Tag Archives for hyatt.
Hyatt has launched its partnership with SLH hotels offering points and elite credit earning on paid stays, and points redemptions.
More options for where to use your points are better. Full stop. And there are some lovely properties included in this portfolio. This gives members more nice places to use their points.
Hyatt has launched their partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, offering points-earning, elite stay credit and redemption at some SLH member hotels. Along with that comes a new more expensive redemption category 8.
At this point only 54 hotels are participating — nearly all in Europe — though Hyatt says “we expect for more SLH properties to join the program in the coming months.”
There’s a video out of China which has been seen tens of millions of times over the past few days exposing the awful housekeeping practices at 14 hotels including Le Royal Méridien Shanghai; Park Hyatt in Beijing; Waldorf Astoria Shanghai; Ritz-Carlton Shanghai; and even the Aman Summer Palace.
GHA Discovery is the loyalty program for Omni hotels, Rydges, Alila (part of Two Roads Hospitality, which is being acquired by Hyatt), Kempinski, Anantara, Pan Pacific and more — 33 brands in total.
Discovery is an experiences program, not an earn and burn program. It’s all about status and recognition. Right now their top tier of elite status — Black — is available free on a trial basis. The offer may be restricted to cardholders in Middle East and Asia Pacific but I’ve already gotten 5000 American AAdvantage miles just by bouncing around and getting transferred a bit asking.
Twelve years ago the most you could spend to stay at a Hyatt was 15,000 points. There was nothing higher than category 4. Yesterday the category drop down on Hyatt’s website began displaying a greyed-out category 8, 40,000 points per night.
Yesterday Hyatt confirmed that new premium suite award nights and upgrades become available November 1 at the same time they’re making changes to cash and points awards.
When yesterday’s announcement was made several questions were unanswered.
Hyatt is running a promotion that gives bonus points for progressively more stays through November 30. They are also giving American Airlines points for Hyatt Place and Hyatt House stays through January 31.
And for Hyatt House properties specifically stays of four or more consecutive nights between November 1 and December 31 earn 2000 bonus points.
Last week I wrote that week that Hyatt was expected to make big changes to cash and points awards and introduce premium suite awards. Hyatt has now done so. There are more details to these changes — and more changes — than had been previously reported.
On Friday I wrote about a report that Hyatt would be gutting cash and points awards November 1 as well as introducing new premium suite redemption options.
The claim about cash and points was that instead of redeeming points and a fixed cash price, you would redeem points for half off a hotel’s paid rate. That report now has been verified by a hotel which has received information about the change.
Members are going to have different views of these reported changes, which have not been confirmed by Hyatt.
My own view is that while I like the value cash and points offers now at the category 2-6 level, now that full points redemptions earn elite night credit cash and points is no longer as crucial a part of my arsenal.
Meanwhile premium suites is huge — the major constraint on my travel is time rather than points. Since I’m not working hard to stretch each point I’d rather use them for the best experience possible.
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 »
