Chain hotels don t generally participate in these sort of sales on US sites because they ll be out o

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Quite simply, it s a great opportunity for successful best rate guarantee claims. Hotels will likely be offering inventory there on that site that they aren't offering through their home booking channel.
Chain hotels don t generally participate in these sort of sales on US sites because they ll be out of parity with their chain s booking sites. But few best rate guarantee claims do it against international booking pages. So hotel revenue managers tend to offer their better rates on these international sites frequently.
This works especially well with big city international markets such as New York, San Francisco, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Orlando cities likely to be heavily marketed to an international audience. These sales wind up happening somewhat regularly on Expedia starwood hotels and resorts and Travelocity, and you can also best rate guarantee Travelocity.co.u against Expedia.com for independent hotel properties that don t offer their own best rate guarantees.
S. suggested I hold off blogging this until January 27 when the pending sale gave me several examples, starwood hotels and resorts and that might have been the better starwood hotels and resorts decision. But that s just a 24 hour sale so it wouldn t give folks a lot of time to play with it, and I m mostly interested in this from an intellectual exercise, I find it really interesting that despite Best Rate Guarantees you ll often find revenue managers purposely undercutting their chain s booking starwood hotels and resorts sites. Best rate guarantees don t actually mean that you ll find the best rates at SPG.com or Hilton.com for instance.
These policies just mean that if you can prove lower rates elsewhere you ll get some sort of adjustment. They re supposed to imply you ll get the best rates on their sites, and of course there are costs incurred in the small percentage of times that rates are lower elsewhere, a consumer notices it, and goes through the hoops of the claim process. Hotels are still trying to maximize total revenue, considering the risk of these claims and the likelihood that they can sell incremental rooms at a lower price through alternate starwood hotels and resorts booking channels like putting their rates in front of an international audience for a short period of time. But if you re aware of this technique, it s an opportunity to take advantage of as a traveler.
Of course some chains are more helpful than others in the Best Rate Guarantee process, the subject starwood hotels and resorts of a different post will be those chains that seem to deny legitimate claims as often as not. But at a firs pass it s important to be booking the exact same room type, frequently chains will deny claims when a room you find at a lower price includes more extra free benefits somehow starwood hotels and resorts the fact that the lower price includes breakfast or airport transfers means that it doesn t count versus the more expensive room at the chain site. But again, that s a story for a different day. Just make sure you follow the rules of the chain s best rate guarantee process, and then using sites like Travelocity.co.uk during special sales can be one place to find rates that are lower (even slightly lower) than on a chain s own website.
I ran into an issue with IHG where they denied a claim I made for a property in Taiwan which I found for less on Orbitz. IHG denied my claim on the basis that, the rate on their site (New Taiwan$) and the 3rd party site (USD) had to be in the same currency. I presume the prices starwood hotels and resorts on Travelcity UK will be in GBP so based on what I was told, this will not work for IHG properties outside the UK?
This would appear to disqualify any IHG hotels starwood hotels and resorts outside of the UK, but booked on the Travelocity UK site. I haven t checked the terms and conditions of the other hotel chains yet I wonder starwood hotels and resorts if they all have this stipulation.
Recently I booked a standard room on the IHG site, and thereafter saw after a cheaper rate for the same room type on a 3rd party site. I submitted a claim and was denied; the cheaper 3rd party site included breakfast as well while the IHG one I had booked did not. What a slap in the face; we make you pay more and give you less!
My biggest issue with Hyatt s policy is that if the competing rate includes taxes, the competing rate is disqualified from Hyatt s BRG policy because Hyatt considers that a package rate. I think that is ridiculous, since Hyatt also lists the final cost with packages starwood hotels and resorts after you make a reservation on hyatt.com.
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