On the back of the good news that Kimpton properties are bookable with IHG points and free night certificates IHG has made some negative changes to the Best Rate Guarantee. The changes are follows:
- Previously if you found a better rate on the same room the first night of your stay was free and they would match the price for the remaining nights
- Now they will match the price you were able to find and give you five times the base points you’d normally earn, with a cap of 40,000 points.
Old Terms
We guarantee that the IHG Websites will have our lowest room price (room rate) or total room cost (including all taxes and fees) available on the internet. Therefore, if you find a room price (room rate) and total room cost (including all taxes and fees) publicly available on the internet on a non-IHG Website (as defined below) within 24 hours of booking, that is either the same as or lower than “Your Rate” for a Matching Room on Matching Terms (as defined below) on an IHG Website, IHG will provide your first night’s room price free and, if the rate found is lower, match the lower average nightly room price found for that stay for the remaining nights of that stay, subject to the following terms and conditions:
New Terms
Under the Program (as further described below), if you book a hotel room at an IHG branded hotel using any IHG direct channel (such as a branded website, call center or the mobile app), and within 24 hours of making your reservation you find a lower rate online for the same hotel room, number of guests, and reservation dates, and submit a qualified guarantee claim form, we’ll match the lower rate and give you 5X the IHG® Rewards Club points, up to a 40,000-point maximum, for the room rate for that hotel stay.
Our Verdict
Pretty terrible change, nobody would prefer the new system to the old. I generally don’t even bother trying to file a best rate guarantee as there is usually some type of loophole for them to deny my claim. My hope would be that this policy change will make IHG more lax on what best rate gaurantees to actually honor, but I’d say the realistic chance of that happening is close to zero.
Hat tip to View From The Wing
TERRIBLE news, yes. Remember well Drew via TIF teaching this space how to win with the BRG. No more. (Drew was “smart” to exit this realm.) More thrillas coming at us from Manila. IHG has been deteriorating badly over the past year or so…… promo deals declining (“into the chaos,” etc.), average room charges escalating (dramatically actually), point-break lists deteriorating, and then there was the recent horrendous devaluation of so many properties (for reward travel). Sure, still do the annual free nights with IHG — but increasingly staying elsewhere.
I used to get free nights all the time about 2 years ago. I used to check Trip Advisor (their filter options were helpful) and kept looking for a price discrepancy. Then I would simply book one-night stays and would sometimes go to multiple hotels if I had a long trip. It was nice. Then about a year ago, they clamped down really hard and essentially stopped honoring their own policy. Even if you followed the terms exactly, they’d claim they couldn’t find it and they wouldn’t accept screenshots. They essentially started sending macro cut/paste responses out denying every claim.
This is unfortunate, I’ve had quite a few of these claims approved over the years. Most of the hotels I got them approved at had no idea about the guarantee. IHG faxed them what it was and the details of my claim. Oh well… all good things must come to an end.
Has anyone ever seen elsewhere a rate lower than the one directly from ihg?
Yes, lots of people. There are even little communities that just focus solely on getting those free nights.
Thank you Will. Can you point me to those communities? All I do in terms of comparing prices is hotels.com, kayak and the like.
They are all private afaik, no idea how you join them. I just remember one being created a few years ago, can’t remember the blog name that started it.
It was the Best Rate Guarantee blog – https://brgdeals.blogspot.com/2016/06/how-to-find-best-hotel-prices-and-brg.html – This has a good tool for finding the deals. Travel is Free also did a good FAQ: http://travelisfree.com/2014/07/07/hotel-best-rate-guarantees-2/ Obviously if you want the fish caught for you, you will have to find the secret Facebook group, but if you have a destination in mind the tips here are a great start. There is BRG talk in the respective hotel forums on FT and InsideFlyer and other independent BRG FB and Reddit groups which are open to the public.
Yes, IHG. They denied my claim because they don’t match themselves… Figure that one out.
For those of us who travel for work purposes and aren’t footing the bill this isn’t half bad. But for leisure travel definitely a negative.
Didn’t think of that
moved to the right comment