The reason why advance purchase rates work is that the guest is trading risk (of having a wasted stay) for price certainty and a discount on the spot price, and the property is willing to trade off the potential of more money closer to the stay for the certainty of guaranteed cash flow earlier on.

But the OP's situation only reflects half the story. For every time rates go down after booking, there is a time when they go up. For this to be a fair equation, the property would have to charge you more if the rate went UP after you prepaid for a stay. And I don't think we want that.

This is no different than any other market transaction. If you bought bonds a couple years ago, you can go back and say, oh, I wish I had bought NVIDIA. Well, sure, but you also could have bought WeWork...you don't get to cherry-pick only the winners.