TRAVEL INSIDER : It Usually Pays to Ask for Lowest Hotel Rates : Trends: Following airlines’ lead, competition among hoteliers is driving prices down. But you probably won’t find out unless you speak up.

Even before the people at Sheraton and Radisson hotels pledged to simplify our lives, this was a strange spring for travelers.

First, in the teeth of a recession, American Airlines announced that it was simplifying its rate schedules and cutting prices, prompting both imitations and denunciations. Alamo Rent A Car next shouldered its way in to declare lower, simpler rates. Then came Sheraton with its own claims of simplification, and then Radisson, among others, with a different sort of discount program. By the time April was done, it was a complicated chore just to keep track of all the simplicity out there.

It hasn’t gotten any easier since then, but no traveler should shrug off all these posturing hoteliers. Even if the simplicity gambit were to fail in the airline industry, the current jostling could force hotels to be more forthright about their rates. At the least, it offers a chance for consumers to look closely at hotel pricing strategies, and respond with a few strategies of their own. The bottom line: Keep asking questions.

The hotel scramble began April 26, when ITT Sheraton Corp. announced its “SureSaver” plan, estimating that it would save business travelers up to 30% and vacationers up to 50% from “rack” rates.

The new Sheraton rates, which began April 27 at Sheraton hotels in the United States and Canada (800-325-3535), vary from property to property. But figures from the Sheraton Manhattan hotel are a fair example.

The old rack rates--that is, the first and highest numbers that reservationists offered to cold-calling customers--were $185 for weekdays, $139 for weekends. The SureSaver campaign pegs weekday rates at $175 under the “business” category (which is available to anyone) and $165 if the reservation is made 14 days in advance. On weekends, the SureSaver rate is $109, but may not be available if there’s a big convention in town.

Competitors scoffed at the savings estimates, noting that most Sheraton customers were probably paying less than rack rates already. But Sheraton’s proposal does seem to include a departure from business as usual: After years of keeping mum on discounted rates unless customers specifically ask for them, reservationists have now been directed to offer the lower rates even when callers don’t ask about them.

Early on in the new program, apparently, some callers found their reservationists unreformed. But when I tried the Sheraton Manhattan and Los Angeles Airport Sheraton in mid-May, both reservationists volunteered the new rates and categories.

Before the new program, Sheraton media relations manager Dolores Sanchez acknowledged, reservationists held back on that information and waited to see if callers haggled. Those who haggled saved; those who didn’t, didn’t.

“People felt like they had to negotiate whenever they got on the phone,” said Sanchez. “No matter what rate they received, consumers weren’t confident they were getting the best value that was available.”

When Sheraton officials announced their new rates, hotels dropped discounts for students, academic faculty and clergy. (Though officials also said they were dropping American Automobile Assn. discounts, at least one reservationist was still offering them in late May. The hotels still offer discounts for retired persons.) Citing “competitive reasons,” Sheraton officials decline to say how many customers formerly paid rack rates. Sheraton officials will say, however, that since the switch, their overall business is running 15%-20% ahead of last year’s.

Some professionals immediately hailed the Sheraton move, including Richard Copland, owner of New York-based Hillside Travel (212-882-4600) and chairman of the American Society of Travel Agents committee that specializes in hotel relations. Under the existing system at most hotels, Copland said, “you can’t figure out a rate unless you’re an MIT professor.”

But plenty of people complained about Sheraton’s move, too.

At Hilton headquarters in Beverly Hills (800-445-8667), a spokesman said that chain’s officials “don’t think (Sheraton’s move) makes a lot of sense.” The spokesman suggested that discount-happy hotels are “trying to purchase loyalty, as opposed to earning loyalty by providing value.” (Not that Hilton won’t offer sale prices. The chain’s “BounceBack” weekend and vacation program currently offers rates as low as $65 nightly at some--but not all--U.S. Hiltons.)

In the Hyatt offices (800-233-1234), too, skepticism runs high. Senior vice president of marketing Marc Yanofsky suggested that “until they put engines and wings on hotels, I think there are some important differences between the two businesses.” He called airline emulation “dangerous.”

But hold on. Yanofsky then acknowledged that the airline moves “served as a catalyst” for Hyatt officials to start reconsidering “the ‘secret word’ approach, wherein if you happen to say the word asparagus , you get the lower rate, or so it seemed.”

In a market with elastic supply and demand, that sales strategy “was something that theoretically made sense,” Yanofsky said. “But there’s something fundamentally not right, or inappropriate, or something, that consumers resist about that. It’s time to eliminate that.”

In a memo that circulated among Hyatt’s 86 U.S. commercial hotels on May 18, Yanofsky said, Hyatt leaders mandated “that you only get one price for a specific product ... You will not be quoted a price for a regular room and then, if you breathe heavily, be quoted another price. We are absolutely making a corporate commitment to that.”

Yanofsky couldn’t offer specific figures, but said the chain will reduce its number of discount rates and concentrate on programs such as 21-day advance purchases, a bed and breakfast package and “Regency Club” upgrades that add $25 a night to the bill in exchange for various perks, including continental breakfasts.

“We are not spending millions of dollars telling the consumer these things, because we want to deliver impeccably first,” he said. By mid-June, Yanofsky said, Hyatt “will be very consistently doing this.” Until then, keep asking questions.

Officials at Marriott hotels (800-228-9290) argue that they were marching toward simplicity well before Sheraton sent out its press releases in April. Marriott’s Advance Purchase Room Rates, unveiled in 1990, offer discounts to guests booking non-refundable rooms 14 and 21 days in advance. The non-refundable, 21-day advance-purchase price, national public relations director Gordon Lambourne said, is “the very best rate available at a Marriott, period.” (From now through Sept. 7, Marriott hotels are offering advance-purchase discounts. In some locations--but not all--rates could be as low as $49 for weekends.)

But consumers can’t quite count on full disclosure from Marriott reservationists. If a would-be guest seems to be a business traveler, he or she may not be offered an advance-purchase discount. If a would-be guest seems to be a leisure traveler, he or she may or may not hear about the corporate discount. (When I called to ask about a three-day weekend at San Francisco’s Marina Marriott, the reservationist only acknowledged the weekend rate. It was the difference between $134 nightly and $94.)

Radisson Hotels (800-333-3333) have publicly joined the simplicity movement, announcing “Radisson Radical” rates the day after Sheraton’s disclosure. (Since then, that offer has been superseded by a “Shades of Summer” program offering rates at some locations as low as $49 through Sept. 7.)

Thomas W. Storey, Radisson’s executive vice president for sales and marketing, recently ticked off a handful of programs that the chain wants to make central to a simplified rate system: “super saver” rates, available on undersold dates or after cancellations; ongoing promotions such as Shades of Summer that are used as loss-leaders, and corporate rates available to companies that are regular customers. If customers want the comfort of knowing the room next door isn’t being rented at a deeper discount, Storey suggested, they can seek out the chain’s year-old Best Available Rate Search program, which is available to those who reserve through travel agents.

But remain alert, travelers. Unless a caller to Radisson specifically asks about discount rates, Storey said, the reservationist will probably keep quiet and book that caller at substantially higher rack rates.

It would be foolhardy for a hotel to do otherwise, Storey argued, in a business where supply, demand and time are constantly reshaping the “value” of every room. It would be especially foolhardy now, he added, since already “we have an industry which is offering rates that do not allow the industry to be solvent. Consumers today, whether they believe they’re getting a good deal or not, are getting an unbelievable deal.”

Is it really necessary to cross-question that nice reservationist? Consider the call I recently made to the San Francisco Hilton (415-771-1400). I was curious, I said, about rates for early June.

For a double room, said the reservationist, the price was $195.

I asked about weekend discounts.

Well, yes, said the reservationist. Hilton’s “BounceBack” program would offer a regular double room for $109 nightly.

Could that weekend program be extended beyond Friday and Saturday nights?

Well, yes. I could get the $109 rate for the preceding Thursday night and the following Sunday night.

In roughly three minutes, with the prompting of two extra questions, my prospective four-day hotel bill fell from $780 to $436.

Given such discrepancies, said Ed Perkins, the San Francisco-based editor of the Consumer Reports Travel Letter, the idea of full disclosure from reservationists sounds wonderful. But he expects it will remain only an idea.

“I don’t think that’ll ever happen,” Perkins said. “The rate you get will always depend upon some sort of negotiation. And some people are better negotiators than others . . . The better informed you are, the better deal you can make. That’s a general rule for life.”

Rooms for Negotiation

Here are tips for negotiating the best room rate. The first is to have a shrewd travel agent and let him or her make the calls. Some others:

* Buy through a wholesaler. The Room Exchange (800-846-7000), a year-old hotel reservation network based in New York, offers 20%-50% discounts at 22,700 North American and Caribbean hotels. The service concentrates on hotels with 50 rooms or more, and will take reservations up to six months in advance--but the best bargains are available at short notice.

* Call the hotel’s local reservations number instead of the chain’s 800 number. Individual hotels almost invariably have more leeway with pricing than do clerks at a centralized national reservations desk.

* Call when you’re still flexible on your traveling dates, so that you might latch onto a weekend special, or avoid a convention crush, or capitalize on a large-scale cancellation.

* Declare your affiliations, from AAA to the American Assn. of Retired Persons, and ask which will get you the best rate.

* Ask about the hotel’s corporate discounts. Many chains, including Sheraton, will give that rate whether you have anything to do with a corporation or not.

* Join an independent discount program. As with a wholesaler, your choice of rooms will probably be restricted. But the sacrifice could be worth it. The best-known such program is Travel America at HalfPrice, a directory marketed by Entertainment Publications (800-477-3234, Ext. 9454). The 1992-93 directory, which sells for $32.95, offers up to 50% savings at 2,500 or more hotels in the United States, Canada and Mexico. To get the discount, customers identify themselves as Entertainment travel members when making reservations, and show their ID cards upon arrival.