Hyatt Place’s Ongoing Breakfast Test: Will $14 Charges Replace Free Morning Meals?

Hyatt ended free, full breakfast at Hyatt Place properties as a brand standard guarantee during the pandemic.

They dropped the requirement that you book direct to get breakfast, but also started charging non-elite guests for breakfast at some properties as a test. I hadn’t realized until recently that – four years later – this test continues, with the future of free Hyatt Place breakfast still uncertain.

This sign was posted in the elevator at the Hyatt Place Sacramento / Roseville: new reservations by non-elite guests are charged $11 for breakfast:

At some properties that are part of this test it’s only $8, while I’ve seen it reported that in Portland it’s $14.

In fall 2020 Hyatt launched a test at 20 properties. I asked Hyatt about their plan for Hyatt Place breakfast going forward and they shared,

[O]ver the last few years, we have continually evolved the Hyatt Place breakfast experience to care for our most valued guests.

Leading with a test and learn approach, and with care and creativity in mind, we are embracing the Hyatt Place brand spirit of experimentation and responding to guest and member feedback, as well as evolving global market considerations as we test around Hyatt Place breakfast.

As we focus to reward our elite World of Hyatt loyalty members and aspire to offer additional quality breakfast options, we are working to test rate options that include and don’t include breakfast at a limited number of Hyatt Place hotels in the U.S. ranging from urban, suburban and airport hotels.

Following the pilot, we plan to analyze guest feedback, among other considerations, to identify an evolved Hyatt Place breakfast offering at U.S. hotels moving forward.

The test continues, and we don’t know what the “evolved Hyatt Place breakfast offering” at U.S. properties will look like yet – better or worse, bundled in the rate or charged a la carte. The answer depends, it seems, on what the marketplace will bear.

However I’m not sure what kind of data they’re really getting in this test because people book Hyatt Place properties today believing they will get included breakfast because… it is… a Hyatt Place. So we probably don’t see the test hotels losing bookings, though it’s possible that other hotels lose bookings after a test hotel stay. Will be interesting to watch.

The breakfast itself, of course, has gone through many iterations. Recently I’ve had better breakfasts than in the most recent five years, though still not as good as a decade ago.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. This is how benefits are eliminated.

    “Breakfast” is a tangible thing.

    $14.00 becomes less every year due to inflation.

  2. lol based on the HP breakfasts I’ve had over the past year, I wouldn’t pay $1 for the powdered scrambled eggs and industrially produced sausage. Going to a nearby Starbucks would be far better

  3. Whether it’s free or $14, I’ve yet to see a Hyatt Place breakfast in North America that is better than a McDonald’s egg sandwich or a Starbucks breakfast sandwich. Most Hyatt Place breakfasts don’t even have fresh berries. If they have berries, it’s a sugary, previously frozen compote. The Hyatt Place in Tempe, Arizona, doesn’t even provide knives.

    Outside North America, breakfast is only a globalist benefit for Hyatt Place.

    And, of course, Marriott doesn’t offer ANYONE free breakfast at Fairfields outside North America because the loyalty program division of Marriott never envisioned a Fairfield being developed with a full-service restaurant. Some of the newest Fairfields internationally are equivalent in hard product and F&B to a Sheraton.

  4. The problem with Hyatt Place is Hyatt doesn’t know how to position it. Within North America, there are many markets and even entire US states where the only Hyatt property is branded Hyatt Place.

    While Hyatt Place is in reality just a Holiday Inn Express or Fairfield with a Courtyard-style bar serving a limited food menu, Hyatt has this mindset that Hyatt Place is nicer and higher end than it is.

    All of Hyatt Place’s direct competitors offer a free breakfast of varying quality to ALL guests. Worse yet, Hyatt is complicating Hyatt Place and Hyatt House’s positioning with the launch of Hyatt Studios.

    The only way I see a non-free breakfast work is if existing Hyatt Place properties without a real restaurant are re-branded and the handful of Hyatt Place properties with a real restaurant, like the
    Hyatt Place Allentown/Lehigh Valley, get a new brand equivalent to a Four Points by Sheraton, Delta or Doubletree.

  5. What is up with that statement? They speak about it like they’ve just cured cancer. It’s just a hotel benefit, guys!

  6. I’m curious how they would enforce this – every Hyatt Place I’ve stayed at just has an open area where people go get their own breakfast. I don’t think there’s any apparatus for determining who is an elite or has paid. Agree with others on the quality. I stay at a lot of Hyatt Places but typically only grab some oatmeal and a coffee, the rest of the breakfast is garbage.

  7. I found at the hard way at Hyatt Place CDG. P2 went down early to get breakfast, us both thinking it was free. I came down and saw the signs, she had not. 15 euros or so. Lame.

  8. This past May I was on a last minute trip to Chicago (before I got globalist was just discoverest) and was debating between the Hyatt Place and Hyatt Centric in the Loop, the Hyatt Place was slightly cheaper and at the time I wasn’t sick yet of Hyatt Place breakfasts (I am now after a big push to get Globalist status, which i got and so far the fancy breakfasts are SO much better, with a few too many Hyatt Place stays). At check in they informed me breakfast was longer free – even for low eliete members and I argued that the internet said breakfast was still free and that’s why I booked the Hotel so they waived the fee. There was still a sign in the elevator about their previous offerings free basic breakfast and premium breakfast for a charge or free to Discoverists, Explorists and Globalists. There was a woman with an iPad asking for room numbers when I went down to breakfast.

  9. Hyatt Place as a concept stinks and it’s not usually a very good point value either redeeming chase points.

    An increasingly damaged and less relevant parent brand unfortunately. Kind of feels like the pritzkers aren’t paying attention

  10. @ Gary — Not happening. The resentment by elites would FAR outweigh the cost. I would divert my stays elsewhere (not that I don’t already try to avoid these horrible hotels…)

  11. Hyatt Place breakfasts are truly awful. I am not sure how they’re going to figure out how to offer a “premium” breakfast – how are they going to upgrade their breakfast staff trained to make the same crappy breakfast they offer at every Hyatt Place? But I guess we shall see. Back in the day when HP breakfasts were supposed to be free only for WOH members I noticed that almost zero Hyatt Places actually checked for that. It was just walk in, grab food, and eat. Now every HP is going to have to have someone with an iPad checking your status? Seems like added cost in exchange for what?

  12. And the illegal aliens that are staying at these places are getting 3 catered (culturally-appropriate) meals per day.
    Thanks your your loyalty…..NOW BEAT IT!

  13. Left unsaid is how would it be enforced. Hyatt Place properties aren’t exactly overstaffed. Can’t see them employing the breakfast police to check your status or how you booked. This is a value add it shouldn’t mess with. Breakfast is not exactly gourmet fare to begin with and it sure as hell isn’t worth $14.

  14. I stayed at the Hyatt Place ATL – South last night and the breakfast was absolutely inedible. I’m pretty sure the eggs were yellow plastic, the fruit was awful, and the coffee seemed to be expired Folgers. If charging for breakfast increases the quality, I’m all for it.

  15. This is why I gave up on Hôtel breakfast and just pack my own (eg oatmeal, powdered yogurt, granola bar as a backup) ideally the hotel would offer something better at a reasonable cost, but I don’t rely on that hope.

  16. @Steve: As Gary has previously written, Hyatt is now going down the franchised and licensed model of hotels. Operate high-end properties but franchise or license everything else and just collect fees for everything. That’s what has mostly ruined Marriott

    @Doug: Did you not read the reviews? The Hyatt Place Atlanta Airport-South has been a disaster for years.

  17. Many, if not most, Hyatt Place properties don’t even have a real kitchen. At night, when they serve “dinner” the food is generally prepared by the bartender or front desk employee. They seldom have a cook, let alone an actual chef, working. There’s absolutely no way owners are going to invest in adding real kitchens or hiring extra, more expensive employees. Maybe at new-build Hyatt Place properties since nobody seems interested in building and opening new, full-service Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, or Hyatt Centric properties anymore.

  18. This is an undisclosed price increase. Hyatt Place is now charging elites for breakfast without disclosure and hoping you don’t notice the charges on your bill. I don’t like deception and stopped staying at Hyatt as a result. If Hyatt wants to increase revenue they should expand their footprint. They missed a huge opportunity to buy Radisson and convert those hotels to Hyatt.

  19. Big mistake, most of their weekend business is sports teams. I wouldn’t pay 11 cents little lone $11 for their sorry excuse for breakfast.

  20. Bunch of snobs here.How can you not appreciate such fine cuisine?
    Where can you get a 5 star breakfast dining experience except @ a Hyatt Place?
    Magnificent powdered dry eggs sitting in a steam table for hours till disintegrated.
    Microwaved freeze dried bacon,canned fruit cocktail.Generic cereal & mediocre yogurt for the masses all at a great price.
    Freshly baked Wonder Bread.It doesn’t get any better 😉
    Seriously absolute crap

  21. Can they improve the goddamned eggs from that diced ham-style powdered egg concoction? If they’re going to charge for it, the least they can do is provide a line cook that can produce a few styles.

  22. The Hyatt Place breakfasts in the US are generally rather awful enough that I have largely given up on even going to the breakfast area to eat at them.

    I get a better breakfast offering on sub-$65 stays at Best Western hotels in “expensive” Nordic countries than I have been given at much more expensive US Hyatt Place hotels within the last several years. The US hotel owners/operators are collectively so greedy and so many are owned/operated by companies with multiple brands of limited service hotels that they jointly seem to favor to have a rat race to the bottom in what they provide the head-in-bed customers for the money.

  23. @GUWonder: The poor quality is also a reflection that (1) a lot Americans like ggs with bacon or sausage for breakfast and (2) Hyatt Place and similar hotels don’t have a real kitchen. Because they don’t have a real kitchen, let alone real chefs or cooks, they are fairly limited as to what they can prepare and serve. So, the quality is pretty awful.

    The McDonald’s egg McMuffin sandwich or the Starbucks spinach, feta and egg white wrap are actually better and healthier than almost anything Hyatt Place serves.

  24. On the plus side, the breakfast space is no longer a zoo in the mornings. On the downside, the quality still sucks, even at HP outside the US. Outside of mattress runs, there is very little reason for a globalist to stay at HP. Few meaningful upgrades, garbage breakfast, no lounge, no service, no benefits.

  25. @Mantis: “Few meaningful upgrades”

    Actually, suite upgrades at Hyatt Place are EXCLUDED. Sure, properties may still provide them but they are officially not a benefit.

    Unfortunately, the only Hyatt option for many Americans and Canadian is a Hyatt Place.

  26. Hyatt Place’s equivalent brands are Courtyard and Hilton Garden Inn – both of which now offer F&B credits to elites, and don’t offer breakfast to all guests. So a lot of this is likely just moving to their peers. There is still a lot of room for Hyatt Place growth in the US, so they need to make sure it is compelling for developers

  27. Of the people whom I know to have grown up eating eggs with bacon or sausages for breakfast and gone with me to US HPs, most seem to find the Hyatt Place breakfasts to suck and have gone downhill over the years. They weren’t great to start, but they seem to have gone downhill to the point that Holiday Inn Express may well make more sense than Hyatt Place.

  28. @Anthony: No way Hyatt Place is equivalent to Courtyard and Hilton Garden Inn. Hyatt Place is a Holiday Inn Express or Fairfield with a bar.

  29. Hyatt Place breakfast is in general barely worth eating for free. Right before covid they would have fresh grapefruit juice, but that’s gone now. I have been avoiding Hyatt Place these days.

  30. Isn’t one or more of the Hyatt Places in the Austin area on par with or even worse than the Best Western Aiden hotel in the Austin area? The Aiden by BW in Austin provides breakfast to all its hotel guests IIRC and it has a bar.

  31. How are they going to enforce this? Are they really going to pay a “host” to stand at the breakfast entrance and verify your status? So now that’s more money an HP has to spend to put this rule into practice. And I’m willing to bet that salary will far outweigh the money spent on powdered eggs and cereal for non-elites.

  32. Regardless of the quality of the individual hotels – Hyatt Place and Hyatt House are officially “Upscale” chaitscale properties. That’s how they try to price, and that is how they try to compete. Hyatt Place is the upscale, short term stay brand – like HGI and Courtyard. Hyatt House is supposed to be the Upscale extended stay brand, similar to Residence Inn and Homewood Suites.

    If people think that Hilton Garden Inn and Courtyard are much better than Hyatt Place – it clearly isn’t due to the breakfast benefit, which have been minimal at Courtyard for years and minimal at HGI for the past few years. A credit would bring them in-line with those brands.

  33. @Anthony:

    Marriott classified both Courtyard and Fairfield in the same “select” category. I’ve seen this colloquially referred to as limited-service. Courtyard and legacy Starwood’s Four Points were always a step below a Marriott or Sheraton but a step up from a Fairfield.

    I look at it from a staffing and service/amenity standpoint. Hyatt Place typically has one front desk employee who often is cross-trained to be the bartender. Courtyard always has at a bartender in addition to the front desk employee. Most Courtyards also have a cook in the kitchen. Many older Hyatt Place properties (perhaps most) don’t even have a real kitchen. Courtyard offers laundry and dry cleaning. Many have a shuttle bus. The overall staffing and service level of a Fairfield is on par with a Holiday Inn Express or Fairfield. It’s been 15 or 20 years since I stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn but I remember them having a restaurant with a waitress for breakfast.

    As I said earlier, Hyatt has a very inflated view of Hyatt Place because the brand is not equivalent to Courtyard, Four Points or even AC. Hyatt Place is a Holiday Inn Express or Fairfield with a bar.

  34. Some of the new builds were ok and a few abroad a bit better
    But the lions share should just have the Hyatt name ripped of these glorified motels
    as it’s ruining the brand name.Call them The Place
    Breakfast is 90% of the reason I don’t stay in these overpriced upscale hostels
    The rest are the old noisy Amerisuites and bad brand standards generally
    A last resort as life is to short.Hyatt has lost its once quality touch
    Some of the older ones just smell bad and the staff amatuer hour

  35. I get confused by all the various hotel brands, they seem to blend together. HGI and Courtyard don’t have free breakfast AFAIK. Hampton does offer free breakfast, so maybe more of a comparison to ‘old free breakfast’ Hyatt Place (which I stayed at near Phoenix AZ and wasn’t too impressed). Or what’s the Hyatt Home/Hyatt Place difference then? I travel more with family than for work now, and so gravitate towards the free breakfast hotels. Even if not the best, the breakfast will usually offer juices, yogurt, cereal, and some bread items (bagel, English muffins, toast, etc). I’ve also chosen Springhill Suites, Embassy Suites and Residence Inns which have better free breakfasts (higher price point hotels though). I used to be SPG (loved it!), then Marriott, but now I’ve mostly been staying at Hiltons. Hyatt’s just weren’t where I needed them, though I have booked Hyatt Regency Yokohama for Dec. But since I rarely travel for work now, my points/status have all dwindled and I’m just a normal customer paying normal rates out of my own pocket. And as such, I have no loyalty to any hotel program now.

  36. Don’t get all the hate here for Hyatt Place and their breakfast. Within their category, they tend to be better than HIE, Fairfield Inn and Hampton Inn. The breakfast is better too. I got a laugh from some of you demanding freshly cracked eggs and berries. As if any limited service hotels offered that. By the way, they don’t serve powdered eggs, their egg product comes liquid in a bag, white and yolks combined. It is not the fresh stuff but it is better than powdered. A final thought: hotel breakfasts are about traveler convenience, not a gourmet spread. It is about going down the elevator in your pjs and having something to eat right there without having to drive somewhere. Also, a Starbucks or a dedicated eatery will always offer a better product at a better price. Reading these comments makes me wonder if any of you actually travels or are professional armchair complainers.

  37. @Melody: Hyatt House is an extended-stay brand. Rooms will at least have a kitchenette. Some properties have rooms (suites) with a full kitchen. Hyatt Place isn’t an extended-stay brand. Otherwise, they are equal.

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