Intro Post- Best Rate Guarantees

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Best Rate Guarantees (BRG) are programs that hotels offer akin to a 'price match' for shopping on their own website. I guess the concept is that if you advertise enough that the lowest prices are on your site vs a consolidator site (hotels.com, travelocity etc) people will just believe that the lowest rates are always on the official site and more business will come their way. It is worth noting that all of the programs are slightly different, and some have more convoluted terms than others.

The Basics

You need to find a 'like for like' room on another site that is verifiable by the hotel. For example, if you find a room with 2 Queen beds in the Hilton Chicago for $200 on Hotels.com and a King on Hilton.com for $210 that is not a BRG because the room type is different.

In addition to room type, an important variable includes things like refund policy, or if the room/stay comes with additional perks like breakfast.

You can find some great deals by using non-us websites to find the cheaper rate, but if you do this you need to be able to have the price showing in USD. You cannot just find a price in Euro that is less.

Make sure you get all the way to the final checkout screen to get a final price including taxes and fees.

The BRGs by Brand

Intercontinental Group - 1st Night Free+ Rate Match
  • Candlewood Suites
  • Crowne Plaza,
  • Holiday Inn
  • Holiday Inn Express
  • Hotel Indigo
  • Hualuxe
  • InterContinental
  • Staybridge Suites
Choice Hotel Group - 1st Night Free + Rate Match
  • Comfort Inn
  • Comfort Suites
  • Quality Inn
  • Sleep Inn
  • Clarion
  • Cambria Hotel & Suites
  • Mainstay Suites
  • Suburban Extended Stay
  • Econo Lodge
  • Rodeway Inn
  • Ascend Hotel Collection
Best Western - Rate Match + $100 best western gift card

  • Best Western Hotel brand, operates about 4,000 hotels
Starwood 20% discount or 2000 SPG
  • Westin
  • Sheraton
  • W
  • Aloft
  • Le Meridien
  • Luxury Collection
  • St Regis
  • Element
  • Four Points
HiltonRate Match plus $50 (stay)
  • Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts
  • Conrad Hotels & Resorts
  • Hilton Hotels & Resorts
  • Doubletree (DoubleTree by Hilton)
  • Embassy Suites Hotels
  • Hilton Garden Inn
  • Hampton Innand Hampton Inn & Suites
  • Homewood Suites by Hilton
  • Home2 Suites by Hilton and Hilton Grand Vacations.
Club Carlson Rate Match then 25% reduced
  • Radisson
  • Radisson Blu
  • Radisson Red
  • Country Inns & Suites
  • Park Inn
  • Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts
  • Quorvus Collection
MarriottRate Match then 25% reduced
  • Marriott Hotels & Resorts
  • Ritz-Carlton [Excluded from BRG]
  • BULGARI Hotels & Resorts [Excluded from BRG]
  • JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts
  • Renaissance Hotels
  • Autograph Collection Hotels & Resorts
  • AC Hotels by Marriott
  • MOXY Hotels
  • Gaylord Hotels
  • Marriott Vacation Club (MVC)
  • Courtyard by Marriott
  • Fairfield Inn by Marriott
  • SpringHill Suites by Marriott
  • Protea Hotels [Excluded from BRG]
  • Residence Inn by Marriott
  • TownePlace Suites by Marriott
  • Marriott Executive Apartments
  • African Pride [Excluded from BRG]
Hyatt Rate Match then 20% reduced
  • Park Hyatt
  • Grand Hyatt
  • Andaz
  • Hyatt House
  • Hyatt Place
  • Hyatt Regency
  • HYATT
  • Hyatt Zilaria
  • Hyatt Ziva
This Forum

I am listing viable BRGs from a site called bestrateguarantee.blogspot these are time sensitive deals. You can list additional BRG finds here manually also. Note that there are affiliate links in the BRGs here.
 
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Rich

Rent this space
Under certain circumstances, you can also get points for your IHG BRG stays. If you book the BRG only a few days before the stay, then oftentimes the hotel will not have enough time to update the reservation to reflect the BRG (despite the fact that your BRG was approved). In such a case you'll have to pay just like for a normal stay and you'll get the normal points too. Then afterwards you contact the BRG department and they'll send you a refund check... but you still keep the points!

This has happened to me (unintentionally), and Drew at TiF has mentioned it a few times as well.
 

Rich

Rent this space
I am listing viable BRGs from a site called bestrateguarantee.blogspot these are time sensitive deals. You can list additional BRG finds here manually also. Note that there are affiliate links in the BRGs here.
Just curious Matt, will these be your affiliate links of bestrateguarantee.blogspot.com's affiliate links?
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Just curious Matt, will these be your affiliate links of bestrateguarantee.blogspot.com's affiliate links?
They are his. I thought he was putting out good content, and we could have a win/win by me sharing this with my readers, and him getting more eyeballs on his posts. I'm making nothing from this but thought it would offer good value.
 

Rich

Rent this space
They are his. I thought he was putting out good content, and we could have a win/win by me sharing this with my readers, and him getting more eyeballs on his posts. I'm making nothing from this but thought it would offer good value.
I agree. I've been checking his blog daily for about 2 years and have indeed gotten a few useful BRGs out of it.
 

road2elysium

Level 2 Member
They are his. I thought he was putting out good content, and we could have a win/win by me sharing this with my readers, and him getting more eyeballs on his posts. I'm making nothing from this but thought it would offer good value.
Appreciate the unselfish share / win-win approach. +1
 

sriki

Level 2 Member
I think this is a good sub-forum. The main problem with BRGs is it's not easy. I only tried it once for Hilton and they rejected it. How about we have a section (a thread for each chain) where we can list out the terms and conditions for each hotel chain & the way to do a BRG for that chain. This could be a go to guide for people looking into this.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I think this is a good sub-forum. The main problem with BRGs is it's not easy. I only tried it once for Hilton and they rejected it. How about we have a section (a thread for each chain) where we can list out the terms and conditions for each hotel chain & the way to do a BRG for that chain. This could be a go to guide for people looking into this.
This is certainly needed, but I haven't got around to it yet... Any takers are welcome.
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
I'm applying for hotel CCs for the first time and today got a tutorial from a friend. It was somewhat overwhelming. One of the things she tried to do was give me samples of hotels in each group. Your list below is amazing and looks very complete. I'm not sure how or where you could re-post this--perhaps in the CC section--but it is EXTREMLY helpful and a wonderful resource for someone trying to figure out which hotel card they want to apply for starting with the hotels one stays at. GREAT JOB and so timely. Please post hotel group information in resources and other places.

The BRGs by Brand

Intercontinental Group - 1st Night Free+ Rate Match
[snip]
  • .
 

MilesAddict

Level 2 Member
I'm a big proponent of using BRGs to keep hotel costs down. Would be happy to contribute what I know (mostly experienced with MR, SPG, HGP, Expedia, and Orbtiz.
Philosophically, I'm wondering if there should be BRG threads in each of the hotel program forums or some sort of master post with information on all BRG programs (maybe in this thread).
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
I'm a big proponent of using BRGs to keep hotel costs down. Would be happy to contribute what I know (mostly experienced with MR, SPG, HGP, Expedia, and Orbtiz.
Philosophically, I'm wondering if there should be BRG threads in each of the hotel program forums or some sort of master post with information on all BRG programs (maybe in this thread).
YES! Great idea and thanks for sharing. I've suggested to Matt that perhaps his list could be a resource and I think it would be wonderful to have something like you suggest although I don't understand exactly how a master post would differ from Matt's post.
 

MilesAddict

Level 2 Member
YES! Great idea and thanks for sharing. I've suggested to Matt that perhaps his list could be a resource and I think it would be wonderful to have something like you suggest although I don't understand exactly how a master post would differ from Matt's post.
Personally, I think the best approach would be to update Matt's current post to include the information. But I didn't/don't want to presume that he's ok with that.
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
Personally, I think the best approach would be to update Matt's current post to include the information. But I didn't/don't want to presume that he's ok with that.
Let's kick it around--I find things can get lost if they are all in one thread. Perhaps you could--@Matt is this OK?-- put what he has in a resource and then take responsibility for updating it. I'm not sure because I don't know a blasted thing, yet--just started with hotel cards--whether a single thread for each hotel program. That might work as things change.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
Personally, I think the best approach would be to update Matt's current post to include the information. But I didn't/don't want to presume that he's ok with that.
I like the idea of more data in here on these things ,but wonder if the post would become a monster? Do you think it could all fit into one, or should we create distinct topics and have a master thread that links to them?
 

Annie H.

Egalatarian
I like the idea of more data in here on these things ,but wonder if the post would become a monster? Do you think it could all fit into one, or should we create distinct topics and have a master thread that links to them?
Distinct topics, no monster post.
 

VerMagnusson

Level 2 Member
something ive thought about and am wondering if others agree...just like overexposure of deals kills ms and other opportunities, i think the same could potentially be said of BRGs. i used to see a BRG, book it without thinking if i would even make the trip and submit the claim. then id end up cancelling a bunch of the reservations later because i knew i wouldnt take the trip. this included booking the same guarantee at the same hotel every weekend for a month or so and just picking a weekend that i liked. now that's nice and convenient for me, but am wondering if there could be negative repercussions for myself and others.

for myself, hotel programs may not like it very much if im just submitting claims and wasting their time when i never end up taking the trip. or they may not like it if i only stay at their hotels when i've gotten a BRG. any experience/thoughts on this? thus far, i havent hit any adverse action

for others, the more claims that get submitted on a particular hotel for a given 3rd party site is bound to get noticed and all they have to do is tell the 3rd party to pull it. so my overexposure is potentially closing the deal prematurely. now, i havent seen this in practice. many of the hotels ive BRG'd are still listed on the same 3rd party site at a lower rate than the hotel site. this is weeks and months after i submitted the claim and in some cases, actually stayed at the hotel. but its a logical theory i think, just dont know if there's any data to back it up. it seems that BRGs dont get hit nearly as hard as a flight price mistake, so maybe there's a significant orders of magnitude difference and i dont need to worry about it

also, big ups to this and the flight deals as new sections of the forum. it's great content
 

MilesAddict

Level 2 Member
I like the idea of more data in here on these things ,but wonder if the post would become a monster? Do you think it could all fit into one, or should we create distinct topics and have a master thread that links to them?
I like the idea of it all being in one place but am concerned that it's just going to end up being too long for one post. The master thread with links to sub-threads might be the best way forward.

IMHO, I'm thinking we should just get all the info. down in one place and then decide on packaging later. The rest of my week is rough, but I'll try to block out some time this weekend to get things down on paper. I *think* I have some of this in my evernote files --- but not sure of the detail level that I included.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I like the idea of it all being in one place but am concerned that it's just going to end up being too long for one post. The master thread with links to sub-threads might be the best way forward.

IMHO, I'm thinking we should just get all the info. down in one place and then decide on packaging later. The rest of my week is rough, but I'll try to block out some time this weekend to get things down on paper. I *think* I have some of this in my evernote files --- but not sure of the detail level that I included.
That would be great- if you can put it into a single post i'll play around to see how it looks in the original, or if it might benefit from being cut up and linked to. Cheers.
 

freeroomguy

New Member
FYI, for those who haven't heard: The Best Rate Guarantee Blog is now closed. You can still obtain info on BRGs, in addition to potential BRG deals, at a "new blog" the "brgdeals" blogspot.

Hopefully, Matt can contact me and we'll get those daily deals back here on Saverocity fairly soon.
 

inakarjr36

Level 2 Member
I would like to work on this with help from some others. What I think would be useful is terms and conditions and minutiae (like does booking in foreign currency void BRG possibilities with certain OTAs/chains), and then for sites like Orbitz that require identical cancellation policies, lists of sites that usually share those policies. I hate getting denied because my reservation says cancel by 4pm and the other site is cancel by 3pm.
 
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