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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