tl;dr – I’m choosing to move forward, are you with me?
We’re a few weeks removed from the big World of Hyatt award changes. Since then, we’ve also seen world-class gaslighting and another slap in the face from our friends at Chase. With all that said, I wanted to highlight some changes I’d love to see come to Hyatt – both the chain itself and its loyalty program. Most of these seem rather easy to implement, and since Hyatt’s goal is the ecosystem surrounding its loyalty program, putting some of these suggestions into motion might help do so. If this reads like wishful thinking, well…a lot of it is. Let’s begin.
Globalist Annual Points Bonus
Hyatt, for my money, has long been a leader amongst its peers in treating its top-tier elites well. Why not drop a splash of points into every Globalist’s account, once they qualify (or requalify)? 10K seems fair. Let’s go ahead and break off 5K for Explorists while we’re at it.
Refresh Credit Card with Higher Sign-Up Bonuses
Hyatt wants to make more money from its co-branded credit card. A good way to entice people to get the card – and as a result join the Hyatt ecosystem – is to increase that sign-up bonus. The person card usually offers a 60K sign-up bonus, and the highest ever business card welcome bonus has been 80K. Move them both to 100K, Hyatt. At this point, with the new award chart values, that’s only fair. And despite those new values, one can, if they are savvy, still do a lot of damage with those 100,000 World of Hyatt points.
Allow Higher Thresholds on Buying Points
I know a lot of folks feel otherwise, but I personally find World of Hyatt points hard to come by. Hyatt partners with Chase for its credit card, and you can transfer both Ultimate Rewards and Bilt points to Hyatt. I’m not a Bilt cardholder, though I am both a personal and business World of Hyatt Visa cardholder, and I have some Chase UR cards. As mentioned above, the Chase:Hyatt transfer rate just got slashed.
Even still, I find myself relying on buying Hyatt points to reap outsized redemption value for stays. As such, I’d love it if I could buy more points each year. You’re capped at 55,000 (not factoring in any bonuses), and with the new award chart, that frankly, isn’t close to enough for grabbing the points one might need for a stay at a higher-tiered property. That cap feels out of date. How about an even 100K per year? Which brings me to my next point.
Offer Bigger Discounts on Points Sales
Hyatt regularly sells points with a bonus (or at a discount), usually at either 20% or 25%. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a 30% discount. If you’re eyeing a redemption where buying points makes sense (to arbitrage them), I’d love to see some snappier deals on purchasing points. Let’s get crazy and throw a 30%, 35%, or heck – even 40% purchase bonus deal in there.
Revamp Milestone Awards to include Category Free Night Awards 1-7s and Ultimate Free Night Awards
With Hyatt’s current Brand Explorer program, members receive a category 1-4 Free Night Award for every five nights they stay. With the latest award changes, I’m valuing category 1-4s Free Night Awards a bit less. To be fair, that’s not entirely because of the award chart changes; it’s also simply because the number of 1-4 properties I find compelling has decreased. However, a 1-7 FNA? I would find that pretty enticing. How about 1-7 FNA for every 10 brands you stay at on Brand Explorer?
And when you complete the Brand Explorer? Why not hook a member up with an Ultimate Free Night Award? As of this writing, Hyatt has 37 brands, and it’s not unreasonable to think it will alter in some way (more brands, consolidation). So let’s say this – you hit 30, or even 35 different brands, you receive an Ultimate Free Night Award. After all, you’ve more than showed your dedication and loyalty to Hyatt’s program if you’ve stayed at 30 different brands.
Expand Category 1-4 Free Night Awards to Include Category 5
This one needs to happen. If we’re living in a world in which Hyatt is OK with making a Hyatt House a Category 6 property (cough, Tokyo Shibuya), then I’m going to politely request that you stop playing in my face, Hyatt.
We need to stop the madness, stop the cap. Let’s give a bit of value back to the members and increase the lowest category Free Night Award by one category. Now, 1-5 properties can be booked with a base level Free Night Award. What say you?
Create a Few Brand Guarantees / Brand Standards Members Can Rely On
On that same note about ‘giving a bit of value back’, how about we add some consistency to that in the form of a guarantee? Hyatt obviously cares a lot about its precious award chart, and I think Hyatt should put more rules in there, not less. Here’s along the lines of what I’m thinking:
“A Grand Hyatt will never be higher than a Category 6 property.”
“The highest possible category for a Hyatt Regency will be Category 5.”
You get the point.
This actually serves a dual purpose. As Hyatt marches toward its 40th brand, this will help to delineate and characterize what certain brands offer, how they are positioned, and how they differ from other brands in the portfolio. Secondly, it normalizes award redemption values with the idea of luxury, something Hyatt leadership has said it’s all in on.
Introduce a New ‘True’ Luxury Brand, Possibly Through Acquisition
I’ve written a bit about this before, but I believe that Hyatt’s recent changes are not the be-all end-all when it comes to change for the chain. I just have the feeling something bigger is amidst. To me, there’s long been a gap in the chain’s portfolio between its top-tier luxury brand – Park Hyatt – and everything else. The Unbound Collection is a bit all over the place. Atona (as of this writing) locations aren’t open yet, and they’ll all be in Japan, anyway. Alila has fewer than 20 locations worldwide, and it doesn’t seem that Hyatt is in a rush to grow this brand.
Word on the street is that Hyatt really values its Park Hyatt label, so any luxury\ acquisition would likely be a brand that it can (at least in theory) argue sits beneath or, at the very maximum, alongside the Park Hyatt (as opposed to upending it.)
Again, I’ve written a good deal about this here, but if Hyatt’s seeking a chain with only one (or two) subbrands in its envelope, Rosewood is most intriguing. Auberge, Pan Pacific, might make sense as well. Shangri-La might work, but some reports indicate the chain is struggling, and it’s very much a property-by-property situation.
If Hyatt’s looking to make a portfolio-defining move that could significantly increase its ability to rival large players like Marriott, Hilton, and IHG, then it needs to look no further than Minor Hotels. Anantara slots right in under the Park Hyatt brand, and Hyatt even gets a real safari collection in Elewana, luxury safari properties that wouldn’t be unrealistic like those of the Mr & Mrs Smith portfolio.
And then there’s my least favorite marketing saying that Hyatt loves so much – lifestyle. Here, Nobu Hospitality could exit for the right price.
For a variety of reasons, the following brands either don’t make sense or I’d flat out be very unenthused if Hyatt acquired them: Peninsula, Langham, Sonesta, Omni Hotels, Lowes, AKA (lol).
Redeem Four Nights, Get the Fifth Free
This is pretty much an industry standard for the bigger chains, in that Marriott and Hilton both offer it to all members. IHG offers a fourth-night-free benefit, a perk exclusive to select IHG credit cardholders. Hyatt is behind the ball on this one and could catch up with a simple flip of the switch. Redeem four nights and get the fifth free. Let’s do it, Hyatt.
More Frequent Transfer Bonuses with Hyatt’s Current Partners
With the recent Chase:Hyatt transfer devaluation, I doubt this will happen. (Bilt, where you at?) But a guy can dream. It’d be great to see transfer bonuses from Bilt and Chase to Hyatt, similar to how Marriott and Hilton often have them with their transfer partners. Again, not likely but also relatively simple.
Increase the Hyatt Spend Earn Rate on Hyatt Credit Cards and Be Consistent About What Counts as Spend
Hyatt, you’d obviously need to work with your banking partner Chase on this but I’ve always felt that you’re a bit stingy when it comes to earning points for spend at Hyatt stays. The World of Hyatt consumer card earns 4X, which isn’t terrible but I’d love to see that upticked a bit. More importantly though (and I’d honestly settle for this), I’d love to see portfolio wide uniformity on what qualifies as spend (particularly for food and beverage properties) at all Hyatt properties. There’s been far too much inconsistency over the years and removing the guessing game is an easy way to show some value and restore trust for Hyatt members.
Allow for a One Category Top Off of 1-4 and 1-7 Free Night Awards
Another one that is arguably an industry standard. Both Marriott and IHG offer members the ability to ‘top off’ free night certificates. With Marriott, you can add up to 25,000 points from your account to top off a Free Night Award. For example, a 35k certificate can be used for rooms costing up to 60k points, and an 85k certificate (from premium cards) can be used for rooms up to 110k points. You can easily apply this top-up when booking your Marriott Bonvoy Awards. IHG allows top-ups with additional points (or points and cash) to book properties exceeding the standard point limit.
Hilton’s loyalty program is a bit different – certificates are valid for any standard room as long as there is award availability.
Hyatt offers no such ability, so if you’re sitting with a 1-4 award or a 1-7 award and want to book a property that is just out of reach, you can’t. And that sucks. I’m proposing that Hyatt allows members to pay a ‘points upgrade’, maybe 7500 or 10,000 World of Hyatt points, allowing members to extend that Free Night Award by one category.
Above, I previously suggested changing 1-4 awards to 1-5 awards, so this proposal would, of course, be tweaked if that were ever to come to fruition.
Allow for the Use of Multiple Awards on One Booking
Finally, Hyatt should allow members to use more than one award on a given booking. At present, you can’t combine Free Night Awards with Suite Upgrades or Club Access Awards. And frankly, for folks who really only have the ability to travel one or a few times a year, that sucks. Hyatt – you should let people live the dream (whatever that word means to you) while they’re on vacation. Let them relax. I’m open to there being some reasonable rules put in place here, but it does feel like if I can use an award while redeeming for a stay on points, I should also be able to do that when using a Free Night Award.
Come on, Hyatt, don’t let me down.
