Many hotels offer a “Best Price Guarantee” policy, a fancy marketing term for a price match. I love these policies; they’ve saved me a ton of money on hotel stays in the past and I think everyone should use them when they can. In this post, I want to illustrate how easy this is to do, using a recent experience I had with Accor’s Best Price Guarantee in which I saved over $250 on a three-night stay.
Why is price matching so great?
I’m planning a four-day, three-night trip to Munich and found a great deal on a room at the Sofitel Munich Bayerpost on Priceline, with a total price for three nights costing $618.94. Booked directly through Accor’s site, the member’s rate for an identical stay was $733.80. I ended up booking on Accor and paying $733.80. Why did I spend more money upfront?
I booked on Accor’s site instead of Priceline’s because Accor promises to match the price of virtually any booking online and, on top of this, to take off an extra 25% of the cost! That means I’ll end up paying $464.20 for my three-night stay. In addition to being a great value, booking this room directly from Accor means that if something goes wrong with the reservation I won’t have to deal with Priceline customer service, and can get any issues sorted out at the source.
What is Accor’s Best Price Guarantee Policy?
The terms and conditions of the program, which can be found in full here, basically dictate that if you book a room with Accor and then find a better price for the same room and submit a screenshot of that price within 24 hours, you will be reimbursed for the difference in price plus an extra 25% off the lower, third-party price.
There are a few rules to be aware of:
- You must submit a claim within 24 hours of making the booking
- You must book a room through accorplus.com, all.accor.com or the ALL app
- Mantra, Peppers, Art Series, and Breakfree properties are not eligible for the Best Price Guarantee
- For Fairmont, Raffles and Swissôtel properties you’ll receive a 10% discount instead of the normal 25% discount
The following cases are excluded from Accor’s Best Price Guarantee:
- Group rates (more than 7 rooms)
- Business rates
- Conference and seminar rates
- Special promotional offers giving rise to an additional discount after booking confirmation (such as promotional codes provided after signing up to a newsletter)
- Member rates or subscription programmes offered on the Third-Party Booking Channel concerned
- Rates granted for partners of the Accor Group and their employees
- Rates granted for employees of the Accor Group
- Rates offered by sources selling unsold travel inventory on an opaque pricing basis (i.e. Hotwire and Priceline) which specify the name of the hotel or its location only after confirmation of the booking
- Rates displayed on websites/portals/web pages which do not have an on-line booking system such as information sites or sites which confirm reservations only after contacting the hotel (“booking request”)
- Rates which are part of a package which includes both a room and an airline ticket, a cruise, car rental or any other activity or any other service inside or outside the hotel.
- Rates sold on websites requiring membership, online memberships or programs with a password or login to consult a hotel’s rates and room availability
Keep in mind that despite Accor’s policy that bidding sites like Priceline or Hotewire are excluded from Best Price Guarantee, mine was honored. I’m not 100% sure why this is, but I suspect this is because in this case, I did not have to bid to see the price of the room. In other words, the rate was publicly available.
How to use Accor’s Best Price Guarantee
Getting a price match is extremely easy and requires just two steps:
- Take a screenshot of the lower price
- Go to this page to upload the screenshot and provide your contact details
After you’ve submitted your claim, Accor will generally get back to you within 24 hours, either accepting your claim, rejecting your claim, or asking for more information. If your claim is accepted, money will be refunded to the card with which you made your reservation.
Conclusion
Relative to the amount of work required, taking advantage of Accor’s Best Price Guarantee was a no-brainer. It took me two minutes and saved me $250. Other hotel groups have similar policies, which I’ll outline in a separate post, so be sure to check those out before you book through a third-party channel rather than with the official hotel website.
