Although somewhat of a PITA, if you have a speaker on your phone, or bluetooth earpiece, it is usually worth the effort.

The Expedia Best Price Guarantee says that if you find a better price for the exact same hotel room within 24 hours of booking a room on Expedia and call in a claim, they will match the price by refunding back to your credit card the difference and deposit a $50 voucher in your Expedia account.

The maximum number of vouchers you can earn in one month is 3. You can only use one voucher per reservation and they last one full year.

My system is simple. If I’m going to a city and need a hotel room I go to hotelscombined.com or kayak.com and search the city and date I want. Hotelscombined and Kayak show you rates for many different websites on one screen. The comparison shopping is easy this way. I search the prices for hotels and look for rates that are cheaper than the rates offered by hotels.com (which has the same rates as Expedia almost always). For example if hotels.com (and therefore Expedia) has the Holiday Inn at $89 per night and I can see that Travelocity has the same hotel and the exact same room type for $84, then I have a potential Expedia Best Price Guarantee.

I then go to Expedia.com and book the hotel at $89 per night after logging in to my Expedia account. I can then call the Expedia Best Price Guarantee hotline 1-800-397-3342 and file my claim. Here is the rub. Although the representatives at Expedia have always been polite and pleasant it takes about 30 minutes to get the claim approved and processed. Hence the use of your speaker phone. You can keep on doing whatever while they process your claim.

If successful, I see the refund on my credit card within days and so far my $50 vouchers have hit my Expedia account immediately. You must pay for your room with Expedia upfront to file a claim. It can be a refundable or non refundable reservation. I always do prepaid but refundable reservations. Be sure to read the terms and conditions on the link I have provided below.

For someone on the road and someone with computer time, you can save $150 per month or $1800 per year using this system. Keep in mind that the claim must be files within 24 hours of booking the room and the room must be an exact match between the competing websites.

For more info on this opportunity go to the Best Rate Guarantee Blog and join to get their updates of potential claims they have found, and more instructions on simplifying the process.

Here is the link to the Expedia Best Price Terms and Conditions page.

Another New Card with a Free Flight after First Use

No First Year Fee. Soon to be United Miles. Free First Checked Bag