Marriott Bonvoy: how to use the Best Price Guarantee to save money

Each hotel chain has its own best price guarantee policy. Thus, it wants to encourage you to book on their site directly. The goal is to avoid paying a commission to a travel site, such as Expedia, Booking.com or Hotels.com, for the same reservation.

For example, you’ve booked on Best Western‘s website, but you see the same room at the same hotel for less on Expedia. You send a claim form to Best Western.

They’ll analyze your request and, if approved, you’ll receive a US$100 gift card.

To sum up, here are the policies of the various hotel groups:

There are several conditions to be met. Please check them carefully or your application will be denied.

With Marriott Bonvoy’s Best Rate Guarantee policy, if you find a better rate elsewhere, you have 24 hours after making your reservation to submit a claim.

Here are the other conditions:

• The price found can be on a website or a mobile application;
• Must be for the same hotel, same dates, same number of people and same room type;
• Must be for the same fare type (free cancellation, prepaid, non-refundable, etc.);
• CAA, Senior, promotional, package or other rates don’t work;
• Secret auction websites don’t work (like Hotwire).

If they accept your request, Marriott Bonvoy will match the rate found elsewhere. Then, you have two choices:

• receive an additional 25% discount
• or 5,000 Marriott Bonvoy points ($45 value)

It’s up to you to calculate the best option!

See the map of Marriott Bonvoy hotels worldwide, for inspiration.

I made a reservation at the JW Marriott Parq Vancouver for a future 2-night stay in Vancouver. The room costs $507 per night. It’s expensive because my visit coincides with a festival during my dates.

But shortly after booking, I realized that the same room would have been cheaper if I’d booked it on another hotel booking website.

The same type of room, with the same Free Cancellation rate and the same dates on ClickTrip.com was $475. Therefore, it is $32 cheaper per night.

So I could make a Best Rate Guarantee claim at Marriott Bonvoy!

To see if your booked room is cheaper elsewhere, type your hotel name into Google.

Thus, the hotel’s file appears on the right side of the screen, as well as the price list of each website.

As in the example above, at theSheraton Vancouver Wall Centre Hotel that we have already visited, all prices appear. This can give you an indication of the cheapest price and save you the hassle of going through multiple booking sites one by one.

Then, to earn even more Marriott Bonvoy points, I’ll use my Marriott Bonvoy^® American Express^®* Card to pay for this stay. I’ll earn 5 points per dollar spent at a Marriott Bonvoy hotel.

Secondly, you need to act quickly, as the request must be sent 24 hours after booking.

The Best Rate Guarantee claim form is on the Marriott Bonvoy website. It is very simple to fill out.

If you are already logged in to your Marriott Bonvoy member profile, several fields will already be filled in.

Write down the requested information, such as the reservation number, the website where you found the cheapest rate and the best rate you found.

Comments are optional. However, to help the customer service person who answers me (and also to have a better chance of my request being accepted!), I’ve given all the details.

Finally, all that remains is to select the choice of compensation, for my 2 night stay.

An additional 25% off the found rate of $475 per night would result in a cost of about $360. That’s a lot better than what I booked as a room at $507! So I’d save about $150 a night.

Since it’s much more advantageous in my case to take the discount than the 5,000 Marriott Bonvoy points worth $45, I take the 25% without hesitation.

Then, all you have to do is send the application and wait.

I sent in my application at noon. The next day, I received the answer at 10:17 am. It’s pretty fast.

And it was accepted!

My new room rate is $359.

I then received an email of my modified reservation. Also, I could see the confirmation of the new rate in my Marriott Bonvoy profile.

But sometimes the application may be denied.

The rate found on the booking site can change over the hours, and unfortunately, customer service doesn’t see the best rate you’ve found. It happens!

Better luck next time.

It’s worth doing a little research after booking a hotel. This is an example for Marriott Bonvoy, but other hotel chains work in the same way.

So, for a hotel room bill that originally cost me $1,287 including fees and taxes, I was able to reduce it to $939.

I saved $348 with the Best Rate Guarantee, thanks to a few minutes of my time and a simple form.

If you have Marriott Bonvoy points, you can also check whether it’s more advantageous to pay in points rather than cash!