World of Hyatt has been a favorite amongst points and miles enthusiasts for years. You can use your points for excellent properties at typically excellent values and the elite benefits are actually valuable. But…they’re far from perfect, especially more recently. Not to worry – we have some suggestions for what they can do to get back on track.
Coffee Break: World of Hyatt is broken. Here’s how to fix it.
Watch here…
Or listen here…
(00:00) – Has been a great program for years
(02:10) – Long term problem: limited number of hotels
(04:19) – But they’ve killed a lot of the progress they’d made towards the footprint problem and moved instead towards dynamic award pricing
(07:44) – Our suggestion: Fix Mr & Mrs Smith awards
(10:44) – Or, more realistically: Fix free night certificates
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Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn Heads
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Who in the world is in charge over there(WH)? WH has gone down hill. You are 100% right on.
I have jumped ship to HH and now thinking Marriott.
Appreciate your work. Keep it up.
The reason I love FM are stories like this. It is dogma in the points and miles community that Hyatt is the best loyalty program. As others have pointed out, since Covid this program has chipped away at any of its prestige. At the same time, Hyatt has the same crappy footprint littered with places a lot of us don’t want to stay at (Hyatt House or old Hyatt Places). This is the first critical post I’ve seen of Hyatt from the community and frankly it’s about time.
One thing I’d add as a source of real frustration with Hyatt is how they continue to make Cat 1-4 FNCs valueless. The list of decent Cat 4 properties shrinks every year. Pretty much you are going to need to use these on Hyatt Places or old, terrible Hyatt Regencies. I understand that 35k Marriott awards are also bad, but (a) Marriott’s footprint means I can use these virtually anywhere and (b) being able to top them off means I can get full 35k value and often stay at a nice hotel in off peak times.
I bailed from the Hyatt globalist band wagon this year and I have no regrets. They clearly made the decision a few years ago to kill off the value in this program and I don’t see that changing in the near future.
Yup- I did get a couple of good redemptions with Hyatt that were useful to my travel needs over the past few years, but the limited footprint and/or fairly rapid inflation of prices on par with Marriott and Hilton mean that it will never be my first choice program.
With Marriott, I know I will find a property almost anywhere I would want to be and probably something I can book for under 50K points a night if I want to use a FNC (aside from a few expensive/aspirational destinations that I don’t really have plans to go to in the near future anyway).
[…] World of Hyatt is broken, here’s how to fix it […]
For years, I held AA Concierge Key. CK gave me complimentary Globalist status. But, Hyatt never made sense for me. Its geographic footprint typically offered no property, an inconvenient property, or the wrong type of property. Its organic economics — that is, its internal earn/redeem reward rate for paid stays — without transferring points to Hyatt — were inferior to other programs. To be fair, while other programs offer better property location/type and economics, they have their own warts. In the end, I am well settled in a hybrid free agent model.
Every program has its “out of the park” redemptions. But, given a program as a whole, I’ve seen bloggers and readers rationalize Hyatt’s shortcomings for years. A classic example is the new Park Hyatt in London, which is way the (heck) over in Nine Elms. For a luxury traveler, there is no way to describe it other than “inconvenient.” “Oh, but you’ll get it for 2.0485931 cents per point” is the refrain. I sense that if the property were out in Fulham, the answer would be the same.
The same mindset is seen in airlines points strategies. These same individuals will endure hellish booking issues and customer service — spending hours on the phone — to save X number of points. I need not elaborate.
On one hand, Concerned Reader has a valid point. But, we ought not take what the FM team writes as “you should do it this way.” Instead, we ought to take what the FM team writes as “this is what is possible.” (The same applies to other blogs.) And, if we know the FM team’s tendencies, we take that which makes sense for our circumstances and leave the rest. I’m not certain that all readers understand this.
Hey Greg and Nick,
I’ve been following your content for a long time and have always appreciated your in-depth analysis. However, over the past 18 months or so, I’ve felt increasingly frustrated with the way value is being framed in your discussions. While I understand the importance of maximizing redemption value, it sometimes feels like travel is being reduced solely to cents per point, rather than the experiences and memories that make it worthwhile.
Additionally, I’ve noticed a heavy focus on SLH properties, to the point where it seems like they are disproportionately favored. It’s made me wonder if there’s some kind of partnership at play, as it feels less like organic coverage and more like promotion. I also couldn’t help but notice that Hilton started getting more positive attention the moment they added SLH.
I say this because I’ve really valued your perspectives over the years, but recently, it feels like some of the unbiased, broad-spectrum coverage that originally drew me in has shifted. I don’t want to stop following your work, but I find myself checking in less often because it seems like breaking news is rare, and the content feels a little more predictable.
I hope this is taken as honest feedback from a long-time reader who wants to see you continue to provide the best insights possible. Thanks for all the work you do, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Among some, there is a slavish devotion to cpp and Hyatt at the expense of experience, convenience, and service.
I don’t fault the FM team here because they have been transparent about how they consider valuation and, in my opinion, are much more rigorous and thoughtful about it than any other points and miles site out there. However, to your point in the first paragraph, I often find that the points and miles community as a whole tends to be overly focused on the insides of airplanes and the insides of hotels, which to me are secondary to the real goal to have adventures and experience new places. It is hard to fault travel bloggers for this because their audiences want to know how to redeem points and as travel reviewers they often have to take compressed trips for review purposes that are not remotely how I want to travel. But I do have remind myself when reading travel blogs that I don’t travel for the fancy airplane seats or hotel suites. If those work out and make travel more comfortable then great, but most of the time I’ll take adventure and experiences over luxury. As they say, YMMV, and mine tend to vary a lot.
I strongly agree, particularly about airplanes. Except for a very few first class products, flights to me are a comodity product with two price points, lie-flat or economy. Hotels can be different in that there are some that are actually interesting or historical properties in and of themselves (although these are rarely chain properties that can be booked with points).
I’ll note that this blog has almost no “reviews” of airplanes and relatively few reviews of hotels. It is, after all, ,a points-and-miles blog and not a travel blog. Notwithstanding that, however, the people who write it are pretty clearly destination travelers rather than (or, I guess, in addition to) being hotel and flight hobbyists.
Yeah, agree. And I definitely mean no criticism of FM because a points and miles blog should cover points and miles, and they do it very, very well. Just sometimes in the points and miles space people talk about bucket list trips being the airplane seat, which doesn’t mesh with how I think about my travel goals.
I don’t think anyone read a crticisim of FM into your post. One nice thing is that they never take “review trips” or even, to the best of my recollection, choose an airline or hotel for an organic trip based on the “review value”.
And that’s not a criticism of those blogs, like One Mile at a Time, that do. They have a different focus and a readership that appreciates what they do. I find those fun to read even if the particular products and style of travel generally don’t match mine — and if I stop finding them fun to read then I can. . . stop reading them.
FM provides information that’s valuable for travel at almost every level — maybe not backpacking (althoug the occasional article from Carrie hits that as well).
Yes, and I enjoy reading about the extreme steps they take as much as the stuff I will actually use. It is like watching a YouTuber speed run a video game. I might not ever do it myself, but it is fun and I still learn something!
Read this FM article: https://frequentmiler.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-choose-your-favorite-shopping-portal/
Consider the immense amount of time Nick put into analyzing one reader’s question — which is actually applicable to us all. I’d say the FM team’s heart is in the right place.
Hi Concerned Reader — thanks for your feedback. We haven’t intentionally changed our focus in any way in recent years. Over the longer term, though, our focus has grown broader. In the beginning this blog was primarily about ways to earn points and miles. Over time, especially once I hired Nick, we expanded to include the best ways to use points and miles. When Tim came on board we started doing more flight and hotel reviews. And when Carrie posts, she often writes about experiences that have nothing to do with points & miles. At the core though, FM is not a travel blog. Our focus is primarily about the best ways to get and use points & miles and other ways to get shortcuts to free or better travel (i.e. shortcuts to elite status; status matching for free cruises; etc.). There’s no doubt that, as you say, experiences and memories are what make travel worthwhile. But we’ve always primarily left that part up to the reader. Come to FM to find out how to get there and stay there cheaply and/or in luxury and look elsewhere to find out where you want to go and what to do while there. I’m curious when you say that our focus has changed int he last 18 months or so, what specifically you mean? In my mind we haven’t changed towards more focus on cents per point. That’s always been an important metric (but definitely not the only one we care about).
Regarding SLH: No, there’s no partnership at play. There’s no money involved. As always we write and talk about the things that are exciting to us. I’ve always been a big fan of independent hotels and as such I think you’ll find more coverage here about SLH, Leading Hotels of the World, Preferred Hotels, etc. than probably any other blog. SLH is particularly worth being extra excited about in my opinion because of the ability to use free night certificates or 5th night free awards at any participating property. That’s amazing and not something that was available under Hyatt. Further, Hilton has onboarded more SLH properties in one year than Hyatt did the entire time they were partners. I get that SLH might not interest you, but to me its the most exciting ongoing deal in points & miles today.
I really appreciate your feedback here, but I’d like to understand it better. When you say that our “unbiased, broad-spectrum coverage” has shifted, can you give any examples of the type of thing we used to write/talk about and no longer do?
Some of what I’m feeling could be due to a slow couple of years in the credit card space. Between major devaluations and fewer exciting new products or changes, the miles and points game has undoubtedly gotten worse. Marriott has completely tanked its program, and while I agree that Hilton has done great with SLH, the other two programs you referenced (Leading Hotels of the World and Preferred Hotels) barely get mentioned a couple of times a year. Yet SLH gets constant coverage—maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it feels like it’s mentioned as much as the major chains. My experience with SLH has been more neutral compared to the glowing praise it gets here.
I love point valuations and understanding how to maximize value, but I could care less about the elaborate trip-building exercises. Hotel reviews are nice, but I’m mainly talking about the “slavish devotion” Jack mentioned to wringing every last cent per point (cpp) out of everything. That focus seemed more balanced when I first started reading FM—it felt like value was important, but so was the trip itself. Now, it feels like if you’re not getting 5cpp, the message is: “Don’t do the trip.”
I think that perspective forgets that most people don’t take as many trips as you guys. For many, points are a way to travel at all, and often, family input plays a major role. If a hotel is where everyone wants to stay, sometimes getting 2cpp instead of 5cpp is totally fine. But the way things are framed now makes it feel like anything less than top-tier redemptions is a mistake.
The SLH discussion ties into that. The coverage makes it seem like these properties are consistently fantastic, but my experience has been more hit-or-miss. The constant focus on SLH has also noticeably changed the tone around Hilton. A few years ago, the consensus here was that Hilton points weren’t worth much. Now that they have SLH, it feels like Hilton suddenly gets much more positive coverage.
I was talking to a friend the other day about points blogs, and I mentioned FM. He told me he stopped reading because it felt like the focus had become extreme on cpp rather than providing straightforward, useful information. We also both really disliked the “Million Miles Challenge” and kind of tuned out during that time.
At the end of the day, I come here for insights on credit card and program changes, ways to earn more points, and the best evaluations of point values. But since the podcasts started, there’s been a lot more “what if” speculation. Do we really think Hyatt would do the two things you suggested? And was anyone really surprised that Hyatt followed the rest of the hotel industry with dynamic pricing? It feels like there’s a growing disconnect between industry realities and the theoretical optimizations discussed here.
Jack summed it up well: there’s a slavish devotion to cpp and Hyatt. I’d add SLH to that, as well as the complete shift in how Hilton is covered now.
PS: SLH was a golden with Hyatt too. There is a love affair there. I do think Hilton has done a great job implementing it, but it was loved at Hyatt too. Seems very favored.
I’ll have to take some time to try to digest this feedback. I find it hard to turn what you wrote into any specific suggestions other than to focus less on SLH/Hilton. But I won’t do that because it’s something I’m truly very excited about. Where else can we book insanely high-end independent hotels with free night certificates or with points that we can easily acquire?
I do also like and am excited about Preferred Hotels, but Citi (and Wells Fargo/Choice/I Prefer) points aren’t easy to earn in huge quantities like Hilton points. And there are no free night certs.
I was surprised that you said that Leaders Club and Preferred Hotels barely get mentioned. I looked back at our published posts since Jan 1 2024 and found 20 posts tagged with “Preferred Hotels” and 24 tagged with SLH. If anything I’d argue that there should have been much more with SLH because it represents a bigger opportunity for many more people (because of easy access to Hilton points through Hilton credit cards, Amex Membership Rewards, and even buying them at .5 cents each).
We don’t write nearly as much about Leaders Club because there’s less to say. I haven’t been to one since the one I wrote about last year. And the value is close to fixed: around 8 cents per Leaders Club points / 1.6 cents per Citi point.
Million Mile Madness: We do get a little bit of feedback here and there from people who don’t like our challenges, but we get way, way more positive feedback about them. And we love doing them. We probably won’t do more than 1 a year again, but this was a special one-time opportunity that we couldn’t pass up.
Greg, I appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion. I’ve read quite a few articles from FM, and I genuinely can’t recall Leading Hotels of the World or Preferred Hotels getting anywhere near the attention that SLH has. I completely understand why you’re excited about it, but the sheer volume of coverage makes it come across like a paid partnership. Even though I know it’s not, the way it dominates discussions makes it feel that way.
My biggest recommendation would be for the FM team to keep in mind that while top-tier value is important, just being able to travel is important too. Over the last 12–15 years I’ve been in this hobby, I’ve probably sent 10 people here to learn what points are worth. Every single time, I’ve had to remind them that FM is extreme with redemption value—because people walk away thinking they shouldn’t pull the trigger unless they’re getting top-tier cpp. The industry is moving away from outsized value, and I personally believe it’s going to get harder and harder to find those redemptions.
It’s your blog, and you can promote whatever excites you. But I don’t think only SLH is exciting, and honestly, this ruffles my feathers because I’ve been job hunting and haven’t been reading as much over the last three months. Yet, in the few articles and podcasts I have checked in on, SLH always seems to come up. That’s why it feels like you’re being paid—even though I understand you’re not. But when it completely shifts how you view Hilton, that’s a concern.
Maybe this isn’t the best analogy, but if a sports team is 0-10 and then wins four games, they’re still a bad team. One great move from Hilton doesn’t suddenly make them amazing. They’ve improved, and SLH is a positive step, but let’s not act like they’ve suddenly become the best. Likewise, just because Hyatt followed the industry with dynamic pricing doesn’t mean they’ve suddenly become bad. All programs have their strengths and weaknesses, and Hyatt is still likely the best overall.
In my opinion, not a lot has happened in the last 12-24 months that’s truly exciting in the credit card or loyalty program space, so I get that it’s harder to find content. But as a longtime reader (I think 5+ years), it feels like the focus on cpp and SLH has veered to an extreme. That’s just my opinion, and while I’m not reading every article like I used to, the overall tone just feels different. I do appreciate the ability to share that thought. At the same time, I recognize that to keep a blog running, you have to be excited about what you’re covering, and that naturally steers you toward topics like SLH.
As for the trip reports, personally, they bore me to tears. To me, they come across more like bragging than useful content. I can’t afford—or don’t have the flexibility with my wife’s job—to take those kinds of trips. And we’re more flexible than a lot of people! I love hearing about how you earned the points and your thoughts on hotels, but I don’t need to see every aspect of the trip. Some of it just isn’t attainable for most readers, and it’s the same reason I don’t follow influencers on Instagram—it starts feeling disconnected from reality.
One last thing—another reader mentioned the work Nick put into answering a specific question, and while it was a great article, isn’t that just part of the job? If I were running a blog like this, I’d expect independent journalism and deep analysis. That’s not meant as a knock, just an observation that answering detailed reader questions in a blog setting should be expected.
I appreciate the back-and-forth and hope my feedback is taken as constructive rather than critical.
It’s not an exaggeration, it’s a false statement. Greg brought the numbers elsewhere in this thread and speaking annecdotally in the last six months it doesn’t seem a podcast goes by without an update on Preferred Hotels / Choice and the various ways of booking those hotels. Those mentions are not always postive giving the difficulties of booking those hotels, but I would wager they exceed the mentions of SLH recently. I’m personally not interested in Preferred Hotels but that doesn’t mean I think FM (or you, for that matter) are shilling for them. It’s merely a difference in interests.
Of courses it has! Why wouldn’t the blog say that — it’s completely accurate. The same Hilton points are worth something like double their value when used on SLH properties. If anyone’s biased here it seems to be you — in favor of Hyatt and against Hilton. Without changing their opinion that Hyatt has the best elite program but just being slightly more critical of Hyatt and slightly more positive about Hilton (both, objectively, being the accurate position) it seems like you feel . . . insulted?
Ask yourself: why are you bothered by the positive coverage of Hilton’s grossly positive change to their program.
This is literally the party line at FM. You sound like a spurned lover.
Do you know another points and miles blog where one of the principal writers talks about using Southwest as their primary domestic airline? If anything, I think that this blog has moved away from CPP-at-any-cost and more in the direction of convenience and experience. I think in part that’s due to Nick’s family situation (and his taking less “valuable” flights in favor of more convenient family-friendly options) and Carrie (not enough content from Carrie!) writing about more down-to-earth and very, very experiential traveling. That said, the only reason to jump through hoops to even collect points and miles is to use them for more value than you could get for cash back, so there has to be some consideration of the value you’re getting.
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I think you may need to consider whether this is the right blog for you. To me, those are among the most educational and enjoyable features of the blog and will become even more valuable as I head into retirement and have more flexibility. One small example is that the extensive discussion of leveraging long layovers has completely changed my approach to scheduling flights and given me some great one-day visits to cities I’m already familiar with.
The trip reports “bore you to tears” and yet you pine for the days when “the trip itself” was important?
I mean — you “love understanding how to maximize value” and “could care less about the elaborate trip-building excercises” which are lessons in how to maximize value? That doesn’t even make sense!
It’s so, so tempting to state that clearly you’re being paid (by another blog, or maybe Hyatt). I doubt that’s true (although you yourself might conclude that that’s the case). But what’s the explanation for your internally inconsistent and factually incorrect criticism of FM? I’m guessing that you fall into the fanboy category of travelers and your ox has been gored by the positive coverage of SLH’s move to Hilton.
I share both interest and some confusion about the feedback here.
I get that you’re not interested in SLH. We are. That’s fine. We can have different perspectives on that. I’m sure that in some ways comes down to travel patterns — I don’t find SLH to be a big deal in the US, where each of the chains have a decent footprint (and where Greg has covered at least one mediocre SLH stay) and I haven’t traveled to South America in many years — maybe I’d have zero interest in SLH if my primary destinations were the US and South America (not suggesting those are your primary destinations, just examples here). However, I find SLH to be a huge deal in Europe, where I travel almost every year and where Hyatt now has very little footprint and Hilton goes from having a limited number of cookie-cutter Hilton properties where I would be happy enough paying the cash rate if points didn’t exist (which I certainly don’t mind, but neither do I find them exciting) to having hotels that are truly unique and exciting and where I’d never spend the money to stay, but I can use points to unlock something more luxurious than I’d ever pay the sticker price to get. To me, that’s exciting. But it’s not exciting to everyone — and if it doesn’t excite you, you’re not “wrong”. Most of my wife’s family plays golf and watches it on TV. I couldn’t imagine anything that would bore me more than to sit and watch golf, but they love it. They aren’t “wrong” to be excited and neither am I “wrong’ to find it boring. I don’t hold it against them when they talk about Rory McIlroy’s missed putt at the dinner table with excitement. It’s what they like. That’s fine. I’ll hop back in the conversation when it turns to basketball or football since those sports interest me more. Different strokes for different folks.
What I am trying to wrap my mind around here though is what Greg was asking about — what is it that you feel like our coverage is missing? FM has never extensively covered “travel”, so I’m not sure what you mean when you say that “the trip itself” was important in past coverage. I just don’t recall FM ever covering very much about “the trip itself”. We’ve always focused on earning miles/points, using miles/points to unlock great value, and some coverage of how we felt about redemptions (flight/hotel reviews). Sometimes, other great deals get covered that are tangentially related (like earning a great checking account bonus, which can unlock cash for times when you need to pay a cash rate or to buy points that you can redeem for more value than you paid for them). The times we focus on “the trip itself” tends to be when we run our challenges — then, there is a very heavy focus on the trip itself (but it sounds like you don’t like that as much?). Can you point me to an example of the type of thing we used to often focus on that we don’t now? I feel like our coverage has mostly expanded, so I’m trying to understand what you feel like we’re missing.
I just now scanned all of the things we’ve published this week so far. Keep in mind that today as I write this it is only Wednesday morning. Here are all of the headlines so far this week:
As you can see, we’ve covered everything from how to save on Choice & Wyndham paid stays to Cathay Pacific first class availability. There have been posts about promotions from hotel programs like Marriott and Hyatt, how you can save on a tool that makes it easier to follow your card-linked offers, a flash sale to get to Europe for fewer points and a temporary transfer bonus of as much as 100% to an airline program that provides lots of great award chart sweet spots. I’m not suggesting that we’ve covered everything there is to cover — we pretty constantly have a list of a dozen or more posts that we want to write/cover and we’re always adding to it and working through it. There hasn’t been much new this week on the credit card front, but last week we covered a card that newly picked up Pay Yourself Back, a new IHG bonus offer, and new temporary quarterly 5x-7x bonus categories on a number of cards. We’ve recently written more about the new US Bank Smartly card than I think you’ll find in most places and the Altitude Reserve is a card we’ve always trumpeted (including in our Coffee Break last week where we talked about what’s in our wallets) that barely ever got mentioned by most blogs.
I’m struggling to see the imbalance in coverage that you’re suggesting. I’d like to understand it better. Can you point me to posts you really loved or topics you think we’re leaving out?
I’ll note that you replied above as I was typing this, so you answered with some more detail already. Thank you.
Hey Nick, I appreciate the thoughtful response. Just to clarify—I’m not against SLH, and I do appreciate some coverage of them. My issue isn’t that you talk about SLH, it’s that every article I come across seems to be overwhelmingly glowing, as if they’re perfect. Like anything else, SLH properties have their flaws, but those don’t seem to get much attention.
What concerns me most is how much SLH influences FM’s view of the chain it partners with. When SLH was with Hyatt, Hyatt got a lot of praise. Now that it’s with Hilton, Hilton is suddenly getting a lot more positive coverage. While SLH is a great addition, it seems to overshadow the weaker areas where Hilton still struggles. FM’s take on Hilton feels noticeably more positive post-SLH, and that shift feels a little too rosy.
I’ll gladly look for some past articles that felt more exciting or relevant to me, but I have three different interviews over the next five hours, so I won’t be available the rest of the day. I’ll respond tonight or tomorrow when time allows. Just wanted to let you know so it doesn’t seem like I’m ignoring the request or unwilling to provide more context.
As for the “trip itself” part you mentioned, I was referring to the Million Mile Madness or the annual trip competition. I tend to avoid FM during those events because they come across as a little braggy and “influencerish.” This is coming from someone who flew business class to WA Maldives for eight days in 2021 for their honeymoon, stayed at Park Hyatt in 2023, and was planning a Japan trip before switching to a road trip with my wife and dog when our travel companions dropped out in October 2023. So it’s not that I dislike premium travel—it’s just that those challenges don’t interest me, yet take up a lot of blog time & space during them.
Thanks for the responses! I appreciate the conversation.
I totally get that you don’t like the challenges. Like Greg said, we hear from some people who don’t like them, but far more from people who love them. We enjoy doing them and the vast majority of feedback we get about them is very positive, so I’m sure we’ll continue to do them about once a year. Again, I get that they won’t appeal to everyone, but those challenges tend to produce useful “finds” that many folks have found valuable whether they even tuned in for the challenge or not — like the 7.5K United flights to Alaska/Hawaii (now 10K), the ability to use Chase points at 1.5cpp to book an airline like Norwegian over the phone, how to maximize the excursionist perk, how to stretch the ANA round the world chart, etc. Again, any one of those things (or perhaps all of them) may be irrelevant to you individually, but on the whole we’ve heard from a great number of people who have benefitted from them. But the good news is that the travel period of a challenge typically takes up 1-2 weeks out of 52 (last year was a notable exception with the million mile challenge — though I would argue that I personally learned a lot about using tools to find fare classes that I think could be valuable for anyone closing in on airline elite status, like the many folks who travel frequently for work and may find themselves within striking distance of achieving it). You may not enjoy hearing about those trips, but I think if you look at the wider outcome of challenges, there has been a lot of content that has nothing to do with the specific trip itself but rather focuses on how we look for opportunities, use tools, and find cool stuff.
Regarding SLH, I find it difficult to understand your perspective. Not the fact that you’ve had some less-than-stellar experiences. That makes sense. Every hotel chain on earth has its great properties and its mediocre ones. It doesn’t surprise me that some SLH properties could be a disappointment, and when I have one of those I’m sure I’ll cover it just like Greg did when he stayed at a disappointing property in Palm Beach: https://frequentmiler.com/chesterfield-hotel-palm-beach/. I think I’ve had at least a few disappointing stays with almost every chain.
When Hyatt first launched its partnership with SLH, I noted in several of my early posts that I wasn’t very excited because I didn’t particularly like the idea of boutique hotels. I said that I preferred a predictable experience of a nice, clean place to stay with good service and I didn’t want to “chance” it with boutique hotels. Over the years, my perspective has changed on that, largely based on the fact that my own SLH redemptions and more boutique-type redemptions with other chains have largely gone very, very well. In terms of “not covering its flaws”, I’m not sure what you want here — if my stays at SLH have largely been flawless, what am I to do? I can’t make up flaws I haven’t experienced. If I’m talking about my great stay at a Marriott property in Greece, is it relevant to mention my annoyance at how the Renaissance in Newark kept selling reservations despite a sign in the lobby noting a legionnaire’s disease outbreak? I didn’t think highly about that Renaissance, but is that experience relevant to my stay at Domes of Elounda in Crete (a Marriott property) that went swimmingly well? Does it influence my (positive) perspective of St. Regis properties? Not at all. And I know that there isn’t going to be a legionnaire’s disease outbreak at most Marriott hotels, so that “flaw”, which I actually noticed in advance by reading reviews and so I didn’t stay there, doesn’t seem particularly relevant to the overall conversation about Marriott in the same way that Greg’s kind of disappointing stay at an SLH in Florida a few years ago isn’t highly relevant to the overall conversation about SLH. Overall, the vast majority of SLH properties where I’ve stayed or considered staying (and where Greg has stayed) have had consistently excellent reviews across multiple sites. I’ve avoided ones that didn’t just like I would the Renaissance EWR (I haven’t been there in about a year at this point, so maybe that’s been resolved).
But what I don’t get is this: you recognize that we have had very positive experiences with SLH properties. You recognize that we found SLH to be a huge value-add for Hyatt. So when they lost it and Hilton picked it up and made those properties bookable with their (very easy to get) free night certificates and with the 5th night free on award redemptions, doesn’t it logically follow that it would make us far more excited about Hilton? I think the reason for not much excitement about Hilton for years has been that opportunities to get exciting value out of Hilton points have been few and far between, so most Hilton redemptions have been “average”. That is to say that whether you were staying at a Hilton Garden Inn or a Curio Collection property, you were mostly going to get the same value for your points. So there isn’t much interesting to say there. Earn points, use them for average value. I imagine that if I wrote a post about all of the Hilton Garden Inns where you can get 0.5cpp in value, nobody would find it interesting. That’s not because I wouldn’t stay at a Hilton Garden Inn — in fact I stayed at a couple during the Million Mile Madness challenge. But there’s nothing interesting to say about getting 0.5cpp at a Hilton Garden Inn. That’s the same reason why I didn’t write about my stay at the Hyatt Place Albany Downtown (Albany, NY) last year: it was a pretty average value for Hyatt points and it isn’t a destination most people have on their bucket list for travel. That didn’t make it a bad redemption, there’s just nothing much to say about it. On the contrary, my stay at the Park Hyatt Vienna in late 2023 was very notable — I got a huge suite that would have been far out of the budget otherwise, it enabled us to easily visit the Christmas markets (a bucket list sort of thing that wasn’t even remotely on my radar 15 years ago because it would never have seemed possible to me), and the property is gorgeous and service outstanding. To me, that’s more notable because it shows how an experience that feels “out of reach” can be within reach with this hobby. It isn’t to brag about how I stayed in a $3,000-a-night suite (or whatever it was) but rather to show why I bother expending the effort to earn the rewards — I want to get stuff that I couldn’t get without the hobby. And I understand that someone else might be in this hobby for a different type of win — maybe to get to a national park they never would have seen or to visit a relative in a distant part of the country or whatever the case may be. That’s great. By all means, use your points to do those things. But if I visit my cousins in Montana and stay at a hotel providing spot-on reasonable redemption value for the points, I imagine it would be a lot less interesting for readers to hear about how I used my Marriott points for 0.7cpp at a Residence Inn in Bozeman (making this up, no idea if there is really a Residence Inn there, but I do really have family in that area) than it will be for readers to hear about whether the $5K-per-night luxury SLH ranch in Montana is worth using Hilton free night certificates or points to visit.
So anyway, to come back from that tangent, if we recognize that we have had largely very positive experiences with SLH and we recognize that Greg and I found SLH to be a huge value add for Hyatt, does it not logically follow that we’d find that to be a huge value add if it went to Hilton, particularly given the relative ease of collecting uncapped Hilton free night certificates and points at an accelerated rate? Again, understood that *you* may be totally disinterested with SLH (and, again, I completely get it — I know plenty of people who wouldn’t care about SLH, though I know a lot more in this hobby who do — I see both sides of that coin). But based on our terrific experiences with it, does it not logically follow that we’d be excited about their partnership with Hilton? If they partnered with Marriott, does it not logically follow that we’d be far less interested because you probably wouldn’t be able to use free night certificates and points costs would probably be 200K points per night, as we’ve seen at some Marriotts this week?
Again, I recognize that you may have had some subpar experiences with SLH. I’m sure that was disappointing. But our enthusiasm for SLH is because our experiences have largely been far at the other end. And we’re excited about getting more of those. I’m particularly excited about being able to get some of those things with my family — not to brag about how awesome it is, but to show that it is possible to travel with a family of four to “exotic” locations. I one thousand percent understand that few people enjoy the flexibility to travel as much as we do, but I’m not trying to suggest that you take as many trips as we do but rather hopefully showing how each one is done so that you (the reader in general) can see that it is possible and make whatever trip it is that you have in mind happen.
Apart from our difference of opinion on SLH, I look forward to hearing more about the kind of posts you have found more useful and interesting for you in the past. Good luck with the interviews!
Meh, another comment that starts with “you guys don’t cover exactly the topics I’m most interested in” and ends with “so you must be on the make”.
Furthermore, your comment is internally inconsistent. You start by talking about how travel should be about “experiences” and then complain that the blog features (what you feel to be) disproportinate coverage of independent, experience-focused (SLH) hotels over chains. It does not seem to have occured to you that maybe the people writing about those hotels actually like them better because they provide a superior travel experience? And, liking those hotels better is it not correct and expected to see Hilton get more favorable coverage when taking over SLH, especially considering the generous terms under which you can book those hotels using Hilton points and certificates? If anything, the FM team would be opening themselves to criticism if they suddenly stopped liking SLH when they moved from one program to another.
There are plenty of places to go for “pure” travel (not miles and points) content. The irony is that those blogs and social media accounts are rife with “sponsored content” and “gifted stays”.
For the record, I agree with you that travel should be about experiences and a slavish dedication to using points — especially for hotels — can be detrimental to my preferred way of traveling. That doesn’t mean that I don’t get tremendous value out of points and miles as well. I come to the points and miles blog to get information about . . . points and miles.
I’d push back a bit on this, too.
As a long-time FM reader (and podcast listener, and YouTube follower), while I have noticed increasing criticism of WOH (and concomitant praise for Hilton, principally around SLH), it doesn’t come across as nefarious or informed by ulterior motives or anything like that to me. I think SLH was a pretty big get for Hilton, and most/all of WOH’s moves lately have been somewhere between meh and bad (MMS, all the AI’s, Under Canvas, Category 8, etc). Anecdotally, I was sitting on hundreds of thousands of HH points for a couple years, and was burning my Aspire FNC’s on stay-cations (which I personally don’t value that high) because I hadn’t found anything more valuable/interesting to do with them vis-a-vis WOH redemptions, until SLH. And I probably wouldn’t have thought to check SLH after the WOH-HH switch, had these guys not kept it on my radar.
When comparing programs against each other, it just makes sense to note footprints and FNC ease of use, which has nothing to do with extracting every last CPP, so I’m kind of with Greg and Nick re: being unsure what to make of this criticism. For the average person, I’d guess those factors matter way more than CPP formulas, and since those are the biggest differences re: SLH’s switch, shouldn’t they be pointing that out? I’d also believe it comes up reasonably frequently on their own trips, so why wouldn’t they comment on that when it does?
Shifting back to the WOH critiques, MMS really is a pretty poor SLH replacement. Again, anecdotally, I’ve stayed at MMS properties twice now; once to burn the gift cards WOH sold a couple years ago, and once for one night mostly to check it off for Brand Explorer. Both were … fine. I’d go back to both properties, but I wouldn’t pay the WOH upcharge to do so more expensively than booking direct. Also, they were solo trips, so I didn’t care as much re: Globalist benefits. If it was a family trip, stuff like free breakfast and upgrades matter more. That’s a fair criticism of WOH, irrespective of any CPP factors.
To the extent Greg and Nick have ever got “too CPP” for me, it’s probably Nick’s irrational defense of Avianca LifeMiles (I kid), or in their semi annual argument over what counts as “free” travel and getting hyper-granular on acquisition costs of various points versus cash back. But that’s my issue, not theirs, and I suspect that content is very popular with its audience. I’m probably just bad at math, and I’m ok with that, haha.
As for all the challenge content, I’d think that would be exactly the sort of “experience” stuff you’d want? They always point out “of course no one travels like this but for an artificial points/miles blog challenge; the point is to find tips/tricks that may be useful for readers” and I think they have demonstrated being quite good at that. Would a regular person ever do a 15-airlines-in-9-days thing? Obviously not (though I think it’d be fun to try and solve that puzzle). But the comments were full of “how-to-find-last-minute-availability” and “how-to-find-airport-pairs” type stuff, and that is useful. The prior one involved breakdowns of how helpful the Ritz Carlton Santiago staff were (and the breakfast spread), and a crazy Airbnb property in SE Asia, and an awesome food tour deal, and a really cool street art thing for Carrie, chefy foodie stuff for Greg, etc etc, none of which had anything to do with CPP, and all of which were heavy on the “experiences”, particularly for a website that isn’t explicitly a travel blog. Same deal with using Turkish to book United, etc. Tons of practical advice gets mined in those things.
Ultimately, I think you’re right that it’s been a dry couple of years in the points/miles world, where most of the news/changes were kinda bad (ironically, the big exception here is probably SLH to Hilton, but I digress). But that’s not FM’s fault, and it’s kind of odd that you’d zero in on them highlighting one of the more obvious examples of a previously mid program (Hilton) getting more flexible/valuable in a specific use case as a criticism against that backdrop.
But I’m just another internet stranger, so …
I’m a Hyatt Globalist and loyalist. I have loved a lot about Hyatt but I’m not blind to the fact that the vast majority of non-Covid changes over the past five years has been bad for loyal members. I won’t go through the laundry list but taken as a whole it’s not pretty. Hyatt increasingly seems disinterested in what I as a very loyal customer want from the chain (hint – it’s not more al-inclusives).
Ever since I earned globalist for the first time several years ago, they’ve gone downhill, to the point at didn’t bother requalifying this year. Focus on AIs and low end HP, devals, dynamic pricing, Rare suite upgrades, the business card I tro was garbage, etc. Disappointment after disappointment. I’m going free agent now.
This was intentional, they aren’t going to fix it.
I totally understand the logic behind wanting to be team Hyatt but I find their award program to lack a lot of common sense while also trying to be the most elite hotel brand. It’s quirky/odd and makes it not worth my time.
Like Marriott, Hyatt revenues are at record levels. Indeed, they are 33 percent higher than the pre-COVID high. Like Marriott, disaffected loyalty program members don’t move the revenue needle. Hyatt is not going to fix anything. Hyatt has no reason to not follow Marriott’s 1) path to dynamic pricing system-wide and 2) erosion of tier status benefits. Accept it and have a Plan B.
Marriott is still >5x larger than Hyatt. Marriott’s secret sauce is their size, and why they can get away with their shenanigans (think Amazon). Whereas I believe Hyatt’s success & growth has a lot to do with their top of class loyalty program. If their loyalty program continues to diminish, I predict their loyal fanbase will begin to look in other directions.
You predict . . . it’s already started.