Hyatt purchased Miraval not because they wanted a standalone wellness resort, but because they want to extend the brand and create an association with wellness across their hotels. They purchased Exhale spas as part of the same strategy.

The chain believes that they can be a lifestyle brand, that you’ll want to inhale their vibe even when you’re not staying at their hotels and that you’ll choose their hotels and pay a premium because you associate them with rejuvenating your life.

Integrating Exhale Spas into Hyatt

Hyatt’s head of loyalty is also in charge of this integration. World of Hyatt is supposed to be a ‘platform’ for this kind of integration, so it makes sense that Hyatt has hired ex-Starwood executives to run it considering that Starwood was singularly successful at branding a sense of cool and luxury beyond the individual features of their properties.

At the end of 2017 Hyatt offered Exhale spa discounts to members. Then at the beginning of 2018 they offered bonus points for classes, treatments, and memberships.

New Hyatt Earn, Burn, and Elite Benefits With Exhale

Earlier efforts amounted to ‘getting their feet wet’ and today they’ve rolled out Exhale Spa benefits as a feature of the World of Hyatt program.

Here are the basics:

• Earning: 10 Base Points per eligible dollar spent at participating Exhale locations. That’s double the earning rate for Hyatt hotels. And elite bonuses apply (10% Discoverist, 20% Explorist, 30% Globalist). In addition Exhale spa spend counts as Hyatt spend for credit card bonus earning.

• Redemption: 2000 points for a fitness class, 12,000 points for a 60 minute massage or a 60 minute facial.

• Elite benefits: Explorists and Globalists receive a free Week of Wellbeing — unlimited fitness classes and retail and spa discounts. In addition Globalists receive free access classes when staying at Hyatt properties.

To take advantage of Exhale benefits and points-earning members need to link their Hyatt and Exhale accounts.

Not All Exhales Fully Participate

There are two Exhale locations in private residences. Residents there can earn points, but there’s no redemption, and non-residents don’t have access. The Exhale Spa locations in Centurion lounges (currently Dallas Fort-Worth and Miami) do not participate. And Exhale Bermuda is excluded as well.

Exhale Spa in the Old Centurion Lounge, Dallas Fort-Worth

Fully participating locations are Atlanta; Atlantic City; Back Bay; Bal Harbour; Battery Wharf; Bridgehampton; Central Park South; Chicago; Dallas; Downtown Miami; Gramercy; Flatiron; Meatpacking; Santa Monica; South Beach; Stamford; Turks & Caicos; Upper East Side.

This is largely a New York-focused chain with presence in destinations reachable from New York and by New Yorkers, as well as Chicago, Dallas, and Miami.

How to Benefit From the Program

In order to use the program connect your Hyatt account and your Exhale account. (If you don’t have an Exhale account, you’ll be prompted to create one.) Then you can redeem points for classes and spa treatments. You’ll receive a credit for the redemption in your Exhale account.

• Your next class, 60-minute massage, or 60-minute facial gets covered by the credit.
  
• Spa credits are valid up to a year and class credits are valid up to a month.

If you want to redeem points for someone else, you’ll first need to transfer points from your Hyatt account to theirs, and then they can use the points with their own linked Exhale account.

Once you link your account, points-earning for qualifying spend will be automatic and points should show up in your Hyatt account within 5 business days.

Here’s what spend doesn’t count for points-earning:

taxes, gratuities, purchases of gift cards, Exhale on Demand fees, customized third-party events, any spend (including for teacher training) for activities at Excluded Exhale Locations (even if purchased via Exhale), and purchases made through third parties (including without limitation ClassPass, Gilt, RueLaLa, MB Connect, and Spa Finder).

Using Elite Benefits and Leveraging Redemptions

There are some decent redemptions. Usually redeeming for this other than room nights offers poor value on a per-point basis. However redeeming 2000 points for a $30 class will get 1.5 cents per point, about what a Hyatt point is worth. You can do better though.

Hour-long treatments are fixed at 12,000 points for massages and facials. Different locations have a variety of treatments and price points and Hyatt says that this redemption covers any 60 minute facial or massage. So whether it’s a $140 or $155 hour-long massage at the Exhale Spa in Turks & Caicos or a $245 facial that qualifies. You can do better than 2 cents per point at the top end of Exhale pricing.

Free classes for Globalists are not transferable. So if you’re staying at the Park Hyatt New York and want a spouse to take a class, they cannot. It’s only for the member themselves. Hyatt tells me,

Globalist members will simply need to call the location to book the class they plan on attending. Upon check in at Exhale, they will be asked to validate that they’re a Globalist member and currently staying at a Hyatt hotel.

Week of Wellness is transferable. So Explorists and Globalists can give that to someone else. In addition Hyatt says they “will be offering gifts to targeted members for a one-time free fitness class, which is transferrable.”

Will I Use This?

Goodness knows I could use the fitness classes when staying at Hyatt! I started working with a personal trainer twice a week a couple of years ago. I’ve certainly gotten more active. On the road I don’t carve out that time. Unfortunately I’m busiest when I’m in DC, and there are no Exhales there.

Then again if my challenge is getting time in the gym on the road I’m not sure I’d go to another location when the hotel gym itself presents a challenge.

Still there are some decent redemption options, points-earning for those that would use Exhale locations anyway is fantastic, so there’s really nothing not to like here. The limited footprint of the Exhale chain though keeps this only marginally relevant for many.