The Strange Benefit Hyatt is Giving Top Elites That They Cannot Use

Hyatt has started offering different benefits or state levels every 10 nights stayed instead of attaching benefits to qualifying for elite status.

As a result it’s now even possible to earn confirmed suite upgrade awards without being a top tier Globalist elite member, since those upgrades are first earned at 50 nights while status will be earned going forward at 60 nights. (Starting next year there’s no lower 55 night requalification threshold.)

 

 

<![if supportMisalignedColumns]><![endif]>
# Nights Or Benefit
10 25k base points or 3 meetings Discoverist
20 35k base points 2 club lounge access awards
30 50k base points or 10 meetings Explorist, 2 club access awards, cat 1-4 free night
40 65k base points 5k points or $100 Hyatt gift card or 10k points off FIND experience
50 80k base points 2 confirmed suite upgrade awards
60 100k base points or 20 meetings Globalist, 2 suite upgrade awards, cat 1-7 free night, concierge
70 N/A 10,000 points or suite upgrade award
80 N/A 10,000 points or suite upgrade award
90 N/A 10,000 points or suite upgrade award
100 N/A 10,000 points or suite upgrade award

Club lounge access awards are given after 20 and 30 nights stayed to all members. That means top tier Globalists earn them even though club lounge access is a benefit of Globalist status.

Earlier this month I received mine:

Technically a Globalist member that does not requalify for their status will find these useful in the following year. For a Globalist member that requalifies though these certificates will not have any usefuless and will simply expire.

I thought, ok, that makes sense — award them just in case. But a reader who is a lifetime Globalist received them to. That just strikes of Hyatt not knowing their members. They’re congratulating them for awarding something that they can never use.

What Hyatt should do to make these useful to their most valuable customers receiving them is make them transferrable. Since a Globalist is earning these, they should have some sort of value. Since Hyatt is congratulating the member for earning these, they should have some sort of value. The only value they’d have for a Globalist continuing the stay with the chain is to gift them.


Grand Hyatt Singapore Club Lounge

Already Hyatt offers “Guest of Honor” one of the more insightful benefits in loyalty. When redeeming points for someone else, the award can be set up so that the recipient ‘inherits’ the member’s top tier elite status for the stay. That means lounge access or breakfast.

Making these club access awards transferable simply means allowing this benefit to extent from points to earned certificates, letting top tier elites gift lounge access on paid stays as well as awards.

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 »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. I’m a Globalist and have been trying to get my concierge to post the club access upgrades to a second room I’ve booked in Spain so that others traveling with us on the trip can have club lounge access in addition to the club access my family gets under Globalist status. So far, I haven’t convinced her to do so.

  2. You should be able to use them on a 2nd or 3rd room booked in your name at the same hotel, no?

    Great for traveling w/parents, other family, etc?

  3. Amen. I am a lifetime globalist and these mean absolutely nothing. Great idea to make them transferable

Comments are closed.