In many ways Hyatt has been a model for how to treat its members during the pandemic. They were first to offer something to members cancelling travel back in March, and today they have the best cancellation policy of any major hotel chain making it easy to make bookings despite the uncertainty in the world. (But still do watch out for individual hotels and dates where rules vary.)
World of Hyatt extended current elite status so that members who qualified last year are able to use the benefits that they earned through 2021. However there’s a hole in Hyatt’s approach: confirmed suite upgrades and free nights for those members – set to expire February 2021 – were not extended. Put another way, certificates expiring in 2020 got extended to the end of 2021, long past when benefits expiring in 2021 will expire.
Many members are starting to plan travel again. Hyatt’s members are looking at where they’ll be able to go in the future, hopefully as the world opens up again. There aren’t a lot of places in the world that Americans can travel today due to restrictions in place in most countries.
I’ve heard from readers who are frustrated. I’ve been writing about airline awards that are available next spring and summer, suggesting it’s worth planning travel again that far out, that there seems a good chance health conditions and regulations may allow it. But what they’re finding is that they cannot use their free nights and confirmed suite benefits – that even though they’ll still have status in 2021, benefits expire before the stays they’re trying to book.
Oddly Hyatt extended suite upgrades that expired unused from the prior cycle but didn’t do anything for elite members unable to use their confirmed upgrade benefit this year due to the pandemic. And since April when they made this decision the expected length of world disruption has only grown. Even Marriott extended their Suite Night Awards!
There’s now a report of a category 1-7 free night, earned upon achieving 60 nights and Globalist status, that’s been extended to December 31, 2021. However it’s the only such report I’ve seen.
A Hyatt spokesperson, though, offers
We continue to evaluate the validity period for all awards to determine any extensions and will share further details in the coming weeks as soon as we have more to share.
So in ‘the coming weeks’ we should hear more – which is good news, because if no action was being taken we wouldn’t likely be hearing more.
@ Gary — Awesome. I only expect the best from Hyatt, the last travel company I trust.
On the topic of Hyatt, using points for award stays at Category 1 properties are a great bargain right now. Stayed three nights at Hyatt Place near Cincinnati a few days ago, which included free breakfast and cost only 15,000 points. Factor in the current promotions offering a 25% points rebate and 2500 points bonus for the first stay, and it’s a sweet deal. Biggest difference was, mandatory masks, wrapped/discrete breakfast items in the breakfast buffet, and no daily housekeeping service except on specific request (and if you request it, you have to be out of the room for at least 3 hours).
This is, as usual, is revisionist.
You mean Hyatt has been a better model than Hilton Honors, the very first program to extend status for virtually everyone, to pause the expiration of points, to extend weekend night rewards, and much more, starting a guessing a game about which programs would pay them compliment through imitation? (Hyatt did!).
The funny thing is that the content of the post actually contradicts the claimed Hyatt superior treatment of its members during the pandemic by pointing to benefits that the program did not extend, and culminating in what is one of the great insults these days:
Even Marriott extended their Suite Night Awards!
Ouch!
my partner and i have four free nights in our account. nowhere decent to go and nowhere we want to go at the moment with this raging pandemic. even if it was valid for park hyatt maldives or vendome and given that we could get there, we would pass.
Hooray! Finally! So glad to hear that there will likely be good news!
This is good to know. We have several free award nights and several upgrades all expiring in February 2021. Hyatt has failed to address this and it hasn’t been looking good. So glad to hear about some potential positive news from Hyatt.