Originally Posted by
dhuey
I am seeing consistent parity with Amex FHR for stays at my favorite hotel, the Hay-Adams in D.C. Sometimes I can do better than Amex/Edit, and sometimes that's the best deal. There have been enough times with the latter than I'm getting pretty much full value for the Amex $300 credit and $250 for Edit.
Perhaps what
happy10345 sees as inflated Edit prices is just normal dynamic pricing. Those of us who have used Amex FHR for years know that many times the FHR rate isn't the best deal. But quite often it is, especially when you factor in all the benefits.
I would expect people are comparing the rates in real time so there shouldn't be any significant variance, if that's what you mean by dynamic pricing.
FHR is also just the rack rate, so makes sense that in general it would match EDIT. That matches what I have seen as well.
Hotels may have better pricing by booking prepaid rates, promotional rates, or for stays of several nights they may have long term stay rates. That has been the case for all the supposed examples I've seen in this thread. Those generally won't be reflected in the luxury programs, although certain Nth night free or fixed discount for length of stay promotions may also exist in the luxury program rates and sometimes those are actually better than any publicly available rate. I do wonder if Chase will eventually have similar Nth night free promotions as it definitely is a competitive disadvantage of their program compared to FHR and the chain-specific programs.
It may also be that for a sufficient ADR or length of stay, the difference between the member rate and rack rate is not worth the benefits of the luxury programs, especially if they overlap with any kind of hotel status benefits.
I also have a very strong corporate rate which often makes any of the luxury program rates not worth considering. But even then, so far, I've found enough value with the EDIT credits to say they are worthwhile.