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Best Western Low Rate Guaranteed or $100 Travel Card

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  • February 9, 2012
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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’

Best Western SF Kayak.com rates-2-9-12

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”.

a screenshot of a hotel review

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.

Best Western Hotel California rates

Best Western Hotel Cal EasyClickTravel

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

Best Western Hotel Calif rate

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.

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11 Comments

  • Joel February 9, 2012

    Thanks for the post. Kayak does allow filtering by loyalty program; the site did briefly lose that capacity but now has it again.

  • alexander O February 9, 2012

    while kayak changed their “sort by loyalty program” field, it’s still there – just start typing “star…”, “hil..” or “marr…” and choose “all starwood brands” etc.
    Mission accomplished.

  • Andy February 10, 2012

    “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” Not true with Hyatt. You can call Hyatt without a reservation to get price match

  • Mac February 10, 2012

    Excellent point about the Hyatt BRG being more valuable than other chains that force prepayment.

    I recently booked a stay at the Hyatt Regency Palm Springs where Hyatt.com wanted $250/night. Kayak showed me that getaroom.com had rooms for $169. I quick call to Hyatt and I was booked in a fully-refundable room for $135/night.

    I since always double check room rates using Kayak before ever making a booking.

  • n/a February 10, 2012

    I see other readers already noted, but Kayak is still the greatest. Scroll down and find the brand box on the left side, start typing a brand name or a program name like Starwood.

  • Ric Garrido February 10, 2012

    @everybody – thanks for pointing out to me that Kayak still filters by loyalty program.

    Simply type Starwood or Hilton and the Hotel Name/Brand search box gives the choice “All Starwood Brands” or “All Hilton Brands” comes up.

    I love Kayak again.

    Obviously I haven’t been searching enough for hotels lately on Kayak.

    Thanks for the tip everybody.

    @Andy – My statement was meant to say that Starwood and Hyatt are the only two programs that allow a person to submit a Low Rate Guarantee without first booking the room on one of their hotel chain websites.

    Hilton, IHG, Marriott and all the others require you to book the room on the hotel chain’s website before submitting your low rate claim.

  • Jeffrey C. February 10, 2012

    Thanks for this post. Scored on easyclicktravel this morning for the 100.00 GC. They said it would be emailed to me after the stay is completed. Was pretty easy thus far. BW room only cost me 80 a/i.

  • Andy February 11, 2012

    @ric: Shame on me as I didn’t read carefully;-P

  • hobo13 February 12, 2012

    My wife just hit 2 BRG’s this morning for rooms we needed next week. Incredibly easy. BW responded FAST!

    Any reason these nights shouldn’t count for the Stay 3 Get 1 Free? It seems like they are still paid nights, unlike the old Wyndham BRG.

  • John... February 28, 2012

    Just as a followup to this, can you confirm whether or not you got the BRG and the $100 gift card without any problems?

    Also, is it fine to book the Best Available Rate at bestwestern.com and use that? Or do you have to use the Internet Only Rate (which is often lower)? When you compare at Kayak, for example, the rate it shows for booking directly at BestWestern.com is often the Internet Only Rate, not the Best Available Rate. So, I just want to make sure that you are allowed to book the Best Available Rate at BestWestern.com and then use the BRG deal if you find a lower rate than that somewhere else. I don’t want them to deny it and say “Well, the Internet Only Rate was lower, so no dice.”

    Thanks!

    – John…

  • Ric Garrido February 29, 2012

    @hobo13 – Seems to me the BRG rates should qualify for the 3 stays promotion.

    @John – Remember I am not a Best Western representative so my understanding of the BRG might not be correct. That being said, my experience with BRG claims is the Best Western internet only rate is the rate that would have to be beat to have a valid claim.

    Ineligible rates are group only rates, but anyone can book an internet only rate without being a member of a specific group.

    For example:
    Best Western Best Available $119 (Day before arrival CX policy)
    Best Western Internet only $99 (non refundable)
    Expedia = $109 (day before arrival CX policy)

    The third party site needs to be lower than the lowest publicly available rate on BestWestern.com for the same room.

    Best Western lower rate does not have to have same terms as the third party site.

    In the example above the Expedia rate is not going to qualify for BRG claim since BestWestern has a lower nonrefundable rate available for same room at $99 than the Expedia $109 refundable rate.

    Again, let me say I might be wrong about this example, but that is how I think it would work.

    Anyone else have actual experience with Best Western to elaborate or clarify?

    Also, I did not book the room in this example. As I said, I didn’t want to play internet poker and pay for a room I didn’t need just to test the BRG claim. The resaon I could foresee for not being accepted is if BEstWestern.com did not allow easyclicktravel.com claims. Since another comment stated claims were approved by easyclicktravel.com then I think the hotel stay used in this post would have been approved if I had followed through to complete the reservation.

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