Book with confidence. Your reservation includes the best price guarantee we've seen in the travel industry.

When you book with TripZero, we process your hotel reservation through the Expedia Affiliate Network (EAN). Because EAN is part of Expedia, the nation's largest online travel company, TripZero can offer you access to over 144,000 hotels and a terrific Low Price Guarantee.

Here it is, direct from our friends at the Expedia Affiliate Network:

The Low Price Guarantee from the Expedia Affiliate Network protects your pocket book and takes the worry out of booking a hotel room. After you book with us, if you find a lower publicly available rate online for the same dates, hotel, and room category, we will match the price.

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Low Price Guarantee

Q. I have found a lower price for the hotel I booked with you on another site. What do I need to know before claiming under the Low Price Guarantee? A. The lower price you found must be available on another website directed to consumers in the same country as this site is directed, be in the same currency and must be for the same hotel, travel dates and room type. Q. What are the requirements for claiming the Low Price Guarantee? A. 1) You must have already booked a prepaid reservation identified as a guaranteed rate. 2) The request form must be submitted prior to the property’s cancellation deadline. 3) The lower rate must be available for booking with identical specifications of the original request (ex: same hotel, same date and same room type). Q. Are there any exclusions to claiming under the guarantee? A. The only bookings which are excluded are hotels which are part of a specific promotion (e.g. 3 nights for the price of 2) and it does not apply to special events such as New Year’s, the Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, JazzFest, etc. Q. How will I get my refund? A. Once we have confirmed that you are due a refund under the guarantee we will issue the refund to the card you paid with at the time of booking. We will process your refund immediately but it may take your bank up to 30 days to process it and for it to show on your statement.

How do we calculate your trip's carbon footprint?

Transportation + Hotel Stay = Travel Footprint

When we calculate the carbon footprint for your trip, we include both the impact of your transportation (flight, train, car or bus) and your hotel stay. TripZero is powered by the award-winning Brighter Planet CM1 computational sustainability platform. We believe it's the most sophisticated and accurate carbon calculation tool in the world.

The CM1 platform relies on internationally recognized open-source data and transparent calculation methodologies that anyone may review online. The results that the system produces support compliance with rigorous international standards including the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, ISO 14064-1, and The Climate Registry. As a result, Brighter Planet has received awards from the Financial Times and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

If you're sustainability professional, scientist or energy enthusiast we urge you to review the various Impact Models that make up the CM1 platform and review the Narrative Methodology Statement for each model. You'll find step-by-step descriptions of each calculation and direct links to the underlying data sources.

If you're an everyday traveler (like most of us) you might find the process fascinating, although you'll need a little time to develop a deep understanding.

The basics of calculating your travel footprint.

Your trip's carbon footprint has two parts: transportation and hotel. We calculate these items separately and then combine them to express your total footprint.

Part 1: Transportation footprint.

The formula for calculating your transportation footprint combines the effect of:

Your mode of transportation.
Are you flying, driving, taking the train or riding a bus? The fuel efficiency of these activities varies widely, especially once we factor in the distance you'll travel and the number of travelers in your party.

Your trip's origin and destination.
Where does your trip begin and end? This information enables us to calculate the total miles you'll travel. It also enables us to take secondary factors into consideration. For example, if you're flying we're able to use airport information to factor in the carbon effect of delays.

The number and type of passengers traveling.
How many people in your party? Any children? As a general rule, more travelers mean more carbon footprint. However, there are some notable exceptions. For example, on flights, we assume that children under two don't occupy their own seats or contribute to your carbon footprint in a meaningful way.

Part 2: Hotel footprint.

The formula for calculating your hotel footprint combines the effect of:

Your hotel's location.
Our calculation incorporates the impact of the local climate and the energy required to heat or cool your hotel. We also use location to determine the fuel used to create and supply electricity to your hotel.

Your rooms and length of stay.
We multiply the footprint of a single room day by the number of rooms your party will occupy and then again by the number of days you'll stay.

Want more? Some advanced details on flight calculations.

One can apply a remarkable number of variables in an effort to come up with a "perfect" carbon footprint calculation. For example, take flights. Here are just some of the variables deployed in the TripZero flight footprint calculation and a brief explanation of why they matter:

Trips. We assume round-trip travel for every trip. For some travelers, this means we're calculating (and offsetting) more carbon footprint than necessary.

Distance. Our calculation uses the nautical miles between destinations and adds in an appropriate factor to account for route inefficiencies. We do this because planes don't typically fly directly between point A and point B; they need to spread out to avoid other flights and avoid restricted airspace (like military installations).

Segments. Planes use a lot of fuel during taxi, takeoff, climbing and landing.  Even one stopover dramatically increases your carbon footprint. For short and medium flights, we assume direct travel. For long and international flights our calculation adds an appropriate factor (based on industry averages) to account for connecting flights.

Radiative Forcing. With advance apology to our friends at MIT, we'll oversimplify this important factor. Scientists agree that when you "deliver" pollution to higher altitudes (as airplanes do) you magnify its impact on climate change. Relying on a study from the Stockholm Institute of this topic, our calculation applies a factor of 2.0 — effectively doubling the standard carbon footprint calculation for a flight.

Seating Density. Full flights, on the same plane and route, have a lower footprint per passenger than flights that are only half full. Our calculation uses industry averages to compute the effect of load factor on your flight. Relying on averages means that may understate the impact of one trip and and overstate the impact of another. However across all of our customers, we're confident that TripZero offsets the right amount of carbon footprint.

These are just a few of the variables we use to compute the carbon footprint for flights. As you might expect, we uses similarly complex models to calculate the footprint for each form of transportation and hotels.

If you have further interest, you'll enjoy reviewing the Impact Models that make up the CM1 platform. An of course, feel free to drop us a line. We'd be delighted to continue the conversation.

How do does our calculation compare to others?

We've compared the results of TripZero's travel footprint calculations to those produced by a variety of well-regarded carbon calculators or published methodologies including:

• The US Environmental Protection Agency's guidelines
• The TerraPass travel carbon calculator
• The Carbon Neutral Company flight calculator
• The British Petroleum carbon neutral calculator

When we conduct comparisons across bundles of trips (short medium and long), our calculation methodology typically yields total results that are somewhat higher than these models. On average, this results in our offsetting slightly more carbon footprint than customers' trips might require.