The Frequent Miler team often shares stories internally that we find interesting, so now and then we like to publish a list of interesting reads from around the Internet that are worth checking out.
Hyatt Now Lets Park Hyatt Sydney And Tokyo Pretend They’re Resorts To Dodge Elite Late Checkout
Lately, Hyatt seems determined to continue on a downward slide. The latest evidence of this is the fact that they are allowing both the Park Hyatt Sydney and Park Hyatt Tokyo to pretend that they’re resorts. As you’ll see in this post from View From The Wing, not only has Hyatt allowed this, but they didn’t even respond to Gary when he reached out for comment. That is a huge miss for Hyatt.
We’ve come to expect that Marriott won’t enforce the terms of its loyalty program, but its size/coverage remains enough of an advantage that they don’t have to provide a good loyalty program. The competitive advantage that Hyatt has long enjoyed has been its enforcement of elite benefits. If members can’t count on elite benefits being honored as intended, what advantage does Hyatt maintain now that they’ve gone nearly dynamic with an award chart containing 40 different prices for standard hotels and more than 100 when you consider the entire portfolio? Put more simply, if Hyatt is going to allow properties to opt out of providing elite benefits (the way that Marriott does), why would a member go out of their way to be loyal to Hyatt (which Google says has about 1,500 properties worldwide) over the much larger footprint of Marriott (9,900 properties) or Hilton (9,200 properties)? While I’m sure that Hyatt points will still offer okay value in many instances, gutting the loyalty program by allowing city hotels to dishonestly classify themselves as resorts is just a huge mistake on Hyatt’s part. This will surely spread, and they stand to lose member trust, which I have to believe is more valuable than whatever it would have cost them to negotiate maintaining this benefit with these two hotels. This one really stinks, not because I care hugely about these two specific properties, but because I care about what Hyatt’s attitude here represents.
Flying To Europe This Summer? New Biometric Border Checks Are Causing Missed Flights And Hours-Long Lines
View from the Wing covers a change that happened to the entry process to Europe in April 2026. Now, when you enter the Schengen Zone for the first time, you’ll need to register with some biometric data like fingerprints. Since this is a new process, many or most people entering need to go through the slower setup process upon arrival. It has had quite an effect on wait times at some airports.
Similarly, your first departure will require registration that has had lines stretching as long as three or four hours in some cases. If you’re traveling to Europe in the next couple of months, you’ll want to keep an eye on what the situation looks like at your port of entry/exit to the Schengen Zone. I expect this will be particularly painful for those arriving in the Schengen Zone either at very small airports with a lot of non-Schengen service, where almost everyone aboard your flight and several others might be newly entering the Schengen Zone, or at ports of entry that are notoriously slow, like Paris. Check out the post at View From The Wing for more details.
There’s A New Head Of Flying Blue, And I Couldn’t Be More Excited!
Huge news in the loyalty space recently is that Air France KLM Flying Blue has named a new program head, and it’s a familiar name to those who have been following miles and points for many years. Tiffany Funk, who long worked at One Mile at a Time and Points Pros and later point.me, has become the new head of Flying Blue. One Mile at a Time covers this amazing news. Tiffany has an encyclopedic knowledge of loyalty programs, an engaging personality, and a clear understanding of winning outcomes for both consumers and loyalty programs. She a creative problem solver and an excellent communicator. She’s also long been a friend. When I first started working at Frequent Miler, at my first speaking gig, a Frequent Traveler University event, Tiffany really welcomed me into the fold of the speakers group and was incredibly helpful over the coming months and years as I learned the ropes of working in this industry. Numerous times in my first few years, I pinged her with a question, and she came back with helpful information each time. I’m glad to see someone who’s so engaging, thoughtful, and skilled at the head of Flying Blue. This is a massive win for Flying Blue, and it makes me really excited about the future of the program.
NEW: ALL Accor joins Amex Membership Rewards® as a transfer partner (in the United Kingdom)
While this news isn’t terribly relevant for U.S. cardholders, All Accor has joined Amex Membership Rewards as a transfer partner for cards issued in the United Kingdom. That might not mean anything at all for U.S. residents, though I thought this piece from Head for Points was potentially of interest as it could foreshadow a partnership to come for U.S.-based members. We don’t have any inside indication that that will ever come to pass, but now that Amex offers transfer ratios other than 1:1 to certain programs, I suppose it is somewhat more likely that we could see a partnership with all Accor in the United States. That said, my enthusiasm here is tempered by the fact that the transfer ratio in the UK is 3 Membership Rewards points to 1 ALL Accor point. Since Accor points are worth a flat 2 euro cents per point, that means you would effectively be getting a little bit more than 7 tenths of a US cent per Amex Membership Rewards point. It wouldn’t make sense to transfer if that were the ratio in the United States. Instead you’d do better using a Schwab Platinum card to redeem Membership Rewards points for a deposit to your brokerage account at a value of 1.1 cents per Membership Rewards point. 3 Membership Rewards points would be worth 3.3 US cents, which is about 50% more than the value of one Accor point. Perhaps we’ll see a better transfer ratio in the United States and if they do partner in the US, and if we do see a better transfer ratio, maybe it will end up being of interest. Time will tell.
Purchases made in-store with the Costco app are coding as online sales
Doctor of Credit reports that Costco recently enabled the functionality to add any Visa card to the Costco app and then pay via QR code in-store. That can be handy for someone with gift cards to use at Costco, but it has also had the side effect of coding as online sales for some cards, which would be of interest to those with cards that bonus online sales.
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