Best Rate Guarantee Choice Hotels Choice Privileges

Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee free night

I scored a free hotel night yesterday applying Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee. In fact, I found potential Best Rate Guarantee claims with Choice Hotels, Best Western and Marriott yesterday as I planned a Sierra Mountains road trip through California for this coming week.

This post covers the Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee details followed with an example of how two Best Rate Guarantee claims I made yesterday with Choice Hotels and Best Western Hotels had different results.

Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee for one free night.

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  • Choice Hotel brands: Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality Inn, Sleep Inn, Clarion, Cambria Suites, MainStay Suites, Suburban, Econolodge, Rodeway Inn, Ascend Collection.
  • You have a confirmed reservation at a Choice hotel made on a Choice branded website (“Booking”);
  • You submit the online claim form informing Choice of the lower rate within 24 hours of the Booking and at least 72 hours prior to a 6 pm arrival on the first day of the Booking.
  • The difference between the Booking rate and the Competing Rate is equal to or greater than US $1.00 (or the equivalent in the hotel’s currency).
  • Choice T&C do not provide a response time for verifying a claim. My claim was approved yesterday within 6 hours of a Friday noon submission for a Best Rate Guarantee claim.
  • Approved claim receives first night free and additional nights at lower competing rate.
  • Free Night Limit: one (1) free night per household for any thirty day period between Booking check-in dates.
    – The limit is in reference to one (1) free night per CRS confirmation number which may include up to 9 individual guest rooms. (Example: CRS confirmation number 54689875 for Mr. Smith is for 6 rooms for 5 nights. The 1st night of stay for each of the 6 rooms is free with the remaining 4 nights at the advertised lower rate for each room)
  • Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee T&C.

The one free night limit per household every 30 days is an interesting restriction. Once you have earned a free night each month, then there is only a lower rate match and no additional incentive for approved BRG claims. This same issue applies to the Best Western $100 Travel Card that can only be earned once every 30 days with an approved Best Rate Guarantee claim.

I found another potential BRG claim with another Quality Inn today while writing this piece. No real incentive for me now to file another Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee claim to only save $5.

Tale of Two Best Rate Guarantee claims

I filed Best Rate Guarantee claims with both Choice Hotels and Best Western Hotels yesterday.

Choice BRG

Both hotel chains responded to my claim within 6 hours. Choice Hotels approved my claim for a $0 room rate free night.

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Notice where it states “Reservation made by: KAYAK SOFTWARE CORPORATION.” Turns out I linked to the Choice Hotels Quality Inn site directly from Kayak.com.

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Kayak.com offers direct links to the hotel brand website and Online Travel Agency sites.

  • GetaRoom OTA = $58
  • Quality Inn website = $60.
  • Clicking through Kayak link to Quality Inn for booking the hotel room was allowed for my Choice Hotels Best Rate Guarantee claim.

Best Western denied my Best Rate Guarantee claim stating the link to Best Western through Kayak.com was not a valid booking through www.BestWestern.com.

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More on that in my next post on Best Western’s Best Rate Guarantee benefit of a $100 TravelCard.

Related Loyalty Traveler posts:

Devilish Details of Best Rate Guarantee Claims (July 9)

Marriott Hotels Look No Further Best Rate Guarantee for 25% Discount (July 10)

Hilton Worldwide Best Rate Guarantee – Weaker than Marriott? (July 11)

IHG Best Rate Guarantee Get One Free Night (July 12)

Over 100 Hours for Carlson Best Rate Guarantee Reply (July 7)

Starwood Preferred Guest Best Rate Guarantee for 2,000 Points or 10% off (July 13)

Loyalty Traveler original post link: http://loyaltytraveler.boardingarea.com/2012/07/14/choice-hotels-best-rate-guarantee-free-night/

Ric Garrido, writer and content owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

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11 Comments

  • Phil July 14, 2012

    So there is no min stay requirement for choice brg? So theoretically possible to get one free night every thirty days?

  • Best Western Best Rate Guarantee $100 Travel Card - Loyalty Traveler July 14, 2012

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  • John D July 20, 2012

    Comfort Inn in Lorton, VA was $139/night. Getaroom.com had the same room for $129.26/night. I did a BRG with Choicehotels. They took 2 days to review and by then, getaroom.com went up to the $139. My claim was denied. I called Choicehotels BRG and they said they do nothing about that. I said Choicehotels could take their sweet time until the rate goes back up so claims can be denied, Agent denies they do that. Moral, Choicehotels BRG is bogus BS. Will never book with them again. I canceled my Privileges account with them as well. Dont piss off the customer.

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  • Violet October 9, 2013

    I booked a room in a Comfort Inn in London and then I found the same room which was $1.72 (1.07 GBP) per night cheaper (all taxes and fees included), for exactly the same dates.
    Of course I filled out the form to hold them by their promise.

    They wrote me back, that the room wasn’t there for the same dates. Also they said I couldn’t claim offers made in US Dollar (even though their site had shown me the price in US Dollar too).

    I could prove everything and sent them the screenshots I had taken.

    They wrote back it wouldn’t qualify anyway, and they wouldn’t answer any further emails regarding that subject. (My email was very polite, that can’t have been the reason.)

    However, they said I could try and find another cheaper offer and fill the form out again.

    Mysteriously, now all the hotel sites show the hotel to be sold out. Except on their own site, here you can still book several rooms!

  • Ric Garrido October 9, 2013

    @Violet – I know that there were times when I filed a Best Rate Guarantee claim and the claim was denied for some reason and then the hotel rate changed on the competitive site.

    This has happened several times to me.

    Best Rate Guarantees are generally approved in my experience when there is a true rate discrepancy. The one or two dollar differences are tougher and international claims are harder I think. This is often due to the fact that many international sites show the rate including taxes, whereas most chains have a BRG policy that applies to the room rate before taxes.

    I have had claims denied when the competitor site does not show the room rate without tax.

    I have had a free room claim approved by Choice Hotels before. Most of the time valid claims are approved, but it is never a guarantee that you will get what appears to be a valid claim approved.

  • Violet October 9, 2013

    Thank you for your response!

    I had compared the final prices. The choice site said $94.00, Orbitz $92.28 per night. Makes a $1.72 differnce. And any online converter says $1.72 equals 1.07 GBP.

    It’s a small difference, sure. But when they require “more than 1 GBP” and even show an example for a 1.01 difference, I think that shouldn’t be the reason.

    However, I’m really courious if the now sold out rooms will reappear on the other sites when my 48 hour request time has run out. 😉

  • Violet October 10, 2013

    Update:

    The rooms are back on all hotel sites today.

    They should call it “Best Rate Lottery” instead of “Best Rate Guarantee”.

  • bxw11 November 9, 2013

    Does anyone know if you are rejected and you try again within 30 days will you get a free night or just the price match?

  • Ric Garrido November 9, 2013

    The 30 day free night rule only applies to approved claims. You can’t get another free night within 30 days of you last BRG free night.

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