Originally Posted by
X-ON
No, the BRG match is against the room rate before taxes and fees. The room rate incl. taxes and fees is used to check if your excl. tax and fee rate is eligible for a BRG match. This means that for you to match a lower rate excl. taxes and fees your room rate incl taxes and fees must be lower as well. That is why it is so much easier to do a BRG match in jurisdictions where all rates are all in (or almost all in) EU, Qatar for example. BTW the BRG rate for the LM MS is still quite a good deal.
This is the reason why it is so difficult to do BRG in the US, I have come across a lot of properties that have much lower rates vs. Marriott. However, they put on taxes and property fees so that the end price is the same as Marriott. Marriott used to ONLY look at pre-tax prices but they look at both nowadays which makes BRG a lot more difficult.