Every best price guarantee is written around the same idea: the exact same booking, publicly available on a different website, for less, before a deadline. Reviewers work down that sentence, and a claim fails at the first word that doesn’t hold. Go through the list below before you send anything.

1. The cheaper price is on the site you booked with

This is the most common misunderstanding. A guarantee pays when another website is cheaper — a later drop on the same site you booked with does not qualify. If your rate is refundable, rebook on that site instead; if it isn’t, the drop is not claimable there.

2. The cancellation policy is different

A non-refundable offer is usually cheaper than a free-cancellation one, so comparing across policies looks like a saving that isn’t there. Booking.com and Trip.com want the same policy. Agoda also accepts more flexible terms — a cheaper free-cancellation rate can support a claim against a non-refundable Agoda booking.

3. It isn’t a public rate

Member, loyalty, corporate, app-only, coupon and package prices are excluded. The fix is simple: search the other site in a private window, logged out, and only use a price anyone could book.

4. The difference is only tax or currency

Many sites show nightly prices before tax, and exchange rates move. Agoda explicitly excludes differences caused only by currency or tax. Compare totals with taxes and fees from the checkout step, with both sites set to the same currency.

5. Room, guests or breakfast don’t match

“Double room” and “Superior double” are different rooms. Two adults and one adult can be priced differently. Breakfast included is a different product from room only. Trip.com checks all the way down to bed type and breakfast.

6. The deadline passed

Booking.com accepts claims up to 24 hours before check-in; Agoda and Trip.com until 11:59 PM hotel local time the day before. Note the time zone is the hotel’s, not yours. Expedia and Hotels.com ended their guarantees in 2026, so new bookings there have nothing to claim.

7. The offer was gone when they checked — and you had no proof

Reviews happen later, and prices move. Without a screenshot showing the room, dates, guests, total and the time you saw it, “it was cheaper this morning” can’t be verified. Capture it the moment you see it; our step-by-step guide lists exactly what to include.

Let a tool run the checklist

Refund Report checks most of these for you as you type: it computes your site’s deadline and days left, warns when the lower price is on the same site you booked with or on a site whose guarantee has ended, flags mismatched currencies and a “lower” price that isn’t lower, and asks you to confirm the four matching conditions before it builds your claim letter and message. It runs entirely in your browser. For wording that answers the reviewer up front, see our claim message examples.

The bigger reason claims never happen

The most common failure isn’t any of the seven — it’s never noticing the lower price before the deadline. A 2023 CNBC analysis of 198,000 searches found the cheapest site varies by 10–15% for the identical room, but you only benefit if you look. Put your stay on the free tracker and we record the Agoda rate several times a day.

💡 Check before you send. Refund Report flags deadlines, same-site drops and currency mismatches as you type.