Hyatt Gold Passport is adjusting the hotels that are in their different reward categories effective August 1.
As always you can book hotels now at the old prices to lock in savings for properties which are going up in category, and you should generally be able to get a refund starting August 1 for reservations in the future that were made at higher category prices for those properties that are going down.
While a hotel’s reward category determines how much money the hotel receives for a cash and points award night, it doesn’t determine how much money Gold Passport pays the hotel for a standard points redemption night (instead, that’s determined by the hotel’s average daily room rate for the year).
Hyatt wants to generally align a hotel’s category — and thus the number of points that a hotel costs members — with the hotel’s rates. That way it recovers more of the cost when members use points for a hotel night. And that way a hotel is better-incentivized to release rooms for cash and points awards, since those are capacity controlled.
This year’s changes are not bad at all for members in my opinion. Some people won’t like to see specific hotels getting more expensive, but I’m a fan of several of the properties that are getting less expensive. Overall 50 hotels go up in category and 56 hotels go down in category. That’s about 16% of the total Hyatt hotel portfolio which is either going up or down.
- The trend the past several years has been to increase the points prices of the most the expensive hotels. Hyatt’s category adjustments this year go in the opposite direction, focusing increases on the least expensive hotels. Of the 50 hotels going up in category, 18 of those are currently category 1 properties and 24 are currently category 2 properties.
- And yet there are more category 1 hotels than before, not fewer, as 36 hotels drop from category 2 to category 1.
- Only one hotel goes up 2 categories, the Hyatt Place Asheville Downtown which goes from category 1 to category 3. One hotel goes down 2 categories, Hyatt Centric South Beach Miami which goes from 6 to 4 (a real win).
- There are only four new category 5 hotels and no new caegory 6s or 7s.
Hopefully the Hyatt Regency San Francisco as a new category 5 will be willing to stop playing games with its standard room award inventory.
Hyatt Regency San Francisco
The Grand Hyatt DFW attached to terminal D goes up one category. The Grand is a phenomenal property, though I still choose on convenience between it and the Regency across from terminal C (arriving and departing from C, and with an event in the bar at the Regency, I chose to stay there rather than the Grand last month).
Entrance from Terminal to Grand Hyatt DFW
View form the Hyatt Regency DFW
The Grand Hyatt Incheon at category 2 was too good a value. On the other hand dropping Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur to category 3 is fantastic, that’s one of my favorite hotels! It has awesome views of the Petronas Towers, modern rooms, a fantastic staff, and a really great club lounge.
And the outstanding Park Hyatt Chennai, the least expensive Park Hyatt in the world with wonderful service and complimentary room service breakfast for Diamonds, drops down to category 1. The excellent spa there has prices around US$40 per hour. The hotel will cost just 5000 points per night, or 8000 points in a suite.
Suite at the Park Hyatt Chennai
Pool at the Park Hyatt Chennai
Here are the hotels going up in category:
| Current | New | |||
| Hotel Name | Category | Category | ||
| Hyatt House Dallas/Frisco | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt House Dallas/Lincoln Park | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt House Dallas/Uptown | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt House Denver/Lakewood at Belmar | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Augusta | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Buffalo/Amherst | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Champaign | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Corpus Christi | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Dallas/Grapevine | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Nashville/Franklin/Cool Springs | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Nashville/Hendersonville | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place North Charleston | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Sacramento/Roseville | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Salt Lake City Airport | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Santiago/Vitacura | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Savannah Airport | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Suites Atlanta Northwest | 1 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Place Asheville Downtown | 1 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Amman | 2 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Chengdu | 2 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Incheon | 2 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Santiago | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Atlanta/Downtown | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Belmont/Redwood Shores | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Boston/Waltham | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Emeryville/San Francisco Bay Area | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Falls Church/Merrifield | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Naples/5th Avenue | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Pleasanton | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House San Diego/Sorrento Mesa | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House San Juan | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt House Santa Clara | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place Chicago South University | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place Fort Worth Historic Stockyards | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place Garden City | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place Houston/The Woodlands | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place Mohegan Sun | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place Portland Airport | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Place San Juan/City Center | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Dallas | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency SF Airport | 2 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Valencia | 2 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt DFW | 3 | 4 | ||
| Hyatt Place Dewey Beach | 3 | 4 | ||
| Hyatt Place Nashville Downtown | 3 | 4 | ||
| Hyatt Regency McCormick Place | 3 | 4 | ||
| Hyatt Centric Park City | 4 | 5 | ||
| Hyatt Centric The Loop Chicago | 4 | 5 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson | 4 | 5 | ||
| Hyatt Regency San Francisco | 4 | 5 |
Here are the hotels going down in category:
| Current | New | |||
| Hotel Name | Category | Category | ||
| Hyatt Ahmedabad | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Amritsar | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Bangalore | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt House Gaithersburg | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt House Mt. Laurel | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Hyderabad | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Albuquerque/Uptown | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Ciudad del Carmen | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Dallas/Arlington/Grand Prairie | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place El Paso Airport | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Fredericksburg UMW | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place La Paz | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Los Cabos | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Mt. Laurel | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Phoenix Chandler-Fashion Center | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Phoenix/Gilbert | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Phoenix-Mesa | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Pittsburgh Airport | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Pittsburgh/Cranberry | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place San Antonio North/Stone Oak | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Tempe/Phoenix Airport | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Pune | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Raipur | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Ahmedabad | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Chandigarh | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Changchun | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Chennai | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Chongqing | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Dulles | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Fairfax | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Guiyang | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Gurgaon | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Kolkata | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Ludhiana | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Tianjin East | 2 | 1 | ||
| Park Hyatt Chennai | 2 | 1 | ||
| Hyatt Place Secaucus/Meadowlands | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Belgrade | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Delhi | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Ekaterinburg | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Mumbai | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Pune | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Qingdao | 3 | 2 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Thessaloniki | 3 | 2 | ||
| Park Hyatt Hyderabad | 3 | 2 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur | 4 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Lijiang | 4 | 3 | ||
| Grand Hyatt Mumbai | 4 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Baku | 4 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Changbaishan | 4 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Houston/Galleria | 4 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Perth | 4 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort | 4 | 3 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort | 5 | 4 | ||
| Hyatt Regency Sochi | 5 | 4 | ||
| Hyatt Centric South Beach Miami | 6 | 4 |
Hyatt Centric South Beach dropping to Cat 4 and thus available for credit card free night redemption… theoretically… is a nice move for what has been (IMO) a somewhat disappointing hotel.
Any word on category changes for the Andaz brand? Specifically Hyatt Papago Costa Rica?
I’ve an existing reservation for GH Kaula Lumpur in December using cash+points. Since this property is dropping from category 4 to category 3, do I need to rebook to avail the change or would Hyatt will automatically adjust (and refund) the points back to me. Any insight? Thanks.