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, if you find a rate posted on Expedia that is lower than the rate you booked on the Best Western website, you send a claim form to Best Western.

They will analyze your request and if they accept it, you will get a $100 US gift card .

In summary, here are the policies of the different 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, the same dates, the same number of people and the same room type
• Must be for the same type of rate (free cancellation, prepaid, non-refundable, etc.)
• CAA, Senior, promotion, package or other rates do not work
• secret auction websites do not 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!

Recently, I made a reservation at a Marriott Bonvoy hotel 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 my reservation, I realized that this same room would have been cheaper if I had booked it on another hotel reservation 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 future stay. I will earn 5 points per dollar spent at a Marriott Bonvoy hotel.

Then, it is necessary to act quickly because it is necessary to send the request 24 hours after the reservation.

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

If you are already logged into your Marriott Bonvoy member profile, many of the boxes 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, in order to help the customer service person who will answer me (and also to have a better chance of my application being accepted!), I gave 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 $356. This is much better than what I booked as a room at $507! So I would save $151 per night.

Since it is much better in my case to take the discount than the 5,000 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!

The new rate for my room is $359.

Since Marriott Bonvoy’s customer service is in the US, I guess the USD and CAD exchange rate changed my estimate a bit.

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 does not see the super best rate you found. It happens!

Better luck next time.

It is worth doing some research after booking a hotel. This is an example for Marriott Bonvoy, but other hotel chains operate 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.

The Best Rate Guarantee saved me $348 with just a few minutes of my time and a simple form sent in.

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