- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
Comments (6)
Print
Save/Share
The "best online price guarantee" is something you've seen touted by online travel agencies and hotel chain websites. Expedia's program is typical: For a day after you book a room through the site, if you find a lower hotel rate online for the same category of room on the same dates of stay, Expedia will refund you the difference and send you a voucher good for a $50 discount off a future Expedia purchase.
Sounds good, right? But there are a few problems with best online price guarantees.
First: Taxes and fees don't count. So if you find a lower rate on a competing website but it turns out that that website charges fewer fees than Expedia does, you won't get a rebate. Weird, huh? Sites like Expedia (and Orbitz and Priceline and on and on) don't break out their fees, which makes this a guessing game.
Second problem: It may be difficult to receive your refund and voucher, as Grant Martin, editor in chief of the travel blog Gadling, recently discovered. True, he was applying for a refund for a flight instead of a hotel room under Expedia's price guarantee program, but nevertheless, the same rules should have applied. His refund didn't come properly through, and he had to contact customer service multiple times.
Third problem: There's now a blizzard of ways to find cheap hotel rooms online, but most of them aren't covered by the price guarantees, even if their rates are lower. The Expedias of this world are only matching prices with other online travel agencies, metasearch sites (such as Kayak and Hipmunk), and hotels' own sites. Here's what's excluded:
Hotels booked through daily deal sites like Groupon that are, confusingly, supplied by Expedia (groupon.com/getaways details in this previous blog post; TripAlertz, LivingSocial, and other deal-a-day sites are also excluded.)Hotels booked through sites based overseas (even though they list hotels in the U.S. and internationally), such as Mobissimo and Booking.com.
Hotels booked via apps, such as HotelTonight.
Hotels booked through Priceline's hotel bidding service, Hotwire's blind booking tool, or similar so-called "opaque" sites.
Hotels from so-called "consolidator" sites, such as Quikbook, don't count either. (Consolidators, as you know, buy up rooms from hotels and resell them at usually discounted rates.)
The lesson here, I think, is that best price guarantees are less powerful and meaningful now in a world of multiple sources for deals. The world has moved on from, say, five years ago when online travel agencies and hotel websites were basically the only places that Americans shopped for hotel rooms online.
If you've had any experiences, good or bad, with hotel best price guarantees, please share them by posting a comment. Thanks.
MORE FROM BUDGET TRAVEL
Eight ways to save on hotel rooms
User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions.
BEWARE: Expdia, Hotels.com and Venere are all the same company now. Oh and so is TripAdvisor!!!!
I moved on from Expedia a long time ago after the started charging fees and after realizing that every time I went to book anything the price mysteriously went up. If I switched to another computer (without the cookies showing I had already searched for something) the price went back down.
I moved on to Venere and got some great deals and great reviews from Trip Advisor. Alas, they are all Expedia now and I don't trust that I can get a good deal this way!
Posted By MsAnnaNOLA on June 13, 2011, 12:57 PM
I've never had problems with price changes using on-line hotel sites, but have definitely been happiest with Hotels.com. I used Venere for a really nice trip to Rome, but have never tried Expedia for some reason.
That being said, I find myself spending way too much of my valuable time searching for the best price, location, amenities, etc, when it makes more sense to let a travel agent do it for me.
They get the same (or better) deals, and the ONLY time I was ever charged to use a travel agent was when we did a very complicated, private tour through China - she took care of the hotels, guides, drivers, flights (five in-country alone!), tickets to shows and reservations at excellent, unknown-to-most-visitors, restaurants. Worth every penny at $200!
Posted By Martha on June 13, 2011, 2:02 PM
If my experience with Hotwire was typical, then forget the guarantee. I found a cheaper, non-discounted price on the Hyatt website after booking with Hotwire. The refund took weeks and coutless emails and telephone calls. In the end, the refund was less than the full amount due to the fact Hotwire had added numerous fees to the inflated rate. The "double the difference" was worth little more than the real difference.
Since then, I check the on-line travel agencies for price, then book directly on the hotel web-site.
Direct booking gives me points, benefits, possible upgrades (as opposed to the inferior rooms) and good treatment by the hotel.
Posted By lawthomas on June 13, 2011, 2:34 PM
I bookdirecctly thorugh the hotels website, plus you get better treatment this way as well. 4 years ago hade a awesome view of San Fran due to me booking directly with the Westin St. francis, had a room on the 30th floor with over half view os San Franit was the best to see San Fran in a whole news light.
Posted By Michael Kelly on June 13, 2011, 8:48 PM
All great tips! Thanks for sharing!
Posted By Sean on June 14, 2011, 2:05 AM
I booked at a price listed by Expedia and they immediately popped up with a price for the hotel that was $20/night cheaper. I tried to call them to cancel and rebook and waited on hold for 30 minutes before finally giving up and deciding to swallow the extra $40. I will never book with them again - I called the hotel directly and got a better rate than Expedia (had I been able to cancel my original booking).
Posted By marilyn on June 14, 2011, 1:43 PM