Budget Travel - Should I take a gamble-invoking Easyjethotels ‘double the price difference’ guarantee

I’d like to invoke the ‘double the difference’ guarantee offered on the easyjethotels website:

http://www.easyjethotels.net/home/info/terms_conditions.jsp#17 but am scared.

It’s for a 4* hotel in Berlin. Expedia and hotels.com are both offering a stay 2 nights get 3rd night free deal, bringing the cost per night to about £37. Easyjet hotels meanwhile are offering the same property for £80 a night.

Thing is, it’s an awful lot of money for me to gamble if they are able to wriggle out of their promise and they won’t be giving me a refund until 30 days after my stay anyway.

Tricky bits are this:
v) Claims for refunds must be based on a comparison of the same hotel for the same dates and same room type and occupancy, and be inclusive of the same services as those offered by easyJetHotels (for example service charges, taxes and breakfast etc.).

Easyjethotels allow you to cancel for a £15 fee, whereas Expedia won't give a refund under any circumstances - so is it possible that it won't be accepted as a like for like comparison?

vi) On-request rooms are excluded from this price promise and rooms must be available for immediate retail consumer bookings online.

Expedia just let you book and take immediate payment.

vii) easyJetHotels will not reimburse clients if the compared product is part of a package, is shown in a currency different to that quoted by easyJetHotels, if the competitor rate is not offered by a UK bonded travel agency and/or if the rate is offered on a branded hotel chain website.

Expedia.co.uk also seems to be bonded with ATOL and IATA. The rates are given in sterling. Could a 3 nights for the price of 2 deal be seen as a package?

Should I go ahead and book this, or am I missing something?

Thanks for your help.

it’s an awful lot of money for me to gamble if they are able to wriggle out of their promise and they won’t be giving me a refund until 30 days after my stay anyway.

My advice = Don't gamble with more money than you feel comfortable losing.
(Some gamblers will tell you that this totally removes the thrill of gambling... well I'm not a gambler).

Could a 3 nights for the price of 2 deal be seen as a package?

I would not normally consider that to be a "package" - But I would not be surprised if an Easy Group company would call it a "package" to get themselves off the hook. The company ethos is not along the same lines of Marks & Sparks or Victor Kayam ("The best shave you ever had ... or your money back.")

I’d like to invoke the ‘double the difference’ guarantee offered on the easyjethotels website:

http://www.easyjethotels.net/home/info/terms_conditions.jsp#17 but am scared.

It’s for a 4* hotel in Berlin. Expedia and hotels.com are both offering a stay 2 nights get 3rd night free deal, bringing the cost per night to about £37. Easyjet hotels meanwhile are offering the same property for £80 a night.

Thing is, it’s an awful lot of money for me to gamble if they are able to wriggle out of their promise and they won’t be giving me a refund until 30 days after my stay anyway.

Tricky bits are this:
v) Claims for refunds must be based on a comparison of the same hotel for the same dates and same room type and occupancy, and be inclusive of the same services as those offered by easyJetHotels (for example service charges, taxes and breakfast etc.).

Easyjethotels allow you to cancel for a £15 fee, whereas Expedia won't give a refund under any circumstances - so is it possible that it won't be accepted as a like for like comparison?

vi) On-request rooms are excluded from this price promise and rooms must be available for immediate retail consumer bookings online.

Expedia just let you book and take immediate payment.

vii) easyJetHotels will not reimburse clients if the compared product is part of a package, is shown in a currency different to that quoted by easyJetHotels, if the competitor rate is not offered by a UK bonded travel agency and/or if the rate is offered on a branded hotel chain website.

Expedia.co.uk also seems to be bonded with ATOL and IATA. The rates are given in sterling. Could a 3 nights for the price of 2 deal be seen as a package?

Should I go ahead and book this, or am I missing something?

Thanks for your help.

It's really nebulous language they've used. From what I can gather, and I'm no means an expert, I think that a room only purchase from expedia is not ATOL protected so falls foul of section vii, it seems only package holidays are bonded. I believe for it to constitute a package it also has to include a flight element... in which case, as package holidays don't often list hotel and flight prices seperately, it seems like an even flimsier promise.

Having formulated my concerns into this request for advice, I've realised that I'm only actually gambling £15 - so I'll probably take the chance.

If I do I'll post my results as there is a potential here for a couple of other bargains at some other hotels.

I'd still be very grateful to hear of anyone else's experiences of invoking this kind of guarantee.

Cendant has a guarantee that if you find a lower rate elsewhere, the first night is free. This is for Days Inn, Super 8, Ramada, Travelodge, Howard Johnson, Wingate Inn, and Knights Inn. If you book for only one night, that night is free.

Recently I have gotten four separate free room nights for dates in the next year using this method. However, I did read online that 80% of Cendant claims are rejected, so they must be good at finding loopholes. I've not booked any non-refundable rates.

I think one loophole is that it has to be "exactly" the same type of room. Sometimes the booking agencies will say something like "standard" or "twin/double", and that probably isn't sufficient to specify the exact type of room.

Still waiting for a reply (should get a response by the end of Monday at the latest)

i) EasyJetHotels will confirm valid claims within 3 working days of receipt.

iv) easyJetHotels must be able to verify the alternative rate is both available and bookable online.

This looks like this is potentially another hurdle to the guarantee. It seems Easyjethotels (hotelopia) can wait for a full three days (5 days in this case as there is an upcoming weekend) before attempting to verify that the alternative rate is both available and bookable. So far so good in my case, but anything could happen over the weekend :( .

Terms and conditions are EXACTLY the same BTW - the room is described in the exactly the same terms in both websites and Expedia will even let you cancel the booking for a similar fee as that imposed by Easyjethotels. So I guess the points I've included in blue in this post would be my main obstacle.

Free honeymoon!

All been confirmed. We get double the difference back.

Alas, the biggest catch is that I don't get the money back until 30 days after the trip (but at least I won't be able to spend it in the meantime ;) )

Boy, are we going to get fat at the restaurants now!


EDIT - advice: if you were to do the same thing, I recommend calling their customer service number to get them to confirm the guarantee within 24 hours rather than waiting for 3 working days for the reply promised in their T&Cs.
I never got any confirmation of the details I sent electronically, except for a computer generated confirmation. It seemed that this info was lost. Instead I was asked to send them an email showing this computer generated reply as proof that I had acted within the required 24 hours.

Nevertheless, this has been a positive experience for me, the people I spoke to there were very pleasant, and they didn't give me the impression they were out to trip me up in any way.
I'll be happy to use this company again as they do seem to have a lot of genuinely good deals (most of which include breakfast or other meals - but this is another reason why it is hard to make like for like comparisons with other sites such as Expedia) I'll post the eventual result (i.e. whether I'm given any hassle re. the refund) as it's always nice to know of trustworthy travel agents on the web.


Oh, and thanks PappaG! :D

Free honeymoon!

All been confirmed. We get double the difference back.

Alas, the biggest catch is that I don't get the money back until 30 days after the trip (but at least I won't be able to spend it in the meantime ;) )

Boy, are we going to get fat at the restaurants now!
Congratulations!

Congratulations on your great catch!

I've seen several instances of this on the EasyJet site now that I'm looking, although in most cases, it's more like a few Euros here and there, so hardly worth the gamble.

Some things I'm not sure of:

1) Suppose the EasyJet rate includes breakfast. A third party site does not include breakfast, but states that breakfast costs X Euros per person. The third party rate + 2X is less than the EasyJet rate. I'm guessing this would not qualify?

2) The cheaper third party rate is fully cancellable, and EasyJet has particular cancellation terms. The cheaper rate is obviously better, but EasyJet could say it's not the same.

Any ideas?

Now that I've got the complete cost of the booking back in my account where it belongs :D (this was done within 4 days of asking - 10 days later)

The booking really does have to be like for like.

If EasyJetHotel rate offers breakfast - the other must too. So for number 1 - no it wouldn't quailfy.

2. This was never brought up with my booking. The Expedia rate seemed non-cancellable. The EasyJetHotel rate could be cancelled - but invoked a £15 fee for doing so. They never quibbled over this.

As long as your own booking on EJHotels can be cancelled in a similar manner - I'd say go for it. But get a written confirmation that they will honour the guarantee before you stay.


And were given a superior corner room with fantastic views and treated ourselves to a fantastic supper at the Ritz-Carlton on our last night. Boy would we be struggling now if we hadn't got the refund (paid for our YYZ-MXP Biz trip ^ )

Congrats - a very good traveler tale

Edited: meant to start a new thread