Service Properties Trust, which owns 329 hotels across numerous brands, has had disputes with IHG and Marriott and is transitioning those properties to Sonesta Hotels where it’s a one-third owner. Hotel chains often guarantee minimum revenue to property owners, and Service Properties Trust had a dispute over those payments.
Hyatt hasn’t refused to make payment, but has reached its full $50 million guarantee on the 22 hotels under its Hyatt Place brand owned by the company. That gives Hyatt the right to terminate its agreement with 90 days’ notice. Hyatt sent this notice of termination which is effective April 8, 2021.
The hotel chain and property owner are in discussions over changes to the management agreement, but if no agreement is reached the following hotels will be reflagged as Sonesta properties:
- Hyatt Place Tempe Phoenix Airport
- Hyatt Place Tucson Airport
- Hyatt Place Colorado Springs Garden Of Gods
- Hyatt Place Orlando Airport Northwest
- Hyatt Place Atlanta Airport South
- Hyatt Place Atlanta Duluth Gwinnett Mall
- Hyatt Place Atlanta Cobb Galleria
- Hyatt Place Fort Wayne
- Hyatt Place Indianapolis Airport
- Hyatt Place Kansas City Overland Park Convention Center
- Hyatt Place Detroit Utica
- Hyatt Place Kansas City Airport
- Hyatt Place Charlotte Airport Lake Pointe
- Hyatt Place Mount Laurel
- Hyatt Place Columbus Dublin
- Hyatt Place Nashville Northeast
- Hyatt Place Austin North Central
- Hyatt Place Dallas North
- Hyatt Place El Paso Airport
- Hyatt Place San Antonio Riverwalk
- Hyatt Place Chantilly Dulles Airport South
- Hyatt Place Sterling Dulles Airport North
The Hyatt Place brand currently includes about 385 hotels worldwide. Losing 22 in the U.S. would be a hit to a chain that’s so much smaller than Marriott, Hilton, and IHG. However losing Hyatt Place properties seems almost inconsequential at this point since there are few benefits for World of Hyatt elites who stay there. There are no club lounges and Suite upgrades aren’t valid at these properties. Free full breakfast is no longer even part of the brand’s standard for all guests.
(HT: Loyalty Lobby)
Hopefully they can replace them with Captions if they go
Inconsequential as it relates to benefits, but consequential for people who rely on stays at any of those locations for earning/maintaining status.
Considering that the only commonly mentioned weakness of Hyatt’s loyalty program is its small footprint, losing any of their properties is unlikely to be “almost inconsequential.” By your logic – focusing on elite benefits exclusively – if Hyatt lost all of its Houses, this wouldn’t have much of an impact on the loyalty program. I’m not a Globalist, but I imagine many of them build up their nights in Hyatt Places on occasion.
This is a big deal for leisure/senior travelers such as myself who value the idea of a decent breakfast and a comfortable suite at a lower price. The fact that not all guests get the free breakfast seems a bit irrelevant–if you jump the hoops of reserving through the Hyatt website, you get it for free. I hope an agreement can be found to keep these properties onboard.
Having stayed at the Hyatt Place KC Airport, I can only say that the brand will be better off without that property. It was obviously a conversion, and it was cheaply done.
I kind of hope they do get pushed out. There are some nice Hyatt Place properties out there, especially in the Chicagoland area and internationally; these are not nice properties and they lower the brand’s value.
There are a lot of former Amerisuites properties in this list (I can confirm all of the GA ones were former Amerisuites) so while bad for number of hotels, this could be a massive upgrade in the average for Hyatt Place.
I’ll second jamesb2147. I’ve stayed at the KC airport, Detroit Utica, Indianapolis airport, and Fort Wayne and these are all among the worst Hyatt Place properties in the country. It’s a loss to lose some cheap redemptions, but these properties were all sorely lacking in terms of condition. I can only imagine they’ve gotten worse over the past 12 months.
Sounds like this is Hyatt going back to the negotiating table and wanting to guarantee less. Makes sense. We had to pause a couple of our limited service hotel projects.
Not everyone has deep pockets or expense accounts. As “hp12c” said above, there are members who either *need* to stay at a Hyatt Place out of economic necessity, or they do so as a (relatively) inexpensive way to add to their total night annual stay. Thus, this will indeed be consequential to many.
Sonesta is, it seems, quickly enlarging the number of properties, and the question is “Can they handle it?”
Recently stayed at my first Hyatt Place. Usually I stay at Park Hyatts/Andaz/Grand Hyatt. While I wouldn’t select a hyatt place over those other brands I quite enjoyed it for what it was. Free breakfast was not difficult to get.
Not sure the mount laurel, nj one would leave Hyatt as it is literally a 1 minute drive from the candle wood suites that they just rebranded as a sonesta. Since Hyatt is initiating this rather then the other way around I am less inclined to see these properties leave the Hyatt profile.
I agree with Jeff and Jamesb2147 about the Indiana hotels leaving. I had to stop using the Fort Wayne hotel as the internet was non-functional twice, and as a top tier I got a top floor room with an adjoining door allowing hearing every word of phone calls made in the next room. The Indy airport hotel I like, but compared to the Mishawaka and Bloomington locations both losses are on the simple side. And the airport revamp years ago leaves this one far from the new terminal. Great shuttle driver who has to drive with one arm. But had to be careful on points bookings if they were tentative as they would forget to cancel and charges would appear (twice, long ago). Still, I’d always rather see more options than less.
As for Sonesta, try searching for their options in a single city on their website. You get the hotels but not the pricing. Have to price individually. And a phone app? I can’t find one. Their perks? Not amazing. Book a points night? You have to email them via the website and wait for a confirmation!! Yes, really! I use them only as they have some Res Inn and Staybridge properties I have liked, but otherwise no way.
Agreed with hp12c. I never had to chase status explicitly, but I had been looking at Phoenix Airport in late 2020 with their long-term rates near $52 / night, just in case it was necessary to maintain 60 nights last year.
I’m not going to miss the Colorado Springs property as it is dated and nothing special
The Courtyard Seatle Bellevue/Redmond already converted to Sonesta. We had some stays last year at $59/night rates.
The Hyatt place in Fairbanks ak is the most unprofessional hotel that I have worked in. maintenance engineer for 30yrs. The property management company named northwestern by Southern hospitality is the worst that runs the hotels in alaska