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

Online, September 21, 2011 (Newswire.com) - 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.