Hyatt’s confirmable suite upgrades for Diamond members were new in 2010 and they did take a little while to figure out some of the wrinkles. At first the suite upgrades, which ‘expire’ February 28, had to be used by the expiration date.

But that left requalifying Diamonds in an interesting pickle. They wouldn’t be receiving ‘new’ suite upgrade certificates (with expiration in February, 2012) until the new member year. Hyatt doesn’t award these when a member requalifies, they do a sweep each year to award them. So Diamonds who wanted to book early for stays past February 28 could not use these certificates. That turned into a strange incentive to wait and not make bookings. That’s clearly not what was intended, and there’s not any reason why there ought to be a gap in the usefulness of confirmed suite upgrades. So Hyatt revised the rules.

Now you just have to apply suite upgrades before they expire. So you can book a reservation now for stays long after February 2011 and use current year confirmable suite upgrade instruments.

And in fact, you don’t even have to be a Diamond at the time of the stay — current Diamond members with expiring suite upgrades who will not requalify for Diamond status can make bookings now and confirm their suites for next year. They won’t be Diamonds anymore at the time of the stay, but the suite upgrade will still apply.

Good move by Hyatt. It took a little ‘getting there’ to figure it all out, but they’ve made an excellent decision from the member perspective.

Now that Starwood is out with their first quarter promo (and Marriott has brought back free nights earning via MegaBonus, albeit with capped free nights earning), and even Hilton has a bonus promo for early next year… it’s time for Hyatt to jump on the bandwagon. Free nights would be nice… (Forever greedy, I feel bad for managers of these programs sometimes, they give us great benefits and that just leads us to ask for more!).