xanthuos

First post in Hotel Deals, so I hope this is of interest to someone. I was being stupid and thinking Spokane was a suburb of Seattle and I need a hotel room near Seattle for 12/6! Time for me to go study some geography, but in the meantime, here's the deal!

Book your reservation on TripRewards and then use the Best Rate Guarantee for them to adjust your rate down to $0 since Expedia's is lower.

Rate on TripRewards.com for "King Bed Suite" : $104.95
Linked here

Rate on Expedia.com for "Jacuzzi Suite" : $70
Linked here

GrizShel

Expedia shows "no rooms available" for all my dates of interest. A frequent problem with their website - they have been lying for years about saying there are no rooms at many hotel properties, apparently trying to steer you to properties for which they have deals in place that will make them a big profit.

MrHalliday

From my limited experience with BRG
(two successful claims to my credit)
the two room descriptions must be a MUCH closer match
than the two descriptions you found.

mellowg

If you look at the T&C, it doesn't say the room descriptions must match - it says that the room types must match. So, even if the descriptions are significantly different, if they obviously refer to the same room type, you've got the BRG. It's a good idea to see all the room types available at a certain property - maybe there's only 1 room type that has a jacuzzi...

crhptic

I'm not sure I'd call it "lying" - although it is certainly deceptive.

My understanding of how Expedia sells hotel rooms is that they do not act as a booking agent for the hotels; rather, they commit to pre-purchase X number of room-nights at the hotel (presumably at a discount) and then re-sell those room-nights to Expedia customers (at full price or just-below), to make a profit. (Expedia is affiliated with hotels.com and shares their inventory in this program).

When Expedia says "no rooms available at hotel Z", they are not, in fact, saying the hotel is sold out; rather, they are saying that Expedia's allotment of pre-purchased rooms has already been sold. And yes, of course they will steer you to other hotels at which their allotment of rooms has not been sold, in hopes that you will purchase one of those rooms instead.

What is deceptive is that there is no indication anywhere on the Expedia web site that this is how their site works, leading an uninformed consumer to believe the hotel is sold out.

However, this process occasionally has its advantages, such as when a hotel actually has sold out, but Expedia and/or Travelocity (which also has similar arrangements with some hotels) haven't sold all their allotted rooms yet. In those cases, Expedia/Travelocity may be the only way to get a room in the hotel on that date. I have successfully used this, for example, on weekends in Atlantic City.