Has Marriott quietly narrowed its BRG interpretation in 2025? Room availability requi

Hi all,



I recently heard from a few people that Marriott might be quietly enforcing a stricter interpretation of the Best Rate Guarantee (BRG) in 2025.



Here’s the issue:

If a specific room type is available on a third-party OTA, but is sold out (or simply not listed) on Marriott.com, BRG claims are now being rejected. The reasoning given is that Marriott “cannot verify availability” if their own site doesn’t have that room open for booking at the time of comparison.



To be clear, this isn’t about booking through Marriott.com (which is obviously a BRG requirement). The question is:

If the room type exists and is clearly available elsewhere, but Marriott has chosen not to offer it at that moment, does that invalidate a BRG claim?



This feels like a policy shift from past years, where the core idea was that if a third-party rate was clearly lower for a comparable room, the claim would be honored—even if Marriott.com wasn’t showing that exact inventory.


Has anyone else encountered this logic recently?

Did you receive the same kind of explanation?

Would love to hear your BRG experiences from 2025 and see if this is an emerging pattern.



Thanks!