Higher total cost for shorter stay?

[swag]

I've been checking rates a lot lately, and I've noticed something odd with some requests.

There's a hotel that shows as $104 for a 9 night stay (4/23-5/02). That same hotel shows up as $89 for a 10 night stay, same check in, just leaving 1 day later. So they actually charge you less ($890 vs $936) for staying an extra night.

And, yes, I am confident that it's the same hotel, based on unusual amenities and a price well below what Hotwire shows for other hotels for those dates.

This doesn't seem to make sense. I would expect to pay difefrent rates for different durations as different nightly rates (weekday vs weekend, etc) get averaged over a long stay, but I'm surprised that it goes so far as get more for less.

Another example, a friend was looking for a room for 4/22-27. Everything was very pricey. But when she extended her checkout and searched for 4/22-28, a good price appeared ($110). The hotel was a customer favorite, so you could tell for sure that the hotel had not been listed at all for the 5 night stay. She was happy to pay $660 for the stay, and will just leave early, but she would have also paid the same $660 for 5 nights at $132/night (still half of the best rate on the hotel website), and the hotel would have gotten the same money and still have a room to sell on the night of the 27th.

So, can someone shed some light on this phenomenon? It seems like poor business on Hotwire's part.

[thereuare]

Swag,

Been meaning to reply sooner but everytime i remembered i got sidetracked.. then something would remind me of this post again and i would once again get sidetracked.

The only guess i can make is that Hotwire somehow uses the number of nites, or total price, to determine their mark-up. Your searches somehow fell right on the cusp... and going the one extra nite brought their mark-up on the total stay down by XX%... which can have a dramatic effect on a long(er) nite stay.

Along the same lines, perhaps their commission % from the hotel is higher on a stay over a total purchase price or specific number of nites... and they therefore are willing to pass along some savings to the consumer since they'll be getting paid more from the hotel.