Best rate guarantees

  Save Money on All Your Travel Reservations, Advanced Strategies to Earn Extra Rewards on Hotel Stays

To encourage you to book your hotel room without searching elsewhere, each of the big hotel companies provides a “best rate guarantee” (BRG). Even better, if you find a better publicly available rate on another website, they will not only match that rate—they will give you an extra discount or bonus.

If you find a lower publicly available rate on any 3^rd party website, you are in luck! Don’t book the lower rate. Instead, book the higher rate on the hotel's website and make a Best Rate Guarantee claim. The lower rate will be matched and you’ll receive an extra bonus, such as an extra 25% off the room rate or $50 back.

For example, if the rate for a Marriott hotel is $150 on Marriott’s website and you find a rate of $130 on some other website, you can book the hotel through Marriott and file a BRG claim. When Marriott approves your claim, they won’t just honor the $130 rate (and give you your Marriott loyalty benefits), they will give you an additional 25% off, dropping the final rate to $97.50.

Jump to

• Basics
• All the details need to be right
• Finding good BRG opportunities
• Best Rate Guarantee programs

How to take advantage of best rate guarantees

There are a few things you need to know to take advantage of Best Rate Guarantees.

• There is no silver bullet for finding a low rate that you can use to make a BRG claim. Everyone is contractually obligated to provide the same publicly available rates, so you’ll only find a rate disparity when someone messes up. Your best bet is to take advantage of “aggregation” websites, like Kayak, which gather rates from many other websites. If you see a pricing discrepancy, make sure to click-through and check that the displayed price actually shows up on the underlying site. Sometimes the low rates that they display are “cached rates” that are no longer available.
• Every detail of the room rate needs to be exactly the same. There are more details below, but the rates need to have the same room types, cancellation policies, etc.
• Even when everything appears to match, companies will try to find some excuse to deny your claim. They may initially reject your claim and hope you don't follow through, claim that they can't verify the rate, etc. If you notice a rate difference, always try to take advantage of a claim, but don't be too surprised if you never receive the "guarantee".
• It is safest to take advantage of best rate guarantees on refundable rates. If you book at the hotel's more expensive price to take advantage of a BRG bonus and the company rejects your claim, you won't be locked-in to the higher rate or even that specific hotel.
• Be careful when you book non-refundable rates. If the company you booked with has an objection to the BRG claim, you won’t get your bonus and you are stuck with the reservation. Either make double-sure that there are no issues and/or be comfortable with the possibility that you might be stuck with the original reservation without receiving the BRG bonus.
• There is less risk with Hilton. A few companies (including Hilton) will let you call and take advantage of the BRG without booking the room first. If you can find a lower rate, you can call and, if they approve the claim, book it with the best rate bonus.
• There is often a time limit, usually 24 hours, for submitting your claim. You need to act right away. You also usually can’t submit a claim, if you are making your reservation at the last minute (24-48 hours before check-in). Once you’ve taken advantage of a best rate guarantee for a specific reservation, you can’t make another, if you find an even lower rate.

All the details need to be right or your claim will be denied

The main purpose of a Best Rate Guarantee is to make you comfortable about making a reservation without shopping around and to help the hotel companies enforce the pricing deals they have with their partners. They don’t really want to give you the BRG bonus and will take advantage of any opportunity not to.

• Best rate guarantees only work with “publicly available” rates. Companies won’t match member, AAA, or corporate rates, or the “private deal” or “secret rates” that are available on some of our favorite booking websites. If you need to be “signed-in” to see a rate, it won’t qualify for a BRG—even if the website is free to join. Rates that are part of packages, booked through a travel agent, or available through auction or opaque sites, don’t work either.
• The exception to the above rule is Hyatt. They theoretically will match rates from sites that require a membership, but don't require a fee to join. For example, they will match a deal available through most "Private Deal" websites, but not through a program like AAA.
• The lower rate must be for exactly the same room and terms. The room rate, cancellation policy, and any other reservation details must match exactly. Even if both sites are offering a reservation for the same actual room, if they use don’t use exactly the same “name” for the room type, your BRG request may get denied. Even if the better rate offers better terms, it won’t trigger the BRG policy—everything must match exactly.
• If the lower rate disappears before it can be verified, you are probably out of luck. The company that offers the Best Rate Guarantee needs to confirm the price before accepting your claim. There is some risk that the lower price disappears between the time you found it and the time the company tries to verify it. If so, you are usually out of luck. You can try to submit a screen shot or even the receipt from a confirmed (refundable) reservation from the other site, but many programs aren’t willing to consider those—they will only give you the BRG benefit if their agents can go to a live website and see the lower rate themselves.
• Make sure any “extra fees” are included in the rate. Some websites look like they have lower rates, but they tack on extra fees. If the rate, after any booking fees, is the same or higher, it won’t trigger the other site’s BRG.
• Small currency variations don’t count and some BRGs require that the rate be bookable in the same currency. When you are booking a foreign hotel, things can be more complicated. Some programs require that the competing website is bookable in the same currency as the rate you are trying to use a BRG on, other programs will convert the currency, but all of the programs will exclude small differences caused by currency conversion variations.
• Very small price differences usually don’t count. Most programs have specific language excluding price differences of less than $1.
• These guarantees are never iron-clad. Even an apparently solid-looking claim can be rejected. For example, the company may be able to deny your claim, if a technical difficulty caused their rates to temporarily be higher. If you find a publicly available rate where everything matches, you are likely to get the BRG benefit. However, if the company refuses to honor it, their official terms usually don’t give you much of a leg to stand on.

Finding good BRG opportunities

Unfortunately, there is no simple trick to finding rates that can help you earn bonuses from Best Rate Guarantees. Your best approach is to check one or more “aggregators” which compare prices from a variety of different sources.

• Kayak.
• Hotels Combined.
• Momondo.
• Trivago.
• All the Rooms.

It can be a frustrating process to explicitly hunt for Best Rate Guarantee opportunities. Normally, prices are the same everywhere or there is a small difference in the reservation details that eliminates the opportunity to take advantage of a BRG claim.

Our strategy for BRGs is simply taking advantage of the opportunities that we occasionally run across, as part of our normal hotel shopping process. Whenever we notice a price discrepancy for a the normal “best available rate” of a hotel we are interested in, we see if there is an opportunity to make a BRG claim. If so, we often jump on the opportunity.

Best Rate Guarantee programs

Most hotel programs offer a Best Rate Guarantee bonus. So, if a program isn’t listed here, just check their website.

	25% additional discount (10% at Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissotel). Accor Live Limitless Best Rate Guarantee.
	$100 Best Western gift card-this can often be worth more than the price of the room. Only 1 claim per household in a 30-day period. Best Western Best Rate Guarantee.
	$50 Visa debit card for US residents, first night free for international guests. Choice Best Rate Guarantee.
	25% additional discount. Only the cheapest room rate will be matched, which often means you can only match non-refundable rates. Fortunately, with Hilton, you can price match as part of making your reservation, rather than having to apply afterwards (and even within 24 hours of arrival). If you find a lower price, you can call their reservation line and tell the agent about the rate. If you get approved, you can book directly and receive the 25% additional discount. You can also file a claim form up to 24 hours after you make reservation. Hilton Rate Match Guarantee.
	Choice of 5,000 points or a 20% additional discount. If the lower room rate is less than about $450, the points are a better deal than the discount. Hyatt's guarantee even works against rates found on "membership websites" that don't charge any fees for memberships, such as many "private deal" websites. Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee.
	5x the normal number of IHG points for the stay. Typically, that means 50 IHG points per dollar, valued at about 25 cents, on the lower rate. For example, if you booked a room for $120, and found a $100 per night rate, IHG will honor the $100 rate, and give you an extra 4,000 points. IHG Best Rate Guarantee.
	Choice of a 25% additional discount or 5,000 points. If the lower room rate is lower than about $140, 5,000 points is worth more than 25% off. Otherwise, the discount is more valuable than the points. Does not apply to Protea hotels and a handful of Ritz Carlton hotels. Marriott’s terms require you to book “the lowest rate”. You should be able to book the cheapest refundable rate, but Marriott could choose to interpret this to require you to book a cheaper non-refundable rate to be eligible for any sort of BRG claim. Marriott Best Rate Guarantee.
	25% additional discount. Radisson Hotel Group Best Rate Guarantee.
	3,000 Wyndham Rewards bonus points. Valued at $20. Wyndham Best Rate Guarantee.

Hotel Loyalty Program Reference Guide

Hotels 101: Get the Best Deal on Your Hotel Room

Advanced Strategies to Earn Extra Rewards on Hotel Stays

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