Ok thanks everyone for the pointers. Guess the 24 hours seen in the T&Cs made better sense now for them "to lock" the current rates on their Website vs. Competitors and not be affected by price changes.

There goes my chance for 10,000 points since had 2 separate reservations.

Some of the sites I use for LNF are tax inclusive. Invariably, I get the following response "There is no supporting documentation as to specifically which taxes are included and therefore I cannot remove taxes from the rate." In some places, especially Asia, taxes can be 15-20%. If LNF is refusing to subtract the taxes from the rate, that leaves me with a net discount of 5-10% instead of 25%.

I've sent in screenshots to no avail. Has anyone ever succeeded in convincing the LNF team that "all in pricing" means taxes included?

I'm fighting that battle now. It took three attempts to get my LNF/BRG claim approved for the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani. Now I'm fighting about the taxes and resort fee. In my initial claim, I noted the lower rate was all-inclusive. I subsequently provided a link and a screen snip highlighting "No hidden charges - All prices include government taxes and hotel service fees." I even provided what the pretax/pre-fee rate should be and included a gross-up calculation.

I'm awaiting a reply.

yeah, they usually miss that. I have been quite successful with rebuttals when such language was present. Good luck.

This entire "comparing the price before 'taxes and fees'" is disingenuous anyway. If they guarantee the cheapest place to book is on their own site, they should compare the final price, not some price stripped of "service charge" (which is really nothing else than room charge in disguise anyway) and taxes.
Does someone know what the argument for excluding taxes in the comparison is? Are taxes different depending through which channel you do the booking?
HTB.

it can work in your favor too. For example if there is a booking charge and other things that are hidden in the 'taxes' on the competing site ... they will just use the base price as a comparison.

This is the response I got when I challenged them with screen shots and a long detailed email.

It's been like that when I was filing a claim for a hotel in Tokyo.

The only way you can win this is if the tax inclusive rate at OTA is cheaper than the tax exclusive rate at Marriott.

Hi all,

Just to update that my case has a semi-approved. Meaning that while i did not get the option of 5000 points or 20% discount, the LNF agent managed to get the property to amend my pre-paid booking and match the current lower rate.
The difference of rates will be refunded to me once my stay has been completed.

That's not my definition of a win. :(

Given the age of this thread and the merging of Marriott and Starwood, another thread has been started: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marr...on-thread.html