teddy25

Saturday night via booking.com and approved with in 18 hrs.

Was worry about the cancelation policy on booking which is "one day prior to arrival" comparing to the "4pm the day before" on choice.com

MarioRossi

Could you help me out on something?

Looking at the Sleep Inn Niantic, May 30 to 31. Choice prices up as 159USD which is 182.85USD with tax.

agoda.com comes up as 180.62 inclusive of all taxes.

Yet, the third claim was denied today saying room rates on Agoda were identical.

Any thoughts?

lougord99

Taxes on all sites, including Choice's own website are approximate. The only thing the BRG looks at is room rate. Taxes are figured at the local level. If the web site incorrectly figures the taxes, you will still be forced to pay the true tax rate. If the web site incorrectly states the room rate, then you pay the room rate on the web site and the appropriate taxes to that rate.

emkay

just got approved for a multi room BRG in the middle of nowhere. Does the actual mom and pop run hotel lose the money or do they still get compensation from choice?

davie355

The hotel gets no compensation from Choice. Choice gets compensation from the hotel, which is fined as a punishment for posting lower rates on external sites.

So a "mom and pop" loses -- but only at a game they chose to play. They are not victims.

emkay

Thanks
The actual hotel is the one that prices its rooms on the third party sites? and what would they gain by intentionally making it a couple dollars lower on another site?

sdsearch

Perhaps more bookings from a bunch of people who don't about BRG (or even about the Choice website)?

Just like the vast majority of people know little about airline miles or hotel points, the vast majority of people don't even know there's such a thing as BRG, let alone how to make use of it.

emkay

why would they want you to book it from a 3rd party website over the choice website? do they pay less commission?
and why would they only lower the price on one random website? seems that the price discrepancies would make more sense that its a mistake

sdsearch

You're not looking at the from the random person's perspective. Many people don't know about the Choice website. They may have done a web search on something and come up with some random hotel website that tried to promote itself in some weird way that you and I aren't familiar with but someone searching the web in a way that only a non-experienced traveler would comes up with (or maybe other people come with it on their search results list but only a non-experienced traveler clicks on it).

So it's not that the hotel wants you to book from that site, it's that they want to get people who happen to visit that site to book their hotel instead of another hotel down the street.

The average person who does know about the Choice website simply books at the Choice website. End of story!

You see, BRG is done by only by a tiny fraction of the people who use the Choice webstite.

In fact, I myself have never bothered with it myself at Choice, desipte 30ish to 40ish Choice nights a year (and thus always either Choice Platinum or Choice Diamond), because the particular Choice properties I stay at [on paid rates] are cheap enough to begin with. I bother with it at Marriott because there I gets me $150/night hotels down to $75/night every night of every stay, no matter how frequent or how long my stays are, and I still earn points and bonuses on points on those BRG'd nights at Mariott, because they're not totally free, just discounted greatly.

Most people (outside of FlyerTalk) don't start thinking about hotels from a chain hotel perspective, and don't have a specific hotel in mind and search a zillion websites. They start searching for all hotels in a given location, in one of a zilllion different ways. So they get to some random third-party site, and they compare all the hotels there (chain and non-chain, and under chain Choice and non-Choice). Those who don't care about chain hotels often use various third-party sites. And this hotel simply wants to look competitive on one (or more) of those third-party sites.

jerryhung

Is the BRG form down for anybody else?
I've tried it since yesterday afternoon and no luck
http://www.choicehotels.com/ires/en-...l/BestRateForm leads to http://www.choicehotels.com/notavail/en/403.html?wb=yes

I submitted 2 BRG earlier this week no problem ($0 night for Quality Suites YYZ)
I wonder if this is how they "stopped" people submitting BRG

lo2e

Must be fixed, working now for me.

jerryhung

Weird, still failed for me on IE/Chrome, after clicking Submit
I did cancel & re-booked a new reservation

ARGH..

jerryhung

Yah, the form works now (I did send an email to them via Contact Us, not sure if that "fixed" it)

Let's see if my "more than 24 hours due to form down" request was accepted
If not, I'll cancel reservation, re-book, and re-submit BRG then

EDIT: they did decline the original (24+ hours) one, I just cancelled and re-submitted, which got approved. Funny

cubbynole

booked a cancellable room in the Cincinnati area at 84.99/nt; found a rate (also cancellable) on Travelocity for 82.31/nt. BRG claim sent, two hours later I receive an e-mail saying there is no difference in the rate (post tax, on each reservation, the amounts are different, as you would expect with the room rate difference). I go back to Travelocity and find and book the cheaper rate. I have replied to the original response and created a new claim saying that I will forward them my itinerary/confirmation e-mailed from Travelocity if the agent is unable to identify my lower rate...thus far no response, hasn't been 24 hours yet, but it's not been a pleasant experience thus far.

Edit: response received declining claim. I offered to forward a copy of my Travelocity reservation, they would not accept it. Clearly they do not want me staying at one of their properties, so I will oblige them. I've cancelled both Choice and Travelocity reservations for this trip and won't use them in the future.

mrnik2007

I got denied a claim due to the cancellation date/period.

Choicehotels is allowing me to cancel at 7AM the day after arrival. (very common for the choicehotels through their website)

Most competitors are asking for a cancellation at 6PM on day of arrival.

Have others been getting approved/denied even though they had similar cancellation requirements?