Hi SkyP,
Higher quality and more durable materials such as latex that will last for a decade or longer are certainly more costly than cheaper materials that will only maintain their comfort and support for a few years (and in some of the worst cases only a few months). They would certainly be better “value” than the major brands even if the costs are higher. Most of the major brands aren’t really worth the price you pay if durability and the useful life of a mattress is an important consideration.
There are also many other mattresses that use higher quality and more durable versions of the same type of materials as you would find in the major brands (such as polyfoam and innersprings) that would be more of an “apples to apples” comparison (except they use higher quality and more durable materials) that are in the similar or lower budget ranges than their major brand competitors.
There is more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here that also includes a link to the foam quality/density guidelines here that can help you make more meaningful quality/value comparisons between mattresses and help you avoid mattresses that use low quality materials that would be a significant weak link in the mattress in terms of durability.
Most of the better retailers don’t have “fake sales” or “negotiated prices” because they sell their mattresses at their best price every day of the year. You can read more about fake sales in post #5 here and about negotiated prices post #6 here and for the most part I would treat both of these as warning signs that you will likely be overpaying for a mattress.
The Beautyrest Recharge mattresses in particular use some exceptionally low quality foams such as 1.2 lb polyfoam, 2 lb memory foam, and even .7 lb polyfoam in the quilting layers which is the type and quality of foam that you will generally find in cheap “throwaway” mattresses or mattresses that would only be suitable for occasional use that should be in a much lower budget range than they are. These are among the lowest quality materials you will find in the industry and they aren’t mattresses that I would consider even at half the price.
You can see an example of a 14" Beautyrest World Class plush mattress that shows the quality/density of the materials here (click overview).
Phoenix