$332	$332	$332	$332
The Times Square EDITION	$436	$436	$436	$436
The Beverly Hilton	$419	$419	$419	$419
Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills	$945	$945	$945	$945
Hilton Checkers Los Angeles	$268	$268	$268	$268
Hilton Garden Inn Los Angeles/Hollywood	$254	$254	$254	$254
Hilton Los Angeles North/Glendale & Executive Meeting Ctr	$224	$224	$224	$224
The Shay	$389	$389	$389	$389
Thompson Hollywood	$299	$299	$299	$299
Andaz West Hollywood	$329	$329	$329	$329
Hotel Figueroa	$249	$249	$249	$249
Hyatt Regency Los Angeles International Airport	$229	$229	$229	$229
InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown	$450	$450	$450	$450
Kimpton Everly Hotel	$284	$284	$284	$284
Kimpton La Peer Hotel	$417	$417	$417	$417
Hotel Indigo Los Angeles Downtown	$211	$211	$211	$211
Holiday Inn Express & Suites Los Angeles Downtown West	$166	$166	$166	$166
The Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles	$607	$607	$607	$607
W Hollywood	$303	$303	$303	$303
Sheraton Grand Los Angeles	$303	$303	$303	$303
JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE	$509	$509	$509	$509
SLS Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Beverly Hills	$377	$377	$377	$377
9 Months	6AM	9AM	12PM	3PM
Conrad New York Midtown	$678	$678	$678	$680
The Hilton Club – New York	$606	$606	$606	$606
New York Hilton Midtown	$402	$402	$402	$402
West 57th Street by Hilton Club	$538	$538	$538	$538
The Quin Central Park by Hilton Club	$474	$474	$474	$474
Hyatt Centric Times Square New York	$459	$459	$459	$459
Hyatt Union Square New York	$519	$519	$519	$519
Park Hyatt New York	$1,195	$1,195	$1,195	$1,195
Andaz 5th Avenue	$680	$680	$680	$680
Thompson Central Park New York	$639	$639	$639	$639
InterContinental New York Times Square	$398	$398	$398	$398
EVEN Hotel New York- Midtown East	$360	$360	$360	$360
Hotel Indigo Brooklyn	$315	$315	$315	$315
Holiday Inn Express Manhattan Times Square South	$369	$369	$369	$369
voco The Franklin New York	$270	$270	$270	$270
The St. Regis New York	$1,367	$1,367	$1,367	$1,367
The Westin New York Grand Central	$270	$391	$391	$391
The Chatwal, a Luxury Collection Hotel, New York City	$515	$515	$515	$515
The Algonquin Hotel Times Square, Autograph Collection	$420	$420	$420	$420
The Times Square EDITION	$505	$505	$505	$505
The Beverly Hilton	$446	$446	$446	$446
Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills	$751	$751	$751	$751
Hilton Checkers Los Angeles	$605	$605	$605	$605
Hilton Garden Inn Los Angeles/Hollywood	$254	$254	$254	$254
Hilton Los Angeles North/Glendale & Executive Meeting Ctr	$254	$254	$254	$254
The Shay	$439	$439	$439	$439
Thompson Hollywood	$599	$599	$599	$599
Andaz West Hollywood	$319	$319	$319	$319
Hotel Figueroa	$499	$499	$499	$499
Hyatt Regency Los Angeles International Airport	$199	$199	$199	$199
InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown	$369	$369	$369	$369
Kimpton Everly Hotel	$318	$318	$318	$318
Kimpton La Peer Hotel	$436	$436	$436	$436
Hotel Indigo Los Angeles Downtown	$257	$257	$257	$257
Holiday Inn Express & Suites Los Angeles Downtown West	$205	$205	$205	$205
The Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles	$665	$665	$665	$665
W Hollywood	$313	$313	$313	$313
Sheraton Grand Los Angeles	$509	$509	$509	$509
JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. LIVE	$587	$587	$587	$587
SLS Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Beverly Hills	$387	$387	$387	$387

Final word

We still plan on doing a more exhaustive analysis of changing hotel prices but these results so far so that prices can fluctuate very often for some properties.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like there is a clear price trend in terms of it going up or down so it is still sort of a gamble as to whether or not the price change means a cheaper or more expensive rate.