The Definitive Guide to 10 Best Rate Hotel Guarantees Series: Part 3 - Hyatt [with Video]

We try to get sales on hotels or airlines, since it saves us money.  And we've often gotten some great prices, if we've been able to plan in advance.  Other times, we've gotten some great last-minute prices by using a few tricks that I've posted about earlier.

Sometimes we have to transit through a city or airport, and need just one night in a hotel.  When that happens I like to start by looking for Best Rate Guarantees, and if you locate one you can stay for free.  And there are some nice places we've stayed at, and others we have coming up.  You can also use them to lower the overall cost of a longer stay, of more than just 1 night.  

Bindi and I in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh)

 But how hard is it to find one?  What are the rules?  How can it be free? 

Park Hyatt Saigon - Save $500, By Finding a BRG

Most of the major hotel chains, and online travel agencies, have Best Rate Guarantees (BRG's).  Basically, they offer to match, beat, or even give you a free night if you happen to find a better rate with a competitor.  Now admittedly, looking for another competing price takes more time and effort.  However, the payback can be significant if you're prepared to do just a few minutes of work.

Other bloggers have posted some excellent write-ups on BRG's, some extremely thorough, but in this series we're going to explore some popular brands and their rules primarily for Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, since that is where most of us travel around here.  There are many hotels with BRG's, but so as not to dilute, we'll only focus here on 10 Best Rate Guarantees, those which are best for our region.

A few large chains with thousands of locations, actually offer the 1st night of stay for free, if you find a competing and eligible rate which is lower.  So if you are only staying 1 night, you get that night free.  They can give away free nights because they'd rather give you 1 free night, for helping them locate where they need to adjust their prices to compete.  Most consumers won't bother to claim for a free night, they'll just see the lowest rate and book whatever is cheapest. 

In this series I'm also introducing a new feature, that I hope will be helpful for you.  I'm including a short youtube video clip, where I quickly walk you through how to find, book, and submit a claim for a free or discounted BRG stay.  This will show you just how easy it is.

You can go straight to the Hyatt how-to video now, if you're like me and don't want to read the instructions!  Or keep reading if you want written details.  

Best Rate Guarantee Series

• Part 1 - Choice (match, and 1st night free)
• Part 2 - Intercontinental Hotels Group (match, and 1st night free)
• Part 3 - Hyatt (match, and 20% off total stay)
• Part 4 - Marriott
• Part 5 - Starwood
• Part 6 - Best Western 
• Part 7 - Club Carlson 
• Part 8 - Rydges
• Part 9 - Mövenpick
• Part 10 - Expedia

Hyatt Hotels have some very high end properties, across the world.  The Hyatt Vendome in Paris can cost as much as USD $1,000 a night!  I would never pay that much for a room but it highlights the kind of luxury that these rooms offer and the prices they can command.

Park Hyatt Paris ~$1,000 a Night

GETTING DISCOUNTED NIGHTS

How hard is it to find a discounted night with the Hyatt Hotels chain?  

Choice has over 490 properties, so only very large cities, outside the US, have Hyatt hotels.  

In Australia there are just 4, in the following cities: Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.  Quite a number of Southeast Asian cities have at least 1 Hyatt as well.

GENERAL RULES

1. Must book a reservation on Hyatt website. (I book refundable so I can cancel if they deny my claim)
2. Must have found a lower rate on a competitor website.
3. Submit the claim within 24 hours of booking. 
4. Amenities must generally match. (same room type, same description, or close)
5. Call their US number 1-866-886-5054 (use skype so it's free) from 10pm - 5pm Brisbane time (which corresponds to their working hours in the US) to speak to a rep.
6. The Hyatt rep will search the competitor site you've found, to verify your rate.  If they find you've found a cheaper rate elsewhere they will apply a 20% discount to your entire stay.

HOW TO DO IT

I prefer to use Kayak or HotelsCombined, each are similar with pros and cons, but work the same to search lots of sites for prices to compare and find a BRG.   

At the Kayak homepage, enter your info such as: how many persons, date, city, etc.  We will search for a hotel in Saigon a few weeks from now.

The results in our dummy booking will give you hundreds of hotels in Saigon to select from.  Scroll down and at the lower left you will see the 'Hotel Name' search box.  You can also select an entire hotel chain from this box, and in our search we enter 'Hyatt' to get only those hotels which we know offer a free nights for 20% off.


In the process of writing this post Hyatt's rate went blank!  So follow the same instructions as some of the information below which I posted recently about for Choice hotels.  

The video in this post however does show my results in finding a Hyatt cheaper rate, since the rate was available earlier today when I recorded it!

In This Example, We Input 'Choice' into the Hotel Name Box to Search the Chain

The search will come back with only hotels from the Choice chain.  

Search for a price discrepancy.  When you find one, you might have a winner!  In this case I found Kayak to be lower in price than the Choice Clarion Suites Getaway hotel.  Click on the link of the lower price competitor, and the Choice hotel, to see if both pages load with valid prices.  Occasionally prices are out-of-date, but by clicking through you'll quickly know if there are any updates or errors. 

VERIFY THE PRICES AND AMENITIES

Take a good look at the prices.  Are they more then a $1?  1%?  Do the currencies match?  Are the amenities the same?  Oftentimes the exact wording doesn't match on say, Kayak, and Choice.  So quickly read through and ensure they look similar in description.  Check to see if the pictures on both sites are the same, thus the same room type.  This will be what the Choice agent searches for when deciding to give you a free night.  Is the price refundable, in case your claim is rejected, and you need to cancel and find another free night elsewhere? 

If you are satisfied then make the reservation and immediately submit a claim for a BRG.  I do it so that the agent at Choice who handles your claim can get onto it as soon as possible to give me an answer.  

If I'm rejected I cancel as soon as I find out.  I've noted that I usually get a decision within 1 or 2 days, but I've also received them within an hour at times.

If you didn't click on the short video link above, here it is again, so you can quickly see how easy it is.

MULTIPLE NIGHTS

In this post, by looking and finding a cheaper rate you would have saved $500 on your total 7 night stay!  By perhaps more than anything, it shows that you must book a rate quickly when you see it, and if you know you want to stay at a certain location, because they rate can be gone before you even grab it!  Like me when writing this post.

CONCLUSION

Take a few minutes next time you're traveling to save serious money on your trip, by learning how to use BRG's.  You'll definitely Travel Better..and Travel for Less!