Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
World of Hyatt is my favorite hotel loyalty program. Hyatt’s program offers published award charts, great value for their points, multiple ways to achieve suite upgrades, best-in-class top-tier elite benefits, and many options for sharing perks and free nights with friends and family members. But it’s not perfect. There are things I’d love to see changed. Here’s my wishlist…
Fix the free night category problem
Over time, category 1-4 and category 1-7 free night certificates have become harder and harder to use. Each year, Hyatt moves some of the best category 4 hotels up to category 5, and the best category 7 hotels to category 8. In the past, this was partially ameliorated by the many SLH (Small Luxury Hotels of the World) properties across the world. In Europe, particularly, there were gobs of category 3 and 4 SLH hotels where we could use category 1-4 certs. But then Hyatt split from SLH and bought Mr & Mrs Smith instead. That would have been a net win except that Hyatt decided not to map Mr & Mrs Smith hotels onto award charts. Instead, Mr & Mrs Smith point prices are based entirely on cash rates. As a result, not a single Mr & Mrs Smith property can be booked with a Hyatt free night certificate. Not one. Hyatt could partially fix things by changing the certs to 1-5 and 1-8. Or, maybe even better: allow certs to work either as a category or a max point value. For example, Hyatt could make category 1-4 certs worth up to 15K points (category 4 standard rate), and category 1-7 certs worth up to 30K points (category 7 standard rate). And, just like Marriott and IHG, Hyatt could allow customers to top-off those certs with points. That way, for example, we could use a category 1-4 cert plus 2K points to book a category 5 off-peak night (which usually costs 17K points). Similarly, we would then be able to use free night certs at Mr & Mrs Smith properties.
Allow multiple perks on a single reservation
I find it extremely frustrating that Hyatt won’t let me apply suite upgrade awards to reservations that use free night certificates. They also don’t allow them on Guest of Honor awards. The same limitations apply to Club Access Awards.
Why not allow us to mix and match these perks?
Don’t impose 6 month expirations on any Milestone Rewards
Stop making free night certs earned as Milestone Rewards expire after 6 months! Make all Milestone Rewards be valid for the rest of the calendar year in which they are selected or earned, and 14 months beyond. Most Milestone Rewards already act this way. But Free Night awards, Miraval Extra Night Awards, and 2K Next Stay Awards are valid for only 180 days.
Fix Mr. & Mrs Smith award stays
Currently Mr & Mrs Smith awards are dynamically priced with point values anywhere from below 1 cent per point to a max of around 1.4 cents per point. Even at that max value, these awards don’t approach the average point value we’ve seen across Hyatt properties (median 1.7, mean 1.8). I’d love to see Hyatt add standard room awards to the mix so that, when available, Mr & Mrs Smith rooms would be priced according to a standard award chart. Continue to price other rooms based on dynamic pricing. If the standard room award thing is a non-starter, then at a minimum make all redemptions get 1.4 cents per point value (or more).
More wishes
Via the Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook Group, I asked group members what changes they’d like to see Hyatt make. I incorporated some suggestions into my own, above. And here are other suggestions from the Facebook group that I think are good ideas, but they didn’t make it into my top 4 wishes:
- 5th Night Free Awards
- Show the Pay My Way button on all searches where that would be an option, not just when you do a cash search.
- Online point sharing
- Waived pet fees for Globalist members
- Allow Club Access awards to be used for free breakfast. Greg’s note: During the pandemic, many hotels closed their club lounges and decided never to open them again afterwards. This has made Club Access Awards much less valuable. How about allowing us to use them for free breakfasts only at Hyatt Regency and Grand Hyatt hotels (the brands that most often had lounges in the past) when they don’t have a lounge?
- Allow booking premium suites with either 2 suite upgrades or after booking standard suite with points or cash allow a suite upgrade to bump up to premium.
- Add Guest of Honor as a 50 night Milestone Reward (without removing it from other Milestones)
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Luckily it has not happened to me yet, but I’m terrified that cancelling a free night after the deadline leads to a day of rack rate credit card charge. This is an unknown number with no cap on something that was a free night to a loyalist. Seems like just taking the points and paying out the hotel like I had stayed is the way to go. If I had gotten a flat tire on the way to the Masters this year my room in Augusta would have gone from $0 to $1,000!
I wish that Hyatt allowed elite nights to rollover similar to IHG and Hilton. It would make it easier to achieve meaningful elite status through elite night qualification. Hyatt has the highest elite night requirement compared to the other 2 programs’ meaningful elite tiers since Hyatt Globalist = 60 nights, IHG One Rewards Platinum Elite = 40 nights, and Hilton Honors Diamond = 60 nights.
Hi Greg, A reader (Christian) asked how can we persuade Hyatt to your wonderful ideas, which we are in full agreement with.
How about a mass write in to Hyatt, to Concierge or Hyatt help. I think Mark the CEO, who is very clever, will get that feedback from all us Hyatt frequenters.
I wish you could earn qualifying nights for all rooms booked during a stay. My family of 4 had to book 2 rooms for a recent stay and I was so surprised to learn that we wouldn’t be earning elite nights on both rooms. It was especially painful because the rooms were definitely big enough to fit 2 rollaway beds in addition to the king bed, but 3 was the maximum occupancy. If you pay for 2 rooms, whether with cash or with points, it seems unfair to only give qualifying nights for one of the rooms.
Great suggestions. I was really gung-ho on Hyatt during the SLH years. I’m kicking myself for not utilizing that more now. Hyatt just doesn’t have a good footprint otherwise and like you said Smith doesn’t do much to bridge the gap. I finally pulled the trigger on a Smith in the UK as it was close to 1.4 but honesty it was just to try it out and get the brand stay. It was already close enough in points cost to the actual Hyatt I was going to book so I thought why not.
Any sense what doing these things would cost Hyatt? Except, maybe, for the multiple perks issue, they all sound pretty expensive. If they’re giving out a few million FNCs each year and you increase the cost of servicing the average one by $100 (by reducing breakage through longer expiration and upping the category they can be used at) it would put a several-hundred-million dollar hole in their bottom line.
Hyatt wouldn’t be paying $100 extra for every night on a Cat 1-5 certificate versus a Cat 1-4. It’s been a while but I recall reading that Hyatt pays some fairly low dollar – but above cost – amount for a room if the hotel is not very full and near average daily rate if the hotel is in the 95%+ occupancy range so the hotel doesn’t take a big hit. It would take some incredibly unlucky (for Hyatt) redemptions, over and over, to make this a really pricey move.
The ability to make suite upgrades online.
Do like Hilton and give us the ability to look at a hotel map and pick our room when checking in online.
Have club and suite upgrade awards earn points if they’re not used…or extend the deadline if we try to use them and a suite is not available, which always seems to happen nowadays. So frustrating!
Let me add one, cribbed from Hilton: the ability to search for confirmed adjoining combinable rooms and book with points. The way Hyatt works now, you need to bizarrely book two separate reservations if you want two rooms at the same property on the same days when booked with points. I would love to be able to confirm attaching adjoining rooms with points so that my kids have a separate but attached space.
You definitely hit all the big ones. Two other small(ish) things that are probably pretty niche but would be nice for me:
It has been said that Hilton has 210 million Frequenters, Marriott has 190 million, and Hyatt has 42 million. Lets hope and encourage Hyatt to be the gem, treat its members the best, and we will switch more nites away from them and stay at Hyatt.
A great sentiment. How would you suggest we do this? I already stay around 50 nights a year with Hyatt, about half cash and half on points, with 20 more through card spend. What would you advise to encourage Hyatt to do the right thing beyond that?
the emails about ‘earning Club Access awards’ are just insulting, haven’t seen an open Club since Covid. Of course they should be usable at their Marketplace for food.
I just want no award blackouts if a standard room is available, and a way to actually search for award availability that’s accurate without having to click through to make sure the room that’s 18,000 points actually exists for 18,000 points on the date that I just searched for.
That said, what seems more likely is that Hyatt will use that opportunity of fixing the IT issue (for the search) to introduce full dynamic pricing.
As a Globalist, my Club Access and Suite Upgrade awards are pointless, I already get these automatically. They made all point redemption more expensive but still keep giving me these awards. They also wouldn’t let me use my Guest of Honor Award for a friend at the Thompson Hollywood with no reason, I asked my concierge well in advance and asked the front desk. They had no reason why this was the case, this should not be allowed. I praise Hyatt to all my traveling friends, but they won’t let me share? Basically another pointless award.
They need to be more careful with billing, I have to have my Concierge fix about a quarter of stays for me, they will have breakfast, resort charges, other mini bar charges, I never use.
Very disappointed we lost Las Vegas options, I stayed 4 times last year, now I will stay at the Fountainebleu.
Greg, I hope your wishes come true! Particularly the MMS award chart! Unfortunately, it seems Hyatt is headed in the opposite direction. The new Under Canvas collection announced earlier this month uses the same dynamic poor redemption rate model as MMS. It’s only a small example but more evidence that Hyatt is really starting to embrace dynamic award pricing. Honestly, it seems Hyatt keeping its award chart at all would be a big win with the way things have been going.
Indeed. Would any of these changes matter if Hyatt went dynamic systemwide?
In fairness, Under the Canvas was added to MMS, so it makes sense that it adopted the MMS award chart because that is what it inherited. It’s not like the program was added to Hyatt as a separate program. Some people think MMS will be added to Hyatts award chart eventually, just that Hyatt needs to start making contracts with properties, which may take a while. We’ll have to wait and see. They did change it where MMS properties get the 4x points on the Hyatt credit card, so maybe this week just take time too. I think Hyatt rushed to get MMS to replace SLH.
Right, but Hyatt could have done a partnership with Under Canvas without adding it to MMS (which it owns) and incorporated it into its award chart, just like SLH used to be and similarly to how Hilton incorporated AutoCamp (allowing free night certificates to be used, elite recognition, etc.). That’s the point – that Hyatt will use MMS to add additional properties at a poor redemption value. Just like it did with Destination Residence properties, moving them to the Homes and Hideaways collection at a poor redemption value. Hopefully the entire portfolio doesn’t go this way.
Inflation hits everyone, hotels and guest alike. What does everyone think about raising the points on the award charts each year based on inflation? Use the same inflation index used for Social Security increases each year to increase the points needed for stays.
This may keep the points chart alive longer, instead of having it replaced by “dynamic” pricing (my biggest fear), and help to keep some of the hotels in the same category instead of increasing from a 4 to a 5, eroding the value of the certificates.
For me, personally, Hyatt has the best overall reward system. I love their tiers and milestone rewards because they acknowledge both loyalty and spending.
Evolution….. not revolution! 🙂