Clearly, there are people who are much more experienced in this than I am, but I am getting the hang of it, slowly. Mistakes have been made on my part, but that is how it goes.

First the story:

Marriott is one of the most price conscious hotel chains I know. Their team knows they need to attract all spectrums of consumers while trying to protect the brand as much as possible. As many may know, they were one of the first chains to pick a preferred opaque vendor and still today participate heavily (although maybe not as much as they used to) in the opaque channels. To me, the LNF program is not that much different except Marriott puts the work on the consumer with a reward. This approach though is a stick/penalty on both corporate owned and franchise hotels by lowering the revpar. This is not that different than the stick ($ cash payout) when they do not properly provide elite amenities or guaranteees either. Because it is not easy to re-create a previously done LNF (along with incentive for the hotel to fix the rate distribution problem on the 'offending' site), this program is supposed to 'heal itself'. However, hotels need to book rooms and sometimes they need to ensure they offer a rate on certain channels to attract a segment of customers. Even if that means a few LNF penalties, it is a win-win-win (show a higher rate normally, have certain channels for a lower rate, and get few additional customers who push for the lower rate officially).

Frankly though, the only real reason to pursue an LNF I think is because they offer points/stay credit for MR members (and officially eligible for MR benefits or upgrades). If they did not, you should book from other channels and go opaque. Keep this in mind if you are new to this -- you may still end up overpaying for a room unless the MR program or bonuses are important to you (which is why only a specific hotel/loyalty would matter as well).

Now nacho and others have provided a lot of advice, here is what I know (some repeat).

1) Do not ever book a NR AP rate if it does not explicitly allow 1 day free cancellation. nacho warned me, but I made this gumshoe mistake. I was able to cancel it and did an AAA rate instead (just a few dollars more). This gives me the flexibility to continue searching for cheaper rates on my denied LNF.

A NR AP rate with not even a day of refund is only slightly better than going opaque. This is rather poor on Marriott's part because I know the LNF team even considers the 24 hour cancellation period as part of the rate review process.

Here is what I would do. First, ensure that the lowest NR AP rate is higher than your competing site. Second, book the lowest price that allows the 1 day cancellation at least in the terms. Then, do your LNF claim form. You may need to correspond back with the Look team if they deny you initally, but LNF team is mostly very competent and need to make sure that the competing website has a lower rate than what they offer for that same room category.

2) Do not use any three letter codes. This is a Look No Further program. You do not need to search for any promotions except what is listed when you bring up the rates and packages for the hotel. That is how the program works. If you do not care about doing a LNF (time or whatever), then try every three letters listed in other threads.

3) Give instructions on how to find the rate you got on the other website. Some competing websites allow you to link directly to a hotel page (sometimes even with dates prefilled). Others, do not. Use the notes section to politely explain how to re-create the rate you are asking for the match/discount.

4) Make sure that taxes are included if required (VAT countries). There are some US websites that separate out the VAT to show a lower room rate.

5) Use the currency of the Marriott's hotel for your comparisons. As nacho indicates, if you need to take a competing site's and convert, use the Marriott calculator he provided. You will get frustrated with the currency conversions, this is part of the price of the effort.

6) And as mentioned by others, indicate what you think the new rate should be after the 25% discount. Again, very helpful when multiple currencies are involved.

Go into the process expecting a denial and happy if you get your match. There are a lot of reasons for this, here is some I see:

1) The LNF team has 24 hours. A lot happens in 24 hours. There is not much you can do except maybe have a few extra choices to use if your competing site rate changes by the time the LNF team gets to check the rate. This is frustrating.

2) Other websites are not always honest (bait and switch). If you are in a tax-inclusive rate country, make sure you are comparing the rate total rate to the Marriott rate.

3) Most websites are just using GDS data and should have similar prices to marriott.com. So, this is supposed to be like finding gold nuggets. You will not always be able to find a lower price.

Regards,
Rasheed