When I book a hotel, I always try to use the hotel’s official website. Unlike those non-refundable reservations at places like hotels.com, booking through the hotel site usually means you can change or cancel the reservation as needed. Plus, many hotels have a low price guarantee to match the travel sites on price. But there’s a catch: the price match might also mean you give up the flexibility that you were seeking from the official website in the first place.

Case in point: I found the same price offered on the Sheraton website and Expedia. But Sheraton had an incredibly restrictive change policy, while Expedia’s was quite reasonable. So I called Sheraton and asked them to match Expedia’s price for the same room. The rep explained to me that they only match the price, not things like the cancellation policy. So when it comes down to it, the price match is a scam. What good is a low price guarantee if you’re not getting the same product or service?

As customers, I guess we need to be more careful about accepting any sort of price match without reading the fine print. From the vendor side, I would argue that marketers need to disclose when their best value guarantee comes along with other terms that devalue the core product or increase the costs of returns or changes. In my case, I did end up having to change the reservation right after I booked it, so I’m glad I read the fine print and went with Expedia. Otherwise, I would have paid hundreds of dollars in change fees because of a best value guarantee that was anything but.