How Kayak.com can help you get a free room

Whenever someone has no frequent flier miles, no ability to get travel-rewards cards, and really wants a cheap domestic flight, I always send them to Kayak.  Kayak.com is a popular travel search aggregator that scans all the other travel search aggregators and shows you the cheapest rates it finds.  It does all the comparison work for you and that’s why so many people love it.

But what makes Kayak so lovable in my mind is its ability to help you get free hotels.

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To explain this, I’ll have to explain what a “BRG” or Best Rate Guarantee is.

 

1.) Best Rate Guarantee Policies

The BRG strategy is one of my favorite tricks because not only does it often get us a room that costs no money, it won’t cost us points either.  Furthermore, it’s a trick that anyone can use as it doesn’t require you to sign up for any kind of credit-card or promotion or anything.

So what is this BRG policy?

This is simply a promise a hotel makes that they will offer a better price for their rooms on their own website than they will on any search aggregator like Kayak, Travelocity, Expedia, etc.  My guess is they set this up as an accountability system to make sure they keep on top of the prices they’re releasing to these aggregators, and that they’re correcting the price anytime an aggregator’s price is listed too low.

First, I’ll share with you the basic steps of applying for a BRG, then I’ll share with you a few hotels with the most generous BRG policies.

This is where Kayak.com comes in and shines.

 

1.)  Find a hotel you’re interested in that advertises a BRG policy.

This includes so many hotels that I probably don’t need to name them, but the ones that are most likely to result in a free room are InterContinental and Hilton.  We’ll discuss the specifics of their policies and others below.  Here is the most complete list of BRG policies we could come up with.

 

2.) Find a cancelable rate on that hotel’s own website- a rate you think you’ll be able to match or beat.  

We book cancelable rates just in case the hotel decides not to approve our claim- then we’re not left with an expensive hotel when we meant to have a free one.

 

3.) Use Kayak.com’s “search by brand” feature to find the EXACT same room. 

This needs to be more exact than finding a “Hilton standard room” if you’ve booked a Hilton standard room.  Depending on how picky the hotel is and how badly they don’t want to approve your BRG, you need to make sure no listed detail contradicts the hotel’s own website description.  Check-out time, breakfast or no breakfast, etc.

We’ve been told that because breakfast was included on the cheaper rate we found on an aggregator, but not included in the rate on their own website, it wouldn’t be considered the “same room.”

This even goes for the currency the price is listed in.  Luckily, Kayak has a country selection that will allow you to see only rates listed in that country’s currency.  OR sometimes you can go to the site Kayak has pulled up for you and change the currency from there.

Really though, only some of the hotels are so picky about a matching room description and because you booked a cancelable rate, if you think the description is close enough, you can always try!

 

4.) Obviously, most importantly, make sure the room Kayak has shown you is cheaper.  

This may take a bit of hopping back and forth from the brand’s website to the aggregators, but other times you’d be surprised how easy it is to find a cheaper rate.

 

5.) Now it’s time to submit your claim. 

This is a simple process that happens online.

Hilton’s BRG claim form can be found here.

IHG’s BRG claim form can be found here.

Choice’s BRG claim form can be found here.

And Marriott’s BRG claim form can be found here.

 

As I mentioned above, our favorite use of the BRG strategy is with hotels whose BRG policies are generous enough to allow  a free room.

Whose policies are the most rewarding?

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InterContinental Hotel Group is a hotel chain that includes Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Crowne Plaza, IHG, etc.  Their BRG policy states that if you find a cheaper rate for their rooms on someone else’s site, they’ll give you “your first night free.”  Naturally, we take advantage of this by aiming for BRG’s at their nicest brand, InterContinentals, and by booking one night stays so our whole stay is free.

Hilton is a hotel chain that includes Hampton Inn, Waldorf, Conrad, Double Tree, and Hilton, etc.  Getting approved for their BRG claims will either give you a $50 Amex gift card (for domestic stays) or a $50 price reduction (Internationally.)  We take advantage of this by trying to book rates that are as close to $50 as possible.

Best Western basically offers a $100 Best Western voucher for approved BRG claims.  So your initial stay won’t be free, but your next one would be as there are plenty of Best Westerns for $100 or less.  Also, by the time you have one $100 voucher, you could submit a BRG claim for another stay, paying for that stay with a voucher and receiving another voucher for your next stay.  And on and on and on.  But there are a few more rules to this, which you may want to familiarize yourself with.

These are just a few of the most generous Best Rate Guarantee policies.  But there are so many more Best Rate Guarantee policies out there. 

Thanks to Kayak.com, the hunt for an approved BRG claim can be pretty easy.

Posted by | Comments Off on How Kayak.com can help you get a free room  | April 10, 2014
Category: Hostels/Hotels

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