samwkchan

Yes, that's true. It is a bad change to both real travelers and IHG. Real travelers are deprived of the guarantee solely because of different currencies even if the difference in price is big. In this case, the hotel group may lose their second chance to serve these disappointed customers. I hope they will change it back soon although I am pessimistic on it.

Three to five business days in my cases.

iahphx

These are some bizarro changes. Is IHG offering the rate guarantee on their foreign websites? So if booking.com wants to quote a rate in London in GBP, can I go to IHG's UK website and book there for the BRG?

Not including the tax is just mean. It just excludes some very reasonable BRG based on other websites doing "the right thing" and including all costs.

What's still unclear is whether I can get a BRG on a refundable IHG rate if the other website offers a lower refundable rate, or whether that other website has to also beat any IHG non-refundable rate. This is the current annoyance, as IHG keeps requiring me to change my refundable rez to a non-refundable rez to get the guarantee.

As I indicated earlier, this whole thing wasn't well thought out before being launched. I'm sure there will be more revisions and then probably the abandonment of the free night's stay promise.

samwkchan

I suppose yes. The terms and conditions mention the same-currency-rule explicitly. In other words, if both rates are in GBP, the guarantee may qualify.

When I did my claim last week, the agent deducted the tax part from the rate at the third-party website for comparison. The tax rate was not listed on the third-party website, but the agent simply assumed the same tax rate as shown on IHG. Assuming they use the same tax rate, having tax excluded is always a disadvantage for us because the tax magnifies the difference by some percents. It may happen that this small discrepancy helps cross the USD 1 threshold.

The answer is clearly negative. According to the terms and conditions, you must book the room at the lowest available rate on IHG websites. It means that whenever there is a lower (non-refundable) rate available, you must book with that rate for the guarantee. The related clause is as follows:

I agree. The first version of terms and conditions are poorly written and contain a lot of ambiguity. I am confident that I would not end up with these vague clauses If I were to write the rules. I believe that the writer of the first set of rules must suffer a lot from their internal meeting, mainly because of the grievance of the best price guarantee team and concerned hotels.

As of 4 October 2011, the revised version seems more clearly phrased. Despite its clarity, I am so disappointed that they exclude currency exchanges. It truly voids the guarantee for most travelers. I hope they will change it back in the next revision (if they won't remove the guarantee).

===

There is one more thing to ask. If the rates given by IHG and a third-party website are in the same currency other than USD, how should the difference be converted to USD? It is not mentioned in the terms and conditions, either implicitly or explicitly. For example, if the difference is GBP 0.65, it can be above or under USD 1 depending on the exchange rate to use. The doubt must be cleared. I believe that they will use the rate on OANDA, but it should be stated clearly.

I have another question. Are there any good websites to challenge the IHG rates in CNY or HKD? Please PM me if you have some. Thanks!

blindman

Worryingly I have not had confirmation of my latest BRG after pver 24 hours.

I've filled out 2 on-oline claim forms and have just sent an email.

Anyone else not heard lately?

yevlesh2

Yep, same here . Submitted 1 claim on Saturday and 1 (for a different hotel) on Tuesday morning .
Absolutely no response to either one so far.

nacho

The best advice I could give is to give them a call. You ought to get some kind of reply within 24 hours.

I got e-mails after my claims are approved - I called them and did all the changes I needed online during the call.

One of them stated that my claim is approved. Another one is rather scary I did all the claims over phone (one done by Mr. Nacho) and we got replies that the claims are valid. Now that I got a message like this - scary.

nacho

So I wrote to them to ask them about the 'verification' from the hotel. I got a reply saying that
I thought when they approved it, it's approved. So what if the hotel said no such thing? Now I'm confused.

tangey

Did you every see a company change the rules so quickly on a promotion ?

Anyone got a cached copy of the previous T&C ?

My BRG was orally confirmed yesterday, but it was based on the T&C which allowed different currencies to be compared, I don't want them coming back now and telling me they misread the T&C and pointing me towards the new ones.

lfc84

This is from the 27 Sept.

http://www.mediafire.com/?di5d7itfbjva2c9

tangey

excellent, thank you.

nacho

I'm in the very same situation. Has anyone ever got an e-mail from them saying that they need to verify the lower rate with the hotel? I actually got verbal confirmation of the approvals (I wouldn't have changed the reservations to advance purchase otherwise).

Thanks for the cached copy. ^ It might become handy.

adelin

They are confusing! Did you book an ANA? I'm about to book one so please keep me posted on your situation. Thanks!

nacho

Nope my reservation is not for ANA hotels. They are IC and CP.

iahphx

They seem to be trying to process the BRG's they agreed to -- I just got a confirmation of a comp stay from their central rez system.

I guess I'll wait 10 days (my stays aren't until winter) and see what I have to do then.

As I have no other obvious need for more IHG stays, I think I'll wait to get these before fighting for more.

nacho

How long did it take for the rez to show up as comp after you got your claims approved by BRG? Did the BRG team contact you to confirm the comp stay?