How to Book a Hotel Room for the Day

Day-use hotel rates aren't talked about much in Miles & Points circles, but they can be a useful tool in the right scenario.

The idea is simple. You book a hotel room for part of the day, usually six to nine hours during business hours, at a discount off the overnight rate, then check out before the evening guests arrive.

If you've ever faced a nine-hour layover in Toronto and felt stuck between a noisy lounge and an overnight stay you don't really need, day-use rates fill that gap. The use cases extend beyond travel, too. Content creators book day-use rooms as filming locations. Job seekers use them to prep for high-stakes interviews. Anyone who needs a quiet, well-equipped space for a few hours can get one for the cost of a couple of restaurant meals.

The catch is that day-use isn't a uniform product. Some chains have direct online booking, others have retreated from launch programs, and the Canadian market in particular has noticeable holes.

Here's how to think about using day-use rates strategically.

When Day-Use Rates Make Sense

The most obvious use case is a long international layover. If you're routing through Toronto or Vancouver with eight or nine hours between flights, an airport hotel for the afternoon is a real upgrade over a sleep pod or a lounge.

Cruise embarkation is another sweet spot. Most cruise lines don't let you board until early afternoon, but flights into the embarkation port often arrive in the morning. A day-use room near the cruise terminal lets you shower, repack, and store luggage without paying for an unused overnight stay.

Beyond travel, the picture gets more interesting. Content creators routinely book day-use rooms as filming locations because a high-floor room with a city view photographs better than most home setups, and you don't have to clean up afterwards.

Same logic applies to any high-pressure professional moment that needs a clean environment. Final-round job interview prep. A key sales call from a city you don't live in. An audition or self-tape session. A video meeting where your home Wi-Fi can't be trusted.

If your alternative is a noisy coffee shop or a coworking day pass, a hotel room can be the better option once you factor in the privacy, the desk, the bathroom, and (occasionally) the bed.

How the Major Chains Handle Day-Use

Day-use isn't a uniform product across the major chains. Two have direct online booking (Accor and Hilton), one has retreated from a launch program (Hyatt), and two leave it largely to individual properties (IHG and Marriott). Points-earning varies just as widely.

In most cases, your best move is to start with the chain's own website. If nothing surfaces, calling the property directly is the next step.

Accor

Accor offers a direct day-use product called Room for a Day, bookable on all.accor.com across the brand portfolio (Raffles, Fairmont, Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, ibis, and others). According to Accor's own page, these bookings earn full ALL Accor Live Limitless points, which puts Accor ahead of most chains where points-earning on day-use is unclear.

At the ibis Bangkok IMPACT, for example, a Standard Room booked for the day runs THB 1,200 (about $50 CAD) with no prepayment and free cancellation until 11:59pm the day of the stay. Pricing varies widely by property and brand, but the booking flow is consistent across the portfolio.

Hilton

Hilton has a similarly accessible day-use product, surfaced as "Day Use" in the standard booking flow on hilton.com. No special phone call or workaround required.

At the Hilton Zurich Airport, for example, a day-use rate of CHF 162 covers the 9am to 6pm window and is bookable directly online. The trade-off is that Honors-member discounts don't apply to day-use rates, and points-earning on these stays varies by property. If you want Hilton Honors points or elite night credit on a day-use stay, confirm with the property before booking.

Hyatt

Hyatt's Work from Hyatt program was once the loyalty-friendliest day-use offering in the industry. At launch, participating properties offered full World of Hyatt points earning and qualifying nights credit toward World of Hyatt elite status. It was the only major chain program to explicitly count day-use stays toward elite status.

Today, the program has largely retreated. Most properties no longer market it, and finding participating hotels takes real effort. Worth asking the front desk about if you're booking a Hyatt anyway, but don't plan a strategy around it.

IHG

IHG follows the call-the-property model. There's no chain-wide day-use product, but individual InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, and Holiday Inn properties may quote day rates by phone, especially near airports.

IHG One Rewards points earning on these direct bookings is inconsistent. Some properties code them as standard stays. Others treat them as a non-qualifying corporate rate. Ask before booking if the points matter to you. As an alternative, DayUse.com lists a number of IHG properties for day-use bookings, though those third-party bookings won't earn IHG One Rewards points.

Marriott

Marriott has the largest hotel footprint of any chain, but the smallest standardized day-use presence. A Day Use rate code (ZDY) does exist at participating properties, but availability is inconsistent, and the rate isn't surfaced reliably in the standard booking flow. Calling ahead is often the fastest way to find one.

Points-earning on ZDY rates depends on how the individual property codes the stay. Confirm before booking if Marriott Bonvoy points or elite nights matter to you.

Booking Through DayUse.com

If calling individual properties sounds like a lot of work, the third-party platforms exist to consolidate day-use inventory in one place. The catch is that bookings made through them almost never earn hotel loyalty points or qualifying nights, regardless of which chain owns the property. So if elite status matters to you, the platforms are a poor fit.

If status doesn't matter and you just want a quick, discounted day room, DayUse.com is the place to start. The platform lists more than 7,000 properties across roughly 25 countries, with discounts of 30 to 75% off overnight rates. Booking windows vary by property; some hotels offer single six-to-nine-hour blocks, while others split the day into shorter three-hour slots.

A typical Montreal search returns 3-star independents like Hotel Newstar Montréal starting at CA$75, with three booking windows to choose from (12pm to 3pm, 3pm to 6pm, or 6pm to 9pm).

Canadian coverage is the platform's weak spot. Properties are concentrated in Montreal and Quebec City, with thin inventory in Toronto and Vancouver. That's the opposite of what most Canadian travellers would expect from the country's two biggest cities.

Accor properties also appear on DayUse.com through a third-party partnership across multiple brands. These third-party bookings don't earn ALL points the way Accor's direct Room for a Day product does, so book through all.accor.com if loyalty matters.

Bonus: ResortPass for Pool and Spa Access

ResortPass deserves a separate mention because it isn't really a day-use room booking platform. It focuses on amenity access (pools, spas, cabanas, and day rooms) at thousands of properties, mostly in the US, Caribbean, and Mexico.

Canadian inventory is limited but does include Toronto and Vancouver, plus a handful of other cities. If you want pool and spa access for the day rather than a room to work in, ResortPass is the platform to check first.

The Day-Use Inventory Gap in Canada

Canadian travellers end up in an awkward spot. Toronto and Vancouver are the two cities where day-use makes the most sense, with long-haul layovers at both and Alaska cruise embarkation in Vancouver. Yet they have the thinnest day-use inventory of any major Canadian market.

DayUse.com is heavy on Montreal and Quebec City but light on the rest of the country. ResortPass covers Toronto and Vancouver but with limited property counts. The chains' direct day-use products are uneven across Canadian inventory.

The practical workaround is calling each hotel of interest directly. Be specific about your timing and ask for the day-use or short-stay rate (the term "day-use" is more recognized than "day rate" in the industry). Even when nothing surfaces online, individual properties will sometimes quote a rate by phone.

Earning Loyalty Points on Day-Use Stays

If points and status matter to you, the rules are simple but worth restating. Third-party platforms like DayUse.com and ResortPass almost never earn hotel loyalty points or qualifying nights, regardless of which chain owns the property.

Direct bookings vary by chain. Accor is the clearest exception. It explicitly says its Room for a Day product earns ALL Accor Live Limitless points across the portfolio. Hilton's day-use rate flags as "Honors Discount Not available" in the booking flow, suggesting it's treated differently from a standard stay. Hyatt's Work from Hyatt program once explicitly credited day-use stays toward elite status, but it has largely retreated since launch. Marriott's ZDY rate codes vary by property. Confirm with the property before counting on points or qualifying nights for any non-Accor day-use booking.

For most travellers, this means accepting a trade-off. If you want the discount and convenience of a third-party platform, you forfeit the points. If you want the points, your best bet is Accor's direct Room for a Day product, with the other chains as a property-by-property gamble.

For more on weighing points versus cash on hotel stays generally, our guide on whether to book hotels with cash or points walks through the framework in more detail.

Conclusion

Day-use hotel rates won't replace overnight bookings, and they're not always the right answer. In the right scenarios (long layovers, cruise embarkation days, filming projects, high-stakes work moments), they can save you a lot of money or unlock a better experience for the same money.

If I'm being honest about my own habits, I underuse them. The Canadian inventory gap is part of the reason. Most of my long layovers route through cities where the day-use market is thin and the hotel chains don't price aggressively for half-day stays.

That should change. Remote work has settled into a permanent shift, content creation is a real profession now, and hotel chains are quietly looking for ways to monetize empty rooms during the day. Accor and Hilton already have direct day-use products with online booking; if Marriott and Hyatt follow suit with similarly accessible offerings, the math gets a lot more attractive for Canadians, too.