Best Rate Guarantee Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group Park Inn Radisson Rewards Vancouver

Strike 3 on best rate guarantee claim for Park Inn Vancouver

Strike 3 on Vancouver best rate guarantee claims came in an email from Radisson with a lame reason.

Two night stay Park Inn Vancouver.

$112.50 Canada Dollars per night booked on Club Carlson site. $258.76 CAD after tax.

$86.83 USD per night on Expedia for $199.75 USD after tax. $199.75 USD total = 249.38 CAD.

Park Inn Vancouver

Best Rate Guarantee Rejection Reason:

Upon researching your claim, we determined that the cancellation policies are different; therefore, we are unable to approve the claim.

Our cancellation policy states you can cancel by April 20th for no charge.

The cancellation policy on www.expedia.com states cancellations or changes made after 2:00 PM (Pacific Daylight Time (US & Canada); Tijuana) on April 21, 2015 or no-shows are subject to a hotel fee equal to the first night’s rate plus taxes and fees.

Per our Best Rates Guarantee terms and conditions, a Competing rate is defined as a rate available online for the same date(s), the same length of stay, the same number of guests, and the same room type (i.e. room size and amenities) at the same hotel, in the same currency, subject to the same rate rules and/or restrictions.

Thank you for submitting your claim.

The reason given for my Radisson claim being rejected is due to Expedia having more flexible cancellation without penalty terms (April 21) than my Carlson hotel reservation (April 20).

At least this Park Inn was in North America. To file a Best Rate Guarantee claim for a Park Inn in Europe requires sending the claim form by FAX. The last time I needed to send a FAX last year, I was at a DoubleTree hotel in North Carolina and the front desk clerk helped me out by sending the FAX for me at no charge.

The different currencies would have been an acceptable reason for a denied BRG claim based on Carlson’s terms and conditions for same currency. I have noticed on several occasions with Expedia that a lower rate is offered in USD on the Expedia.com site than on country specific sites in another currency. Expedia.ca, the Canada website, had a higher price in CAD than the Expedia.com site in US dollars converted to CAD. I came across this same situation in Ireland when finding potential best rate guarantee claims on Expedia.com in USD when rates converted to prices in EUR. The Expedia.ie website priced hotels in EUR at higher rates equal to hotel sites.

One tip for getting approved best rate guarantee claims is find the Expedia site with the hotel rates in the local country’s currency and use that website for your best rate guarantee claim if the rate is lower there.

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4 Comments

  • Boris Minevich April 9, 2015

    Club Carlson has denied my claims for no good reason as well.

  • dale m April 10, 2015

    Provides an appropriate insight to what too many corporate come-ons really are – an absurd “difference” to point to, having no relevance at all … like saying theirs was written in blue ink and ours was written in black.

    I’d not have the patience to chase down price guarantees like this, but good for you for exposing them.

  • Ric Garrido April 10, 2015

    @dale m – Chasing down best rate guarantee claims is time consuming and aggravating. I spend time on it for some trips since it helps me evaluate the state of best rate guarantee claims.

    I find international claims more difficult to get approved. Most of the chains require the currency be the same on both sites and finding an OTA priced in the correct currency is a bit of a challenge.

    I submitted six best rate guarantee claims for Vancouver and Victoria hotels.

    Hyatt and Choice approved claims. Those two approved claims save over $250CAD on published room rates for the hotels.

    Best Western denied one claim that I thought should have been approved. Best Western rightfully denied a second claim pointing out the same rate was available on the Best Western site, and eventually after much searching, I found it under a special rate code. That is a post to come.

    Radisson denied my claim, rightfully so according to their T&C, but the email gave an unjustifiable reason for the denial when they could have simply stated the currency for the competitive website was in USD and the hotel in Canada is priced in CAD.

    Marriott turned down my claim due to the competitor fare no longer available. Too bad. That was a claim against Roomer, which is a site that resells hotel rooms for guests who booked a room and can’t use it. I wanted to see how Marriott responded to a Roomer discount room. Now I will have to find another test case hotel BRG.

    All in all, as someone who has filed many BRG claims over the past few years, the state of best rate guarantee claims is not healthy. Claims are rejected for poor and even invalid reasons. I started out this week stating I have never had an Expedia rate used for a best rate guarantee claim be denied. This week I had two claims using Expedia rates denied for Vancouver.

  • yy April 15, 2015

    Club Carlson is always like that. Both my claims were denied because they could find the rate after 4 days!! Too bad it’s not easy to burn all my points before the Jun 1 date. 🙁

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