When Hyatt Gold Passport become World of Hyatt, there was major skewer. I was one of the frequent travelers at Hyatt who stopped visiting Hyatt altogether. What gives?
- Lack of great offers
- Lack of any benefits that for mid-level tier? Hence journey to the Globalist doesn’t inspire me to become a Globalist
- Very small footprint across the Globe
Tie up with Small Luxury Hotels
The new program addition, expected to launch later this year, will require that members book SLH stays through Hyatt. While details are understandably still quite light, presumably paid rates and packages will match those available directly through the hotels. The ability to redeem points for these properties will be a boon to Hyatt’s more than 10 million loyalty members — and, assuming reimbursement rates are generous, the hotels as well.
Cash and Points Stays going flush
Hyatt is will be significantly diluting the cash + points feature coming November. Previously, if you wanted to go for a cash + points redemption, you redeemed a fixed number of points along with a fixed amount of cash depending upon the hotel’s category. In the new construct, the cash component becomes variable. The new cash component would be 50% of the standard room rate. A similar formula applies for suite and premium suite bookings as well.
You can read more about the changes here.
Basically, earlier there was a benefit to using cash+Points as you could get extremely sweet deals out of it. You could score hotels at price and make your stay count.
A property like Hyatt Regency Amsterdam could cost deep around €200-€300 range during summers. A property that would make sense to do either Redemption or Cash+Points as a hotel is just 15000 points. (€190).
If you used Cash and Points- you would spend 5000 points + €50.
Now with variable – you end up paying the almost same amount if not more than listed room rate.
will be able to redeem your World of Hyatt points for premium-suite redemptions going forward. The redemption will cost you twice the points which are required for a standard room redemption. Another thing to note is that Hyatt will no longer require you to stay for a minimum of 3-days for suite redemptions. You can upgrade to premium suites if you have booked paid nights as well. 9,000 Hyatt points will get you upgraded to a premium suite on a paid night.
Hyatt might bring category 8
Because of the merger with SLH properties – there are chances that Hyatt might launch category 8. What does that mean?
It means that Hyatt might devalue their award chart and you will have to use MORE POINTs to redeem same properties. It is not happening right now but is very much a possibility in play for early 2019.
Hyatt hasn’t devalued its chart in the last 5 years. However, I am not sure how that would play out. I am pretty sure properties like Maldives, Bora Bora will likely move up in the category eventually if the new value is brought in.
