I am travelling again in May, Texas. I booked flights before looking at hotel costs, and chose an alternate departure location based solely on airfare savings. I really don't recommend doing this! Lesson I learned is that Austin midweek is expensive.
In picking hotels for this trip I am primarily deciding based on location and cost but secondarily to build up hotel point balances in anticipation of Grand Slam 2012. I went to Kayak and found a Radisson property at the totally outrageous nightly price of $259+tax. Kayak also pointed me to a second tier booking site that had the same room for $145+, both were refundable to points well in the future. I had heard of the wonders of best rate guarantees (BRG) where the provider insists the direct booking channel will always be the cheapest but had not actually dabbled personally.
I made a reservation for the Radisson on their website and immediately submitted a claim based on the lower rate on the unknown to me site. I did not hold out a lot of hope that it would break in my favor but the next morning I had an email approving it. Radisson's BRG scheme is quite favorable, find a lower price within 24 hours of booking and they will not only match it but beat it by 20%. My understanding is the property owner has to eat this difference for going outside of official chain channels. My $259 find is now $108, quite a difference. It should also be eligible for ~3,000 Club Carlson points or about half of what was needed for a GS11 hit.
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