The BRG Deals Blog

If you're new to comparing hotel rates for finding BRGs, metasearch engines are truly a great way to get started! They exist for one reason - to help you find the cheapest hotel price by searching hundreds of travel websites around the Internet. For those of you who aren't familiar with metasearch engines, these sites are essential for finding BRG leads! We're extremely pleased to have them here to help us save money on travel .. more specifically, hotels!   Here's how they work for hotels, step-by-step: Step #1 - You'll start off by selecting your travel destination and preferred dates. Step #2 - These websites will gather the hotel rates from literally hundreds of major (and fairly unknown) travel sites from around the globe. Then, once you are shown the various prices for a particular hotel, you simply click on it and it will bring you to the actual booking page on the website where it was found (sites such as Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, Booking.com a...

For the Best Western Best Rate Guarantee, you must book a room type with a "Publicly-Available" rate on Bestwestern.com for any Best Western branded hotel in North-America. If you find a lower rate of this same type on a competitor's booking site (for that same room type you booked), Best Western will then honor that lower rate .. and send you a $100 Travel Card to use towards a future Best Western hotel booking! A publicly-bookable rate is one that absolutely anyone can book. In other words, it is available to the general public. It cannot be a AAA rate, AARP senior rate, CAA, government rate, or any other rate of that nature. On Bestwestern.com, anyone can book the: FLEXIBLE RATE  - this is usually a pay-at-hotel booking where your credit card info is entered in order to hold the room. (Please verify this under "Rate Details". On some occasions, it may be a non-cancellable rate.) You can cancel this booking up until the hotel's specified cancel...

Has this happened to you? If you've BRG'd hotels long enough, than it's inevitable to happen to you at some point in time! It just happened to one of my readers the other day. She sought out some advice on how to handle the situation .. and I'll tell you basically what I told her. In my experience, this doesn't happen often. Most of the time, the check-in clerk will either accept the $0 rate without questioning it, or they may question the rate simply because they don't understand how you got it! This was the case with my last BRG at the Quality Inn in Temecula, CA. My free night was accepted, but the female clerk seemed confused. She said: "I see you had some trouble at the (nearby) Comfort Inn and they sent you to us".. (Huh?) My response to her was: "Uhhh .. yes ma'am!" (I would've agreed with anything to have avoided a problematic check-in!) Going along with her understanding of it seemed much easier than telling her how I ...

Here's our top ten list of the biggest mistakes newbies make when filing Choice claims, resulting in rejections, and causing some to lose faith with the whole process altogether: 10: Neglect to match up room types exactly. The wordage must be exactly the same. If one site calls the room "Business Room" and the other doesn't, your claim will most likely be denied. If one says smoking and the other says non-smoking, this also won't be a match. The bedding and room description must be exactly the same. This isn't hard to do once you get the hang of what you are looking for. First, look at the beds, then, compare the overall room description. Look for similar wording that means the same thing - this is OK. But, if one noticeably stands out from another, there is a good chance it is not BRG-able. 9. Expect that a room type with the same description, but with multiple instances on the Choice Hotels site, will be approved. If Choice offers...

Matching is very important with any Best Price Guarantee. Matching is generally defined as being an "apples-to-apples" comparison of your itinerary to the itinerary offered by the competing booking site. First: The Room Types Once a customer service agent has located the lower bookable rate you found on a competing travel site, his or her next task will be to attempt to verify that the room type on the other site is actually identical to the itinerary you just booked. Bedding will be looked at first, perhaps smoking/non-smoking will be looked at next (for a match). If your booking is for "2 Double Beds", for example, it cannot be compared to a lower-priced "Double Room". Why? Because a "Double Room" could easily be 1 double bed, or it could refer to a standard room for 2 adults. We just don't know - and neither would your claim agent know! "2 Doubles" is specific, whereas "Double Room" is not. Next: The Room De...