Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
With Prime Day getting a lot of media attention today, Hyatt and MGM have decided today is a great day for burying bad news as they’ve announced their partnership will be ending on September 30, 2023. If you haven’t already status matched your Hyatt and MGM accounts, you’ll want to do that ASAP as the ability to newly do that will be ending on July 14.
This news is landing worse than the Con Air plane in Las Vegas.
The full announcement and FAQs can be found here. Here are some of the highlights lowlights:
- Existing bookings – If you have any stays booked for after September 30, 2023, those reservations will still be honored. However, you won’t earn World of Hyatt points or elite night credits for those stays. If you check in before September 30 but check out after that date, you won’t earn any points or elite night credits, even for the days stayed before the end of the partnership. In order to earn points and/or elite night credits for overlapping stays like that, you’d need to make two reservations – one ending by September 30 and the second starting after that.
- Last booking date – You’ll still be able to redeem points and free night certificates for award stays at MGM Resorts properties up until September 30.
- Tier match dates – There are three important dates to be aware of. If you already matched your Hyatt status to MGM Rewards, that status will be ending on January 31, 2024. If you haven’t matched yet, the ability to do that will end on July 14, 2023, with that newly matched status also expiring on January 31, 2024.
Somewhat similarly, if you matched your MGM Rewards status to Hyatt, your World of Hyatt status will be valid through February 29, 2024. If you haven’t matched from MGM to Hyatt yet, you have until July 14, 2023 to do that.
Quick Thoughts
This is very sad news as the Hyatt/MGM partnership was one a lot of people benefited from. On the MGM side, people received Gold status which meant waived resort fees, the potential for room upgrades, a priority check-in line, free self parking, free valet parking at participating destinations and more.
On the Hyatt side, the ability to earn elite night credits from stays at MGM properties was huge for some people. That’s because with waived resort fees and free or nearly free nights available on certain dates for MGM Rewards Gold members, it was an amazingly cheap way to rack up elite night credits in people’s quest for Hyatt Globalist status.
That’s all going to be ending in a couple of months, so if you’d been planning on doing an end-of-year mattress run to Vegas to pick up any remaining elite night credits you needed, you’ll need to bring forward those plans by a few months.
What we don’t know yet is if MGM is planning a partnership with a different hotel chain, or if they’ve come to the conclusion that a partnership like this has been losing them more money than it’s been gaining.
The winners in all of this will likely be Wyndham and Caesars. Their partnership is still going strong and, if MGM doesn’t end up with a different hotel partner, will likely mean that many people will divert their stays to Caesars properties instead. That’s because if you earn Wyndham Diamond status organically or, more likely, via the Wyndham Rewards Earner Business credit card, you can match that status to Caesars Rewards Diamond status. That in turn gets you waived resort fees at Caesars properties, a $100 Celebration Dinner, priority check-in lines and more.
Question
What are your thoughts on this change? Will it have an impact on your upcoming plans? Let us know in the comments below.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Help! Does anyone have the offer in writing ?
My Hyatt concierge states…
ALL STAYS were this summer BEFORE relationship ended !
For your stays at the MGM properties, as these are complimentary nights given to you by MGM directly and booked with MGM directly, they do not qualify for tier night credit on your World of Hyatt account. This has been reviewed by management and the request has been declined. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
You may be able receive credit on your MGM rewards account for comp nights given and booked through MGM, but you would need to reach out to MGM rewards for that information…
Just an FYI – they just announced a partnership with Marriott. No details so far except you can transfer MGM rewards points to Marriott
Just tried to match status as today is the last day. And was informed that when they said ‘ending on July 14’ they meant ‘ending on July 13’ and that if I wanted a match, I needed to do it yesterday. Unbelievable.
It seems the ability to do status match from Hyatt to MGM is not there anymore and looks like they ended early by 1 day
Doesn’t matter how you cut the pie on this one MGM looses money and Hyatt some way some how. Mattress run or not those free stays in Vegas got the Hyatt member in the door and most likely some sort of money was spent at MGM from as little as soda and drinks to dinner to full out thousands of dollars in gambling the odds are just there. Hyatt in return made money on those stays be it personal or company paid! Ya no winners here! Some sort of financial loss both sides no matter how you cut the pie.
had a Bilt-globalist run all setup at Vegas…but then for various reasons canceled that plan earlier this year.
I soon realized at a couple of the Int’l Hyatts I am staying at this year (no, I’m not telling)…I could book suites with a small increase in point cost….so that’s what I did.
Ocean views….that’s my only hint.
One hyatt I’m staying at — where the point cost diff is/was too much — the suites don’t look that inspiring anyway. Pepper stayed there. Though I will cough up some $ for parking…but not much.
Will miss out on the Andaz Papagayo suite next year though….but the std rooms look inviting enough…I won’t cry.
God forbid you’re now going to have to actually want to stay at Hyatts to earn Hyatt status.
It was great while it lasted. Onwards to Caesar’s
Wyndham is a terrible partner-weak properties…the new Marriott/MGM will likely be much better
It was nice to get mid-tier Hyatt status from my MGM gold which I got from my Celebrity cruises elite status.
After further research: https://viewfromthewing.com/will-hyatts-new-multi-brand-las-vegas-complex-jeopardize-its-mgm-partnership/
Speculation: We know Caesars – Wyndham partnership exists, so does Resorts World (Genting Rewards) – Hilton (no status match though I guess). With MGM ditching the hotel partnership with Hyatt, wonder who’d be their next partner – Marriott is the only other major chain.
MGM itself is a large hospitality enterprise that they may not need a hotel partnership and instead focus on their own MGM Rewards, Credit cards that grant their status etc. What do you think?
Probably makes me more likely to prioritize the Hyatt cards with this path to status cut.
On the plus side I have no reason to ever go to Vegas again lol
If the rumored Wyndham/Hyatt merger is actually a thing, Hyatt would probably have to terminate agreement with MGM or Wyndham w/Ceasars. Fingers crossed that’s not the case.
Where’d you hear that Wyndham and Hyatt are rumored to Merge??
Wait what? Where did you find such a rumor? I thought Hyatt specifically stated they want to ‘move up’ building premier properties and reduce / lose the economy ones. A merger with Wyndham (a big chunk of their properties being basic ones) sounds moving in the opposite direction.
I swear there was a rumor Wyndham was interested in Hyatt. All I could find was Choice/Wyndham rumour though. Wyndham CEO seems set on cashing out for retirement, so if he has any sway they’ll buy/merger something. https://www.doctorofcredit.com/choice-hotels-looking-to-purchase-wyndham-hotels-resorts/
Wyndham/Hyatt merger? It was Wyndham and Choice there have been rumors about.
details schmetails…
Sounds like an excellent opportunity for an FM To Go in Vegas meetup before elite credit ends in Sep. Everyone can rack up nights to take their Bilt Globalist light to full 60-night Globalist
I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did! The free cruise offers were amazing. I got 2, but sadly didn’t keep up with the match for hubby or would have had more free cruises!
You were able to get a nice Baja interior room for 7 nights. Nice!
How much did you pay for your free cruises?
What place offered the free cruise? I am a globalist with hyatt and never saw one
I matched my Hyatt status to MGM gold. Used MGM gold to get a free balcony, 13 nt cruise with Carnival and 10 nt inside with Holland America. Nick explained it all.