Tag Archives for hyatt.
I’ve heard from several people wondering what their next-best path to earn Hyatt Globalist will be, since they can’t credit cheap Excalibur stays to Hyatt (without actually traveling anywhere) going forward.
Two Hyatt hotels that developed a reputation for never allowing you to use your points for free nights were the Park Hyatt Aviara and the Hyatt Centric Waikiki Beach. That’s been fixed thanks to the enterprising efforts of one woman who found they weren’t just harming program members, they may have been breaking the law.
The IRS audited Hyatt for the tax years 2009 – 2011 and found that it wasn’t paying tax on loyalty program revenue. It didn’t include the revenue received for what was then Gold Passport (now World of Hyatt) in income, and didn’t include payments from the program as expenses. It just ignored the program, even though it collected money and invested it earning a return.
The IRS wanted Hyatt to not only pay up for those years but to go all the way back to the beginning of the program in 1987, with a quarter of a billion dollars of income at issue and a tax deficiency of $65 million.
A chain’s most valuable customers are its elite members, who deliver an outsized portion of room nights to hotels. To entice them, they’re promised benefits like upgrades and free breakfast.
Knowing that hotels are going to try to cheat, Hyatt spells out in its terms and conditions what the breakfast benefit is for Globalist members when no club lounge breakfast is offered.
Hotels are ignoring chain rules. Guests book properties assuming they’ll get what the brand promises, and then the individual property doesn’t deliver, choosing to cut costs instead. That devalues the brand, while helping the bottom line of the individual hotel.
This often manifests in properties skimping on or ignoring elite benefits like breakfast. But it also covers housekeeping. And it’s certainly not limited to the best-known offender, Marriott.
Hyatt is out with their fall promotion and it’s for a very limited period of less than two months.
Hyatt “is adjusting how it markets its loyalty program to reflect new realities” of reduced business travel and increased leisure travel. Hyatt’s CEO says that experiences now matter, with leisure, more than points. But that isn’t correct.
American Airlines AAdvantage status members can register for 90 days of elite status with Hyatt, with an expedited path towards keeping or increasing that status next year.
The other possibility that was speculated two falls ago was a premium Hyatt credit card. And that’s back on the table, as a survey of possible benefits reveals. Some of the things under consideration appear to be:
A new private lawsuit has been filed against Hyatt over resort fees. Consumer group Travelers United has filed a class action in Washington, D.C. against the chain. Especially highlighted in the complaint is the Grand Hyatt Washington and its ‘destination fee’.
Travelers United is suing under the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act requires businesses to sell products at their advertised prices. But Hyatt advertises prices for this hotel at rates consumers cannot pay, since the hotel adds on a fixed amount to its prices in the form of destination fees.
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 »
