Originally Posted by
ghfatw
How long does it actually take on average to put in a claim, deal with the BRG team and deal with any mistakes/issues that might get made? I am skeptical of the value of doing BRG -- suppose I just booked the US$174.68 or something like it at another property, I might not get the elite benefits (I am liftetime platinum) but correcting for the time on the phone, the rejection rate (I don't think I ever had a BRG request approved and the cases I remember were quite unfair), the time to get a claim approved, etc., I just don't think it's worth it. I also find the practice of helping Starwood drive competitors who offer good prices out of business quite distasteful. And I don't like Starwood's attitude when I do call them and tell them there is a better rate elsewhere like I did recently in Taiwan (I ended up staying somewhere else).
my experience with brg claims has been pretty good....i've had hundreds of successful claims over the last 3-4 years....90% of my paid stays are brg stays....
recently i've had a few bad experiences with the team in india but a 5-10 minute call to the brg desk has usually taken care of the issue....wait times have also been a bit on the longer side as of late but i still get the majority of my brgs approved....
for an upcoming family vacation i have booked 4 rooms at a property for 5 nights (3 rooms from my account & 1 from my father's account)....the claims were initially denied by the team in india so i had to call to get it approved....the agent could not see the lower rate even though i could....spent about half an hour on the phone but she still couldn't find the lower rate so eventually had to deny the claims....i resubmitted the claims & they were denied a second time by the team in india again....resubmitted them again & got lucky the 3rd time....
the net result was that i probably spent 15-20 minutes in total submitting the claims 3 times & half an hour on the phone with the brg agent....with the 20% off i have saved about $85 per room per night so a total savings of $1,700....add to that the fact that i get my elite benefits like free breakfast, lounge access, free internet, etc & the savings are more....
at the end of the day i guess only you can decide if the whole process is worth it or not for you but i am very happy with the program....