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Thursday, September 8, 2011

Expedia Best Price Guarantee





I discovered something awesome the other day.. the Expedia Best Price Guarantee (for the rest of this post I will refer to it as "BPG" because I am lazy).  


So what exactly IS the BPG?  
As per Expedia's website:

What is the Best Price Guarantee?
It’s simple! Expedia guarantees you’re getting the best price. If you should find a better price online for the same trip within 24 hours, Expedia will refund the difference—and give you a travel coupon worth $50.

What does the Best Price Guarantee apply to?
The Best Price Guarantee covers virtually every part of your trip: flights, hotels, vacation packages, cruises, rental cars and activities. See restrictions.

How do I take advantage of the Best Price Guarantee?
Just call 1-800-EXPEDIA (1-800-397-3342) within 24 hours of booking and tell our customer support representative where you found the lower price. See details



Okay, so that's great that they do that and all.. But how can it benefit you directly?
Well - what they don't tell you is.. you don't have to actually travel to get the $50 certificates.  They reward you with the certificate for telling them about the lower price, even if you ultimately end up cancelling your reservation after the fact.  That $50 voucher remains yours to use for a year off a future stay.


So how do you go about doing this you ask?  Search engines like Kayak are amazing, because you can put in a location and it will show you all the major search engine's prices.  So with one quick click, you can see if expedia is lower than another hotel.  90% of the time, it is.  But in that other 10%, you have a case for a BPG!


If you don't plan to actually go to the hotel, you want to make sure you clearly read their cancellation policy.. The last thing you want to do is book the Rodeway Inn in Ontario Canada only to find out you can't cancel it, and you're stuck with a hotel room you don't plan to use.   So please check the cancellation policy (the box right above the "complete reservation" button before you checkout).  


Once you book the fully refundable room, knowing that it's available cheaper (even if by ONE CENT) somewhere else, you call expedia and tell them.   They will go on the other website, verify the room is the same and available and in fact cheaper (you can't match a single room to a double room, it must be the same).  Once they verify, which is typically about 5 minutes on hold, they come back and refund you the difference + issue a $50 GC which they put in your expedia account off a future stay.  You have one year to use it.  It will be in there instantly.  If you choose to cancel your reservation, your coupon stays, it's a beautiful thing.


Enjoy! :)