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Following the recent rumors about changes to Points + Cash and Premium Suite redemptions, Hyatt has confirmed that those rumors were true and officially announced the upcoming changes on November 1, 2018.
Points + Cash
First of all, a quick recap of the negative changes regarding Points + Cash bookings. At the moment, Points + Cash stays require that you pay 50% of the standard points amount along with a fixed cash amount.
From November 1, it’s the cash element that’ll be changing. Rather than being a fixed amount, it’ll be based on 50% of the standard rate. Seeing as the standard rate will nearly always be higher than other rates like Advance Purchase, AAA, etc., that makes this negative change even more expensive.
Here’s the table World of Hyatt has provided detailing the new terms:
You’ll now also be able to book standard suites using Points + Cash on the following basis:
Premium Suites
On the positive side, November 1 will also see the introduction of Premium Suites being bookable using points.
This has the potential to offer phenomenal value, so long as Hyatt properties make premium suites available. For example, if you wanted to watch the Packers at home against the Dolphins in November, you could book a One Bedroom Executive King Suite at the Hyatt Regency Green Bay. This is a premium suite with a cash price of $570 per night that weekend.
The final cost would be $657.83 per night for a two night stay once taxes and fees are taken into account.
The Hyatt Regency Green Bay is a category 1 property, so a premium suite will only cost 10,000 points per night. Based on the cash price, that’s a redemption value of 6.58cpp.
Premium suites will also be bookable using Points + Cash. That’s not likely to offer great value though given that you’d be paying 50% of what will presumably be a high cash price given the room type.
A potentially better value will be using points to upgrade to a premium suite, another option being introduced on November 1.
Miraval
Changes will also be introduced for stays at Miraval Resorts. Standard rooms, standard suites and premium suites will be bookable using Points + Cash…
…while you’ll also be able to book premium suites using only points, although that’ll cost a steep 105,000 World of Hyatt points per night.
Quick Thoughts
If you’re someone that frequently booked Points + Cash stays in order to increase the number of stays you could get from your points, these changes are disappointing as it’ll make your future stays more expensive the majority of the time.
If, on the other hand, you have an abundance of points, these changes might be positive if you’d always wanted the ability to book premium suites but didn’t have that option in the past.
Your Thoughts
How about you? Do the Points + Cash changes decrease your interest in World of Hyatt? Or are you excited about the opportunity to finally book premium suites using points? Let us know in the comments below.
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[…] Hyatt changed that last year. The new system has properties charging around half the room rate for the cash portion of the stay. […]
Very disappointed with Hyatt’s move. I will no longer pursue globalist and break the tie with Hyatt.
Are you kidding? Packers game in the Winter?
I’ll be staying at that resort pictured at the top (taken by Nick, and an excellent photo) and watching it in the sports bar
Maybe I am unusual. I’m a globalist and I book a dozen or more P+C stays in a year. This will absolutely kill my Hyatt stays. There is no reason to participate in the current Hyatt bonus now.
Since I get 10% back with the hotels . com program, it is now more rewarding to book Hyatts through hotels . com than through Hyatt.
Even worse, P+C is 100% at the discretion of the individual hotel. I often find P+C unavailable and then I check back closer to my stay date and viola, P+C has appeared. So not only have the Hyatt C-suite know-it-alls just devalued their own loyalty program, again, they have screwed their own franchisees out of an avenue to move rooms during slow periods.
This is a major devaluation for me. I often used points and cash at Hyatt to get phenomenal value per point. I’ll now just book all-points where points and cash would have made sense before, so it’s not terrible for me, but I really liked doing that points-math. I will also probably re-evaluate whether I want to pursue Hyatt status next year. I was finally going to break my ties to Marriott, too!
Let’s call it for what it is, Hyatt is having a second major devaluation in so many years!
I will probably stop using Chase credit cards since Hyatt was one of the best Ultimate Rewards partners. Better to use no annual fee 2% cashback cards such as Fidelity Rewards Visa.
Or, you can collect them to exchange for SQ miles.
Or Alliant’s 2.5%. (3% in year 1). I can even pay my property taxes with that card and make a profit. The county only takes MC / Visa/ Discover , which makes no sense because they charge 2.1%