Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee can save you money

hyatt best rate guaranteeLearn how to use the Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee to save yourself money on your next hotel booking.

One of my favorite websites is flyertalk.com, particularly their forum section.  It has great reviews, tips on finding deals and guides on how to navigate frequent flyer programs.  One of the threads talks about Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee.  Basically the idea is that if you book on hyatt.com and find a cheaper rate on another website, they will match the price AND reduce it by 20%.  It is a great idea to get customers to book direct instead of through other travel websites.  The other benefit of booking direct through Hyatt is that you earn Hyatt Gold Passport points, not so if you book through another source.  I have a number of Hyatt reservations coming up over the next few months, so I decided to see if I could find cheaper rates from other websites.

I was able to find lower rates for two of my reservations; both on getaroom.com.

Vancouver

The first reservation is for May 14-16 at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver.  I am going to the two opening nights of the U2 tour and wanted to check out Vancouver’s only Hyatt property.  I booked a refundable rate of CA$303.10 a night for two nights in their “Preferred View” room that comes with two double beds, the cheapest room available for my dates.

Screen Shot 2015-02-25 at 4.26.32 PM

The room I found at getaroom.com was CA$227.71 and was listed as a “Double Guest Room”.  So I took a screen shot and filled out the online form to submit my claim for the Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee.

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The next day I received an email saying that the representative couldn’t open the screen shot, so I emailed a PDF of it.  She wrote back again, saying:  “The screenshot that you have submitted for the Hyatt Regency Vancouver is offering you a standard guest room with two double beds. This is not a room available on hyatt.com. The claim for the Hyatt Vancouver is denied.

Fair enough.  But it does still seem odd that they would offer certain rooms only through other websites and not through their own.

Orlando

The second rate that I wanted to submit a claim for was a reservation I had not yet made.  A friend and I received a free three night cruise on Royal Caribbean out of Port Canaveral.  We decided we would do two days at Disney World before the cruise.  I’ve been looking at hotels and, after my Expedia reservation was canceled, decided that the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress looked like a good Hyatt property near the park.  For the dates we wanted (June 23-26), the Advance Purchase (non refundable rate) was $198 per night for a Buena Vista Double.

Screen Shot 2015-02-25 at 4.41.37 PMAgain, the cheapest rate I found happened to be on getaroom.com.  They had the room for $186 per night.  So once again I submitted a claim form.  The first email, again, said that the representative was unable to open the screenshot.  After submitting the Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee in a PDF version, I was told that I could reserve (non refundable) the room for $148 per night if I called in!  Success.

So over all, with an investment of a few minutes searching for a lower rate and then submitting a claim, I ended up being able to save about $50 a night one one of my reservations.

If you are booking directly through Hyatt (and you should if you want Hyatt points), this is a good trick to remember to save a few dollars.  Let me know what you think of the Hyatt Best Rate Guarantee.

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