You don't get a $300 rebate on Edit stays, it's $250 unless you were referring to the $300 travel credit that would apply as well if you haven't used that yet?

The Edit stay is $145 more than the refundable or non refundable on Marriott?

Either way I've come across plenty of Edit properties that are refundable straight up so that wouldn't keep me back from booking, knowing that I can cancel up until the designated time.

My issue with the Edit is that the exact same hotel booked on Chase Travel under the CSR card as an Edit hotel is more expensive than booking that hotel under any other Chase card where you don't get The Edit benefits. For example, I saw one place that was $100 bucks more which completely negates the $100 property credit. If I haven't used my $250 Edit credit yet then I'd perhaps go with paying $100 more to get breakfast, $100 credit, and potential upgrade and late checkout. But if the $250 is used already I'm not paying $100 more just to get breakfast especially if it's a chain hotel where I have status and I know they'll honor it.

You are correct, it is a $250 benefit every six months.

Nonrefundable.

Ts and Cs for Chase Edit properties say Qualifying purchases are when you use the card for pre-paid “Pay Now” stays of 2 nights or more. Are you saying that a Pay Now rate can be refunded if travel plans change? I've read and reread the Ts and Cs. I don't think they are clear on this point though am happy to be shown where they speak to it.

I haven't delved into the Edit program yet, but that is the way the FHR / The Hotel Collection works in Amex world.
You prepay the stay, but you can cancel and get the money refunded (and the credit returned to your account to use again).

When I get some time, I really need to dig into all the changes to the CSR.

So you should check if the rate for The Edit was also non refundable or it was refundable in which case its similar to the Marriott refundable rate.

Prepaid does not = non refundable. I made a booking for 9/15 and my cancelation terms state:

"Free cancellation until Mon, Sep 08, 2025 12:00 am"

So I can cancel up to a week prior to the stay and get a full refund to my card. There are lots of hotels with this or similar cancelation policies.

Correct, this works the same way.

I have only seen Edit hotels with refundable rates. Non refundable rates are certainly possible but the majority are non. Prepaid but refundable, similar to FHR

It's also the same with Citi Thankyou.com portal / 4th night free bookings... always prepaid but the rate tells you whether it's refundable or non-refundable. I've only ever booked refundable prepaid rates, and when I cancel l get everything back.

So doing research about a potential future trip to Europe in a month or two. I have a hoard of UR points that I want to use before they change the redemption rate. Looked a few hotels, all with the same disturbing trend:

InterContinental Lyon:
Shows a classic room on the IHG website for ~300EUR. UR portal does not show a classic room, only has a Premium room. Premium room is 374EUR on the Intercontinental website, refundable with tax/fees. Premium room on UR website is $596. This was an Edit hotel.

Badrutt's Palace St. Moritz:
Shows a king village room on the website for 806CHF on the hotel website. Includes breakfast, refundable. The UR website does not even show this, or multiple other similarly priced rooms. They only have the $2500 suites available for booking.

I have seen both of these things before, though never to the same extend and not as common. It looks like Chase is playing the game of both (significantly) marking up travel bookings for hotels, and then also steering redemption awards to high-value rooms. That is, Chase steers their redemptions to high margin "upgraded" rooms that have high availability, likely splits the difference, and then marks the room up of the direct rate to boot. I previously saw this when booking hotels in London a year or two back, but it was not nearly as egregious.

I was previously planning on dealing with the new "upgrades" in stride, but if this is how they are going to manage their "points boost" then I am taking a hard pass. Anyone else have similar experiences?

Thanks for giving us those data points. That's very concerning.

Yes I've seen the same with several hotels both Edit and non-Edit and have also seen where the exact same room type is way more expensive than booking direct.

I did recently call them because the difference for a 4 night stay for the identical room type and refundability rate type was ~$1500+ than booking direct which I thought was bizarre. This was not an Edit hotel and I stayed there last year for 6 nights where Chase was about $100 more than direct but I wanted to use my points vs paying money out of pocket so I swallowed that difference. However, $1500 is just not something I was going to swallow. The rep saw exactly what I did and agreed with me that it did not make any sense and should not be that way. She said she would open an internal ticket and I should call back in several days to see if there was any update which I haven't gotten a chance to do yet.

But this has become more and more prevalent and I'm seeing it with many hotels outside of the USA - even accounting for exchange rate variability, the upcharge with Chase just doesn't make one ounce of sense and it makes it very frustrating to not be able to use my points effectively.

Appears that the issue might be international only? I booked in a US location and all of the ones I saw were within $12 (+/-3%) of direct booking rates. With the Edit credits and added benefits, it was a good deal for both of the stays I needed

Yes, I've only mostly seen this with properties outside the USA.

Are they charging more because of currency conversion?

Just booked an Edit hotel in Athens Greece. At first taken aback that Chase seemed more expensive than hotel's own website for the same dates/room. Then realized hotel quoted in Euros and Chase in dollars. After converting Euros to dollars, rates were the same. Hotel had points boost at $.02. Booked using Point Boost.

I've spent a lot of time looking at Edit the last 2 days to see if I should give CSR a chance after my renewal date comes through. I thought I'd try to book something after Oct 26 before renewal date.

The reality is even if prices are similar on chase and booking direct, there simply aren't enough Edit choices in the cities I travel to regularly. And the ones that I do, I find a Hyatt etc that I already enjoy so there's no need to switch and not get upgrades to suites b

I couldn't find any in KL, Jeddah, Riyadh, Suzhou for the dates I'm interested in. They had some in BJ but I'd stay far cheaper at Hyatts I know (only 4 seasons seemed reasonable in price. The peninsula in bj is overpriced for what you get.

Bangkok has great choices with Siam and Capella, but I already have cheaper favorites there like HR or SGS.

I just don't see how I'd use Edit often enough since there are so few cities that offer a good choice. It seems to be great if you are always staying at ultra luxury and arent loyal to a chain.

If I was a free agent, I'd love this

I agree. I've spent a fair bit of time searching for EDIT properties that make sense and am simply not finding them. Here's one example. We were to have a 2 night trip to Austin. There are 7 EDIT properties in Austin, one of them Thompson at $335/night, all rolled in with tax and resort fee to $857 for 2 nights. I've stayed at the Hyatt before and got a rate of $179 + tax so roughly $400 for 2 nights which I used a suite upgrade to get a large comfortable suite. I've probably checked 10 different locations now and haven't found a single one with an EDIT property that makes sense. Many don't even have an EDIT property. Take for example, Vancouver Island that has a number of high end properties. Not a single one participates in EDIT. Mendocino - nothing. Reno - nothing. Kotor, Montenegro - nothing. Various cities in Slovenia - nothing. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - nothing.