expedia foils my hawaii best price guarantee

one of my favorite travel tricks was to use the expedia best price guarantee. if you find an identical room (with identical conditions) offered on another american website in american dollars, they will refund the difference and give you a $50 travel credit. furthermore, you can use that $50 dollar travel credit on a room that you know in advance will qualify for the best price guarantee, and apply for the best price guarantee based on the pre-travel credit price. in effect, you've saved $50 off the price of your hotel night and will receive another $50 credit. on top of this, the purchases still qualified for the 4.8% rebate that bigcrumbs offered.

over the years, i've done this at least 23 times in the last three years, based on the number of used best rate guarantee coupons are in my account. the number is probably higher because sometimes, when they can't issue you a new coupon, they just re-activate an old coupon so that you can use it again.

what i've normally done ...
my typical hotel that i stay at is the waikiki sand villa hotel. it normally prices out to be $102.57 all in on the website, but typically hits $123.08 all in. so under normal circumstances, i would be able to use a best price guarantee coupon on the expedia price of $123, then get an additional $21 refunded from expedia, and then receive another $50 best price guarantee for some time in the future.

but this is how they've changed things ...
it's all about the wording, sadly. when you book on the expedia site, this is what it says:

when you book on the hotel website, this is what they say: 

in this case, expedia now takes the same room booking and guarantees a 4th or 5th floor. for the same price, you could get a smoking room on the 2nd or 3rd floor, which suggests to me that the 2nd and 3rd floor are smoking floors, but i don't actually know that for sure.

anyway, i only noticed this change after i had submitted my best price guarantee claim, and only after it was rejected:

Your itinerary shows the room description as "Located on the 4th to 5th floor in the main tower with views of Diamond Head volcano, mountains, or city" while "www.sandvillahotel.com" is showing "Rooms are located on the 2nd - 5th floors, excluding corner units". The price is reasonable to be higher for a room located on the higher floor and ahs views of Diamond Head volcano, mountains, or city. Due to this, we are declining your Best Price Guarantee claim.

what do i do now?
i guess all good things must come to an end. it looks like for the rest of my hawaii adventures in the future, i'll have to use up the remaining best price guarantee coupons that i have and then switch to other hotel websites.

• great canadian rebates offers a 4.0% rebate on hotels booked through expedia.ca
• expedia.ca charges in canadian funds, meaning fewer currency conversion charges
• great canadian rebates also offers a 4.5% rebate on hotels booked through hotels.com (which uses canadian currency)
• hotels.com offers its own 10% rebate program via hotelrewards, which is stackable with great canadian rebates 

thanks for the fun ride, though!

updates: petro-canada pivot visa, pointshoud booking bonuses, and expedia's best price guarantee

1) when i posted about the petro-canada pivot visa card, to do straight withdrawals, i factored in a $1.50 fee that the atm would charge. i was under the assumption that most atms would not a reader had pointed out that not all atms charged that fee. while in edmonton, i found a credit union atm that did not. i am very, very encouraged. sadly, that credit union is only in alberta ... but it makes me want to stick my prepaid visa into any machine i can find. so for every $250 cycle, it is possible to get a bonus $5 back.

2) i had an e-mail sitting in my inbox for about a week now from pointshound. until the end of the month, you can get an additional 500 bonus points (to the airline of your choice, it seems) for every new trip booking. a trip is defined in the fine print as only one booking in a city per 7 day period (i.e., booking two nights at different hotels in seattle does not count). i booked my seattle hotel using their double dip feature. normally, i would refund it all and then rebook for the bonus, except that the price of the actual hotel has increased ...

3) from hack my trip, i learned that you have to add another step to utilize expedia's best price guarantee. they changed the wording with their new expedia rewards program. you can only get the $50 travel voucher now if you are a member of the expedia rewards program. but really, it's free to join, and you get 1-2% return on your hotel purchases. it's just an extra one-time step.

how to use expedia's best price guarantee

when it comes to hotels, i don’t really need the expensive, fancy places. i’m content with the regular two-star hotels that are close to things and that are clean. in expensive cities, the brand name groups (intercontinental, marriott, hilton, etc.,) are usually priced out of my range, so i don’t mind booking these two star hotels.

this is where expedia.com’s (not expedia.ca) best price guarantee comes in for me. most websites have a best price guarantee (BPG), but expedia’s is particularly generous. within 24 hours of booking, if you find another hotel on a different website for a lower rate, expedia will match it. but more than that, they will also “drop” a 50$ coupon into your account for use immediately for your next hotel purchase. that’s like a 50$ reward for reporting a lower price.

of course, there are some rules involved. the competing website must be in English and in USD. the room that is offered on the competing website must be exactly the same as the one you’ve booked on expedia.com. in other words, they have to have the same terms and conditions. refundable vs. non-refundable? breakfast included vs not? city view vs. mountain view? king bed vs. queen bed. special memberships required vs not?

it’s not always easy finding cheaper rates on competing websites. i find that you’ll typically get lower rates on smaller, independent hotels’ own websites. some markets have lots of these, others don’t. the aqua resorts in hawaii, for example, typically have lower prices on their own website than on expedia.

step 1: find a hotel on expedia.com that has a competing website with a lower rate. remember, this is where your small, independent hotels come into play.

step 2: if you have a multi-night hotel booking, break it into individual nights.

step 3: purchase your first night.

step 4: go to expedia.com and fill in the BPG application online.

click on the best price guarantee on the lower left hand corner

select the BPG application

fill in the details -- takes 3 minutes to do

step 5: you will get a partial refund (price match) and a 50$ coupon will be dropped into your account. use this coupon to book your second night.

step 6: repeat steps 4-5 for your second and third nights.

note that you can only get 3 BPG within a calendar month. so for longer trips, i typically wait until near the end of the calendar month so that i can do 6 within a short period of time. i did this just yesterday, and within a few hours, i received this e-mail:

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Thank you for contacting us about the Best Price Guarantee for your reservation. We have great news!

We have approved your request and initiated a refund in the amount of USD17.90 to the original form of payment used during your purchase. The time it takes to post to your account will depend on how quickly your credit card company processes this fund.

Meanwhile, due to system restrictions, we are unable to issue a Best Price Guarantee $50 Coupon via email. In this case, please call the Expedia Customer Service Team at the numbers below at a suitable time. Please have your itinerary number and email address available when you call.

If this does not answer your question or solve your problem, feel free to reply to this message or call us at 1-800-EXPEDIA (1-800-397-3342) or 1-404-728-8787 (for callers outside the U.S. and Canada) and reference case ID: x-xxxxxxx.

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i normally book my hotels in hawaii for 80$ base, or 95$ after tax. with this trick, i end up booking hotel room nights for 45-50$ a night. clean, safe, convenient, and all in hawaii. that’s a deal worth celebrating.