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All the major hotel chains say that to get the best price going, you should book with them directly and not through any of the many third-party sites that you’ll find on the internet.
The fact is, however, that because some hotels choose to quietly dump their excess inventory somewhere other than their chain’s own website, lower prices than what the main hotel sites have published can sometimes be found.
To persuade people to keep booking directly, most chains offer a guarantee which says that if you find a lower rate elsewhere, they’ll match it and give you something on top.
What follows is a comparison of nine of these guarantees from the bigger hotel chains.
The comparison
Everything below has been checked against each chain’s published terms and conditions and links to all nine sets of terms are at the end of this article.
One thing to make clear before we get to the tables is that when a chain sets a threshold, it means that the gap between its own rate and the lower rate you’ve found elsewhere has to be at least that big before the chain will even consider your claim.
So, Marriott’s “more than 1%” (which you’ll see below) means that on a $1,000 room, the rate you find elsewhere has to be below $990. If you find the same room selling for $991 elsewhere, you may have found a genuinely cheaper rate but Marriott will not consider it for the purposes of its best rate guarantee.
Anything at or under the threshold is dead on arrival, however real the saving.
| Chain | What you get | How far below the chain’s own rate the rate you find must be | Deadline to file claim | When you cannot claim |
| Hyatt | Match lowest rate + your choice of 20% off or 5,000 World of Hyatt points | $1 USD (3% if a currency conversion is involved) | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 24 hours of first available check-in time |
| Hilton | Match lowest rate + 25% off the room rate | Nothing stated, but Hilton may deny at 1% or less | Before booking, or within 24 hours of booking | Any time up to check-in, but by phone on the day before or day of arrival |
| Marriott | Match lowest rate + your choice of 25% off (20% at Design Hotels) or 5,000 Bonvoy points | More than 1% (2% if a currency conversion is involved) | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 24 hours of standard check-in time |
| IHG | Match lowest rate + 5x IHG One Rewards points on the room rate, capped at 40,000 | 1% | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 24 hours of standard check-in time |
| Accor | Match lowest rate + 25% off (10% at Fairmont and Raffles) | None stated in the same currency. On a conversion, either 5% or €5 whichever is greater* | Within 24 hours of booking confirmation | Within 48 hours of standard check-in time |
| Choice Hotels | Match lowest rate + a $50 reward card (US/Canada) or your first night free (elsewhere) | $1 USD or 1%, whichever is greater | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 48 hours of a 6pm arrival on the first day booked |
| Radisson | Match lowest rate + 25% off | $1 USD/€1/ £1 | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 48 hours of midnight local time on the arrival date |
| Wyndham | Match lowest rate + 3,000 Wyndham Rewards points | $1 USD | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 48 hours of standard check-in time |
| Best Western | Match lowest rate + a $100 Best Western gift card | $1 USD | Within 24 hours of booking | Within 48 hours of standard check-in time |
*We think this is true, but as we’ll show a little later, there’s a lack of clarity here.
Those last two columns are separate hurdles and you have to clear both.
Every chain here gives you up to 24 hours from booking to get your claim in, and Hilton is the only chain that will consider a claim before you have booked anything at all. That’s the first deadline.
The second is a cut-off which prevents claims made on last minute bookings.
Now, here are the same nine hotel chains with the key rules that actually determine whether a claim succeeds:
| Chain | Same currency required? | Must you book their lowest rate? | Can you claim without booking? |
| Hyatt | No, currency conversion will apply | Not required, but the comparison is made against Hyatt’s comparable rate, not the rate you paid | No |
| Hilton | Currency of the hotel | Yes | Yes |
| Marriott | No, currency conversion will apply | Yes, including the Bonvoy Member rate | No |
| IHG | Yes | Yes, via Best Available search | No |
| Accor | No, currency conversion will apply | Not stated, but the comparison is made on the total cost of the stay with the same inclusions | No |
| Choice Hotels | Yes | Yes | No |
| Radisson | Yes | Not stated | No |
| Wyndham | Yes | Not stated | No |
| Best Western | Yes | Not stated | No |
What all the chains agree on
A few key terms are shared by all nine, so rather than repeat them under a heading for each chain, here they are:
- The lower rate must be for an identical booking: same hotel, same room type, same number of guests, same dates, same length of stay, same inclusions, same guarantee and cancellation policies, and same booking conditions. Even the slightest of differences and a claim is likely to be denied.
- Rate comparisons are made net of taxes, gratuities, and any other fees associated with the room rate.
- The lower rate must still be publicly available and bookable at the moment the chain checks it, not merely when you found it. This is the term that brings down a lot of claims.
- Only one claim per reservation or stay, and consecutive nights at the same property count as one stay however many bookings are involved.
- Changing your reservation after approval will generally void the benefit.
- A screenshot is supporting evidence, not proof, so every chain verifies the claim details independently.
- Excluded everywhere are opaque and auction sites, packages where the room rate isn’t itemised, rates needing a discount code or a specially negotiated rate, and rates that aren’t immediately bookable.
The best way to sum this up is that if the lower rate differs in any way other than price, the claim will almost certainly fail.
One of the most common reasons for rejection is a difference in cancellation policies. And you may find that even when the rate you’ve found has the more generous policy, the chain will still use the difference to dismiss the claim. Ridiculous? Yes. But it happens.
The two differences worth knowing about
There are two terms that were once universal, but which no longer are.
Currency
IHG, Radisson, Choice, Best Western, and Wyndham all require the competing rate to be in the same currency as your booking. Hilton requires it to be available in the currency of the hotel and excludes exchange rate movements from the comparison.
Hyatt, Marriott, and Accor will convert instead, and this is where some of the tougher thresholds are to be found.
Once a currency conversion is needed, Hyatt requires the lower rate that you’ve found to be at least 3% below its own rate, Marriott at least 2% below, and Accor at least 5% below (or 5 euros below, whichever of the two is the greater).
Putting that in real terms – on a $1,000 room booked with Hyatt, a same-currency claim needs the competing low rate to be $999 or less. If a currency conversion is required, the competing low rate needs to be $970 or less. That may not seem like a huge difference, but it’s big enough to bring down a lot of claims.
This seems an appropriate point to highlight what appears to be an inconsistency within the Accor best rate guarantee terms.
When discussing conversions from foreign currencies, Accor’s terms appear to be clear:
“The “Best Price Guarantee” will be applicable if the Third-Party Booking Channel’s rate is at least five percent (5%) or 5 euros less than the amount of the Eligible Booking, it being specified that the greater amount of the two will be used.”
Based on this, the difference between the lowest rate found and the Accor rate booked has to be at least 5% if the booking is for over €100 (the point at which 5% starts to get bigger then €5).
Unfortunately, the same section of the terms then gives an example which says this:
- If the reserved rate under an Eligible Booking on the Accor channel is 200 euros,
- The rate given must be at least 5 euros less: 195 euros,
- OR the rate given must be at least 5 percent (5%) less: 190 euros.
- If the rate given on a Third-Party Booking Channel is 192 euros, the “Best Price Guarantee” will be applicable.
In the example, the lowest rate found is not 5% lower then the Accor rate and yet we’re told that the Best Price Guarantee will be applicable.
I’m not sure what to make of this and as I’ve never submitted such a claim I can’t fall back on personal experience.
Moving on …
Booking their lowest rate
Marriott, Choice, IHG, and Hilton all require you to have booked the lowest publicly available rate for that room type before they’ll consider a claim, and Marriott specifically names its own Bonvoy Member rate as being that rate.
Hyatt and Accor don’t state this requirement, but before anyone gets too excited, that doesn’t mean you can game the process (if only!).
The obvious trick would be to deliberately book an expensive flexible rate, to then go and find the cheapest rate on the internet, and claim the difference. That won’t work, and the reason it won’t work is different depending on which chain you’re dealing with.
At Marriott, Choice, IHG, and Hilton it fails from the outset because you didn’t book their cheapest rate.
With Hyatt and Accor it the claim will fail when the rates are compared.
Hyatt measures the competing rate against “the comparable room rate available on the Hyatt website“, not against whatever you happened to pay. Accor compares on the total cost of the stay with the same inclusions.
So if you’ve booked a $400 flexible rate through Hyatt when Hyatt was also selling a $250 advance purchase rate for the same room, Hyatt will compare the lowest rate you claim to have found against $250 and not the $400 that you booked.
Also, the claim will fall down because the terms of the booking aren’t the same – a cheap non-refundable rate on Expedia isn’t comparable to a flexible rate booked direct, so this sort of claim won’t qualify no matter which chain you’re dealing with.
Thoughts
The most important thing I can point out here is that you should expect the chains to do everything within their power to dismiss a claim.
That doesn’t mean claims won’t be honored (I’ve had a few successes over the years), but these guarantees are more about marketing and persuading people to book direct (so the chains don’t have to pay commissions to third parties) than about providing comfort to people making reservations.
Out of all the guarantees, Hilton’s is still my favorite, for two reasons:
- You can make a claim without having to make a reservation first.
- You can call up, speak to an actual person, and have your claim processed in real time.
Hilton has taken a bit of the shine off by adding a 1% floor where there wasn’t one, but being allowed to claim before you commit to a booking is still the single most useful feature any of these guarantees offer.
Another thing to note is that the $1 threshold is disappearing. Almost all the chains used to accept a claim on a difference of a single dollar between their rate and the one you’d found. Now most of them want a percentage, and when you’re booking expensive properties that can be an issue, because a percentage of a big number is a big number.
Marriott has now moved to more than 1% below its own rate, and 2% below where a currency conversion is involved. Hilton has added a 1% floor. Hyatt applies 3% whenever the comparison crosses currencies (but it keeps the $1 otherwise).
That matters most at the top end. I quite liked the idea of finding that an official nightly rate of $750 is beaten by a third party rate of $748 and then successfully getting Marriott to give me the room for $561. That kind of trick is now dead.
So the chains where a $1 difference still keeps you in the game are Hyatt (same currency only), Wyndham, Best Western, and Radisson. Three of those are chains where the rooms tend not to be expensive enough for the difference to be worth much.
That makes Hyatt’s the most valuable of these guarantees at the top end by some distance. It has kept the $1 threshold, it doesn’t insist you booked its cheapest rate, and it’s the only one that will accept a free-membership site as a source.
Finally, there’s one thing worth repeating. All the chains will often work very hard to find a reason not to approve a claim, so sometimes a bit of persistence and determination is required if you feel that your claim meets all the chain’s requirements but you’re not getting any joy.
I’ve had to push back a few times when a chain refuses my claim and is clearly playing fast and loose with its own rules, and while pushing back doesn’t always force the chain to reconsider, it has worked on quite a few occasions.
Bottom line
Best rate guarantees are a marketing ploy and not meant to be a good thing for customers. Always remember that.
If anything, the last couple of years have made that clearer. Thresholds have gone up, exclusion lists have got longer, and arrival deadlines have been pushed further out. Nothing has moved in the customer’s favour.
As most chains require a booking before you can claim (well done to Hilton for being the odd one out), read the rules of the guarantee you’re invoking before you assume you’ll be successful, because it’s easy to be caught out on a technicality.
In fact, if you work on the assumption that you’ll be unsuccessful, that should help to keep the frustrations to a minimum.
Overall, I prefer the Hilton guarantee to all the others because I like being able to check a claim before I book, but based on the way these things work in practice, my favorite guarantee is always the last one that I managed to use to my advantage.
Links to the full terms and conditions
Read these carefully before assuming you can make a valid claim. Don’t rely on my summaries.
- Hyatt Book with confidence: terms and conditions (last updated April 2026)
- Hilton Price Match Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated 16 August 2024)
- Marriott Best Rate Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated July 2026)
- IHG Best Price Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated 1 April 2026)
- Accor Best Price Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated May 2026)
- Choice Hotels Lowest Price Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated July 2026)
- Radisson Best Online Rate Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated July 2026)
- Wyndham Best Rate Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated July 2026)
- Best Western Low Rate Guarantee: terms and conditions (last updated July 2026)
Individual guides (coming soon)
For the chains with enough detail in their terms to warrant it, we’ll be writing full guides covering every term, every exclusion, and giving information how to actually file the claim. Links to these guides will appear here.
