If You’re Losing Your Hyatt Status, Here’s A Trick To Keep It

Hyatt and MGM have a partnership that dates back to 2013. They each offer members in the other program status matches – not one time matches, but rather status in one program ‘equals’ status in the other.

And the status year in each program ends at a different time. This creates an opportunity to still have status with one program, after your status has ended in the other, and to use that to ‘match back’ to regain status – in perpetuity, or as long as this tactic has continued to last (and it’s lasted for years).

Hyatt elite status lasts until the end of February. Hyatt elite status matches to MGM Rewards elite status. MGM elite status ends at the end of January.

So in early February, once your MGM status falls below Gold (or before if you haven’t matched already matched your status to MGM’s elite status in the past, or don’t even have an account with them yet), make sure to:

  1. Match your Hyatt status to MGM. Globalist and Explorist members receive MGM Gold.

  2. Once your Hyatt status drops in March, match your MGM status to Hyatt. MGM Golds get Hyatt’s Explorist (mid-tier) level.

A similar trick works with Wyndham and Caesars Rewards, of course.

Hyatt’s Explorist level is a step down from Globalist for sure, though it allows current Explorists to keep their level without requalifying. And Explorist is ‘better than nothing’ even for those used to top tier benefits but dropping down even further (2pm late checkout, modest room upgrades).

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. Another value-creation nugget. I’d bet (no pun intended) that the average *regular* reader of your web site might capture a couple / few thousand dollars every year from all of your tips. Thanks.

  2. I’m a globalist and just tried this – getting error messages on the MGM side. Not sure if related to them changing the program….

  3. @Edp Likely since one of the new benefits of the MGM program will be waived resort fees for GOLD and above

  4. This all assumes that the reciprocal status program between WoH and MGM Rewards stays the same after 2/1/22…. Do tell Gary. Do you have a source that says it will? It seems to me that everyone is assuming it will? Will it? I’m skeptical.

  5. @EDP

    I did status match yesterday and got the error. My Mlife account was showing the basic level. Today it shows gold.

  6. The supervisor I spoke to as a Globalist stated status matches between Hyatt and MGM have to be manually processed by customer service.

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