When Chase renewed their co-brand card deal with Hyatt in 2017 I thought we might get a second credit card added to the mix.

Instead we got a refresh of the consumer card – making it quite excellent in my opinion, in fact it’s probably one of the two or three best cards in the market at really riding on the rails of its associated loyalty program, since you keep earning elite qualifying nights for spend and each 10 nights earns additional benefits.

There have been several rumors about a new Hyatt card finally launching. We don’t know what that card would look like. The Points Guy just dropped a piece on why Chase needs a Hyatt small business card which I took as one hint, though Danny Deal Guru reports on a rumor from Chase customer service about a new Hyatt premium card (think $400+ annual fee).

[A] Chase supervisor said that “there’s a new premium World of Hyatt credit card in the works and will be announced in a few weeks.”

There are (4) reasons this rumor makes some sense.

1. Chase is willing to do more with smaller brands. They dropped the AARP business because it was too small a portfolio, but they are going to be launching an Air Canada credit card and even an Instacart card of all things.

2. Banks are aggressively looking for customers. We’ve seen huge, almost unprecedented acquisition offers because in the rush to garner customers that’s the pedal banks know how to accelerate. (Cf. Maslow’s hammer)

3. The premium segment is hot rumors have been around since pre-pandemic of a premium Capital One travel card, which might make sense given they are opening an airport lounge network. American Express says adding benefits and raising the fee on their Platinum card has driven customer acquisition growth.

4. The Hyatt portfolio hits above its weight. It outperforms for Chase relative to its program size because of the loyalty of Hyatt customers and the quality of the product, in much the same way that the Starwood card used to outperform for American Express (indeed, it was once the third largest Amex cobrand after Costco and Delta, and then the second largest Amex cobrand when Costco left for Citi).

The reasons to be skeptical are:

• that it’s been four years since the cobrand deal re-up, and we haven’t seen news of an early extension – new cards tend to come out after deals or extensions get signed.

• the idea of a premium card is something that’s been talked about for years in the hot stove league so talk now could be just more of the same.

• The Hyatt card is really the only one we haven’t seen Chase get super-aggressive with bonuses on, which might suggest this isn’t where they are looking to expand, on the other hand it might suggest they’re having success even with more modest up front bonuses and would want to double down, or might have been waiting in order to avoid undercutting the attractiveness of a new product.

Personally I think Chase’s willingness to work on smaller projects, and by extension to expand their smaller projects, makes it more likely than ever we’ll see them expand their Hyatt relationship.