Best Western has a new Low Rate Guaranteed policy for a $100 Best Western Travel Card if you find a lower rate on another online travel agency website within 48 hours of booking a hotel at BestWestern.com. The  lower rate is matched plus a $100 hotel credit for a future stay. Great Deal! Right?

Best Western says submit a claim when you find a lower rate for the Best Western hotel within 48 hours after booking on BestWestern.com. Best Western reservations made within 48 hours of hotel arrival are not eligible for claims.

The online travel agency room rate must meet these conditions:

• same hotel
• similar room type
• same dates
• same number of people on reservation
• same currency and at least US$1 difference in rates on other website.
• the rate must be bookable by the general public when Best Western customer care agent validates claim.
• opaque sites that do not reveal the name of the hotel until after booking, like Priceline and Hotwire, are not eligible for claims.

Points or miles earned are based on room rate actually paid after Best Rate Guarantee claim processed.

This Best Rate Guarantee policy is only for residents of U.S., Canada and the Caribbean when staying at Best Western hotels in the U.S., Canada or Caribbean.

Other international locations and residents of other regions are still only eligible for a 10% rate discount on the lower rate found on a third party travel agency for approved claims.

Loyalty Traveler analysis

A $100 BW Travel Card is a good value Low Rate Guarantee if you have a claim approved.

I still object to the fact that no hotel chains follow the terms of Starwood Hotels and Hyatt Hotels who allow guests to file a Low Rate Guarantee claim before making a reservation on any site.

What good is a Best Rate Guarantee when I see a lower rate on a competing website, and I am faced with the choice of booking the lower rate or booking the higher rate on Best Western and file a claim?

He said, “We haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine” Eagles- ‘Hotel California’

While Kayak has lost its usefulness it once had when hotels could be filtered by hotel loyalty program, the fact that all Best Western hotels are in one brand means Kayak is still useful for filtering Best Western Hotels.

Kayak.com is a useful website for finding hotels eligible for Low Rate Guarantee claims.  On the left side of the page is a box for “Hotel Name/Brand”. Type in Hilton or Starwood or Marriott or Best Western and Kayak gives the selection choice to filter hotels for only “All Hilton brands” or “All Marriott brands”. I filtered this search to “All Best Western brands”.

EasyClickTravel,com is an online travel agency that I have used before for approved low rate guarantee claims. The $92 rate on EasyClickTravel.com listed is $17 less than the BestWestern.com rate.

EasyClickTravel.com has a rate of $105.75 after tax. BestWestern.com shows $125.90 for this same room after tax.

Bottom line: Best Western may approve my claim and I get a $100 gift card and the lower rate.

If Best Western rejects the claim for some reason I can’t see at this point, then I paid $20 more than I needed to pay for the same room.

Hopefully the Best Western Rewards points I earn from the hotel stay are worth at least $20 that I overpaid for the room.

For me personally, a Best Rate Guarantee that requires me to book the hotel room on BestWestern.com first is only useful if I have a rate that can be cancelled in case my Low Rate Guarantee claim is not approved.

When I really need a hotel room though, I don’t want to play booking games poker. In this post I have shown how easy it is to find a Low Rate Guarantee claim. I found this hotel in about five minutes. But I don’t want to gamble on whether the room shown in this post is an eligible Low Rate Guarantee with Best Western.

Now if I saw this with a Starwood Hotel or Hyatt Hotel, then I would be filing my claim and see if I could get a great rate deal for San Francisco. Starwood Hotels’ Best Rate Guarantee gives 10% off the lower rate, but I almost always take 2,000 Starpoints and a match of the lower rate. Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee will reduce the lower rate by 20%.

This is a good effort from Best Western and some guests are going to be excited to get a $100 Best Western Travel Card.

BestWestern.com Low Rate Guarantee.

The complete pdf Best Western Best Rate Guarantee Terms & Conditions.

Here is a spreadsheet with the ten largest hotel loyalty programs worldwide and all their airline partners for earning miles and points-to-miles transfers.

Hilton HHonors is far and away the biggest program for airline partnerships. That can be a major factor for a frequent guest earning miles from hotel stays in a frequent flyer program where there might be few opportunities to earn miles other than flying.

• Hilton HHonors = 57 airline partners
• IHG Priority Club = 43 airline partners
• Marriott Rewards = 36 airline partners
• Hyatt Gold Passport = 35 airline partners
• Starwood Preferred Guest = 34 airline partners

There are 8 airlines that only partner with one of these ten programs.

[click on image to see full-size in new window]

I will follow up this post with comments and details on airline miles differences in earning rates between different programs.

This seemed like a useful table to create as I work on my series of hotel points-to-miles exchange rates across loyalty programs for a selection of major airlines.

Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates

• American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates for 9 Hotel Programs. (Feb 5, 2012)
• American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates for Elites and Credit Card members. (Feb 6, 2012)
• Delta Skymiles hotel points-to-miles rates in 9 hotel programs. (Feb 7, 2012)
• United Mileage Plus hotel points-to-miles rates favor Marriott, Club Carlson, Wyndham. (Feb 8, 2012)
• Hotel Loyalty Program Airline Partners: 10 programs compared on one spreadsheet. (Feb 9, 2012)
• Why Change hotel points into airline miles? (Feb 9, 2012)
• Hotel points conversion into Southwest Rapid Rewards points favors Marriott, Choice and Hyatt. (Feb 10, 2012)

Personally I find hotel points more valuable than airline miles earned in points-to-miles transfers. I rarely exchange hotel points into miles.

Situations where I would consider exchanging hotel points into frequent flyer miles include:

1. To earn a hotel or airline loyalty program promotion bonus requiring partner activity.

I have picked up thousands of airline miles in frequent flyer promotions with a partner activity credit using Starwood Preferred Guest transfer of 100 or fewer Starpoints into airline miles. SPG Platinum members have no minimum transfer level for points-to-miles exchanges. SPG Gold = 1,500 Starpoints minimum transfer. SPG basic member = 2,500 Starpoints minimum transfer.

2. To secure the miles needed for an immediate airline reward redemption.

2003 was the only time I transferred 20,000 Starpoints into 25,000 miles. I was buying two First Class awards on British Airways from Denver to Melbourne, Australia with stopovers each way in London for 150,000 miles per ticket. I needed quick British Airways miles to beat the deadline for the price increase in BA Executive Club when the First Class US-Australia roundtrip award ticket increased to 420,000 miles.

There are many ways to get miles and I see trading hotel points for airline miles as a no net gain transfer for a leisure traveler staying in hotels. You save on airfare using hotel points for airline award tickets, but you don’t have points for free hotel rooms.

3. No plans to stay at the hotel chain frequently enough to earn points required for room reward nights.

The hotel points-to-miles tables show Wyndham Rewards and Club Carlson are two programs where you can earn points and transfer to miles at low levels. Club Carlson has a minimum transfer level of 2,000 points = 250 airline miles. Club Carlson members earn 20 points per dollar in hotel spend. Stay at a Country Inn & Suites on a stay costing more than $100 and you will earn more than 2,000 points. You can also just choose to earn miles for a hotel stay instead of points. Club Carlson gives 250 miles for Country Inn stays and 500 miles for a Radisson Hotel stay.

4. More hotel points than you need for hotel reward stays.

Some people have millions of hotel points.

Starwood Preferred Guest published statistics in December 2011 showing one SPG member earned nearly 20 million points in 2011 and another member redeemed nearly 12 million points (link to SPG pdfshowing stats).

I wonder how many of those redeemed Starpoints went for airline miles?

And hopefully not United Mileage Plus miles.

My question for readers: Have you exchanged hotel points for frequent flier miles? Was it better value than saving points for hotel stays?

British Airways Concorde outside London Heathrow First Class Lounge July 2003. The last commercial flights by BA Concorde were October 2003.

Loyalty Traveler – Airline Tables for Hotel Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates

• American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates for 9 Hotel Programs. (Feb 5, 2012)
• American Airlines Points-to-Miles Exchange Rates for Elites and Credit Card members. (Feb 6, 2012)
• Delta Skymiles hotel points-to-miles rates in 9 hotel programs. (Feb 7, 2012)
• United Mileage Plus hotel points-to-miles rates favor Marriott, Club Carlson, Wyndham. (Feb 8, 2012)
• Hotel Loyalty Program Airline Partners: 10 programs compared on one spreadsheet. (Feb 9, 2012)
• Why Change hotel points into airline miles? (Feb 9, 2012)
• Hotel points conversion into Southwest Rapid Rewards points favors Marriott, Choice and Hyatt. (Feb 10, 2012)