hotels

The Frugal Travel Guy Welcomes Hotel Group’s New Best Price Guarantee

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Rick Ingersoll suggests how to make the most of the new offer. 

Rick Ingersoll, The Frugal Travel Guy

September 21, 2011 (Hilton Head Island, SC) – Rick Ingersoll, the author of the popular blog “The Frugal Travel Guy,” applauds the new Best Price Guarantee recently announced by InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).

“It’s so refreshing to see a major chain of hotels like IHG step up to the plate with a meaningful best-price guarantee,” he said.

IHG’s portfolio of hotels includes InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

IHG has promised to make sure the best hotel room prices for any IHG property can be found directly on its websites. “If you find a lower price on a competing Web site for the same hotel, type of accommodations and rate restrictions on the same date(s),” the IHG site says, “we’ll not only match that lower price, we’ll give you your first night free. It’s that simple.”

According to Ingersoll, this is very similar to the same guarantee offered years ago by Trip Rewards: If you found a cheaper price for the same exact hotel room with the same rate restrictions on another website, filed your claim within 24 hours, and the claim was approved, your hotel room was free.

“The key to success is to find the cheaper rate before you actually book your room on an approved IHG group website,” he cautioned. “Remember, everything must be exactly the same as far as the room type and room rate restrictions. And if you are going to be in a given town more than one night, look for more than one hotel best price guarantee and hotel hop for more free nights.”

To start the process of getting this best-price guarantee, Ingersoll suggests beginning by looking for a hotel room through Kayak.com or HotelsCombined.com, two hotel aggregator sites that show the room rates from many third-party sites.

“You’re looking for cheaper rates than the rates quoted by the IHG group website,” he stressed.

He also pointed out that refundable rates must be matched against refundable rates, and non-refundable rates must be matched against non-refundable rates.

“The game is actually fun and the results should be automatic since you can call in your claim once you have found a winner,” he said. “You can also fill out an online claim form, but I want to know right now if they are going to honor my claim. I tend to make refundable reservations for hotel rooms just in case my guarantee is not approved.”

Rick Ingersoll is always on the look out for ways to reduce travel expenses dramatically through credit card sign-up bonuses (that offer frequent flier miles), hotel rewards programs, and a variety of other ways. He reports his findings on “The Frugal Travel Guy” blog so that all his 6000-plus daily readers will be able to use them as well. For more information on Ingersoll and to follow his blog, go to www.frugaltravelguy.com.

For more information on IHG’s new rates offer, go to www.ichotelsgroup.com and click on “Best Price Guarantee.”

About Rick Ingersoll, “The Frugal Travel Guy”

Rick Ingersoll is the world’s expert on flying free and author of The Frugal Travel Guy Handbook. A retired mortgage banker, he splits his time between Traverse City, Michigan and Hilton Head, SC. Rick’s expertise includes frequent flyer programs, getting the “bump,” customer service requests, and using good credit ratings to take advantage of bank promotions. He has collected over five million frequent flyer miles and has a current “bankroll” of over 1.5 million miles and points. He shares his expertise in his book, The Frugal Travel Guy Handbook, on his daily-updated blog at www.frugaltravelguy.com, and through speaking engagements and seminars he presents around the U.S. “The Frugal Travel Guy” blog has been a Best Travel Blog Award winner, presented by Tripbase.com, for the past three years.

The Frugal Travel Guy Speaks Out Against Hotel Internet Charges

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If Starbucks and McDonalds can provide free wi-fi, why can’t hotels?

July 23, 2011 (Traverse City, MI) – Rick Ingersoll, a world traveler and the author of the popular blog “The Frugal Travel Guy,” continues to speak out against one of his

Rick Ingersoll

pet peeves: Internet connection fees that most hotels charge.

Ingersoll first made this point during an interview with CNN in London in 2009 while the Sheraton Skyline Hotel’s manager listened in: “The Sheraton Skyline is lovely, clean, convenient and well managed,” he told CNN, “but they charge 15 pounds for a cable Internet connection in your room. At the dollar to pound conversion at the time, that almost doubled the cost of my cash-and-points stay there.” (Cash and points means using rewards points to pay very little cash for a hotel stay.)

He also made it known on the air, while the assistant manager listened, that he’d checked for available wireless connections from his room, found one that worked, and connected for free. After the interview, he was asked the name of the unsecured Internet provider and he provided it.

“I recommend to all of my blog readers that they do the same,” he said recently. “Check for available wireless connections before you agree to the outrageous charges hotels are collecting.”

How outrageous are these charges?

In the Huffington Post, Dave Taylor of the “Ask Dave Taylor” column, stayed at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas and wrote: “As has become all too common with Internet access in hotels, the Wynn charges not by room for Internet access, but by computer, so that they can maximize their revenue: share a room and each of you pays for Internet access. At $13.99/day, that adds up fast.” Taylor also noted that he had a laptop, iPad and iPhone. “According to hotel policies, that’d be 3×13.99 or $41.97/day for Internet access,” he wrote.

At the Marriot World Resort near Disney World, Consumer Traveler’s Janice Hough reported “$14.95 a day, plus tax. Per computer.”

And earlier this year, a TripAdviser review on the Rydges Wellington in Wellington, New Zealand, reported $30 per night for Internet connection, and even more for a high-speed connection. “Having paid $240 for the room, it’s pretty short sighted to nickel and dime us like this and expect repeat patronage,” the reviewer notes.

“Most four and five star hotels charge daily rates from $10 up for one connection, more for multiple devices,” said Ingersoll, who admits that after amassing all the frequent flier miles and rewards points he can to travel around the world nearly for free, hotels’ Internet usage charges gall him. “Of course, it’s not a problem for business travelers with expense accounts, but for a family on vacation with more than one computer or other mobile device, $10 a day per device adds up to a major expense.”

Ingersoll heartily agrees with Consumer Traveler’s Janice Hough, who said, “It’s time for hotels to go the path of Starbucks, McDonalds and most airports these days and give guests free wi-fi access.”

“To all of the hotel executives out there,” he added, “thanks for removing the fees for some of your frequent business travelers. Now how about doing the same for the rest of us average working folks?”

For more information on Rick Ingersoll and The Frugal Travel Guy, visit www.frugaltravelguy.com.

 

About The Frugal Travel Guy:

Rick Ingersoll is the author of The Frugal Travel Guy blog, which is read around the world and averages 5000 views per day, and The Frugal Travel Guy Handbook. He is constantly on the lookout for the best credit card and debit card sign-up bonuses and other promotions. He posts frugal travel tips deals every day on his blog with the goal of reducing his readers’ travel costs for the rest of their lives. He is also available for seminars and speaking engagements. A retired mortgage banker, Ingersoll and his wife live in Hilton Head Island, SC, and Traverse City, MI, when they’re not traveling the globe. For more information visit www.frugaltravelguy.com.