Once upon a time airlines and hotels gave out big bonuses if you found a lower price on a competing site.
I racked up lots of Continental Airlines vouchers back in the day and it was easy to rack up free hotel nights with BRG or best rate guarantee policies.
Then slowly but surely those benefits were devalued across the board and the free night opportunities went the way of the dodo.
Hyatt devalued their Best Rate Guarantee from 20% off the lower competing rate to a $50 Hyatt credit on a future stay a couple of years ago.
Apparently the devaluations went too far and now things are swinging the other way. After all, hotels want you to book direct.
Hyatt is restoring the option to get 20% off the lower competing rate. And they are also adding the option to choose 5,000 Hyatt points instead of the 20% off. Hyatt points are worth between 1.3-1.8 cents each, so you’ll have to calculate which option you should choose depending on the cost of your stay.
The Chase World of Hyatt credit card is an excellent credit card and comes with 50,000 points in addition to annual free nights and promotions. You can read more about the new World of Hyatt card here.
Other current BRG policies include 25% or 5K points with Marriott, 25% off Hilton, or 25% off Radisson Rewards. Wyndhad used to give a free night, but now they only offer 3,000 points. IHG used to give a free night, but now offers 5x points. Choice Hotels also used to offer a free night if you found a better rate on another site, now US/Canada residents get a $50 credit, though international residents can still get a free night. Starwood once tried out a free night offer in NYC and had to kill it as it proved too costly.
What was your best BRG?
Leave a Reply
7 Comments On "The Pendulum Swings Back: Hyatt Improves Their BRG!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
SO if Chase Ultimate rewards was cheaper than the hyatt points on hyatts website that counts as a BRG?
Can you give an example of how this works?
If I see that priceline for example has a $100 rate and Hyatt.com has a $150 rate, then I can book on Hyatt.com, fill out the form, and stay for $80?
Any common pitfalls to look out for?
Correct, just follow the directions here:
https://www.hyatt.com/info/best-rate-guarantee
The form states: we’ll give you 5,000 World of Hyatt Points or 20% off your next stay.
So we would have to pay full price now? The 20% of next stay could even be greater than 20% of the current stay?
The form does say that, but the Terms & Conditions state otherwise:
If Hyatt confirms the availability of the Competing Rate on the Internet, Hyatt agrees to match the Competing Rate for the same stay that you booked through a Hyatt website, plus provide you with your choice of either: (i) an additional twenty percent (20%) off the Competing Rate (“Additional Percent Off”) or (ii) 5,000 World of Hyatt Bonus Points (“Bonus Points”).
back in the good old days I took my family to Lancaster – stayed 2 nights (2 rooms each night) and due to BRG didn’t pay a dime 🙂
I submitted BRG before even with screenshots of the lower competitor prices, & Hyatt still rejected because they couldn’t find the lower rate by the time they reviewed the submittal. Left with a sour taste. Just bc the rate went away doesn’t mean it wasn’t the case!