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 problem of non-compliant hotels that don’t offer award nights on points isn’t unique to Hyatt, but these two properties became famous for figuring out that:
- Hyatt requires hotels to offer standard rooms on points whenever they are offered for cash
- But they can simply not offer standard rooms for sale! Some hotels tried to offer them only as part of a package and not at regular rates. That kept Hyatt’s system from ‘seeing’ the nights available, but when I pointed out this game they played Hyatt would crack down.
- However hotels can impose minimum night stay restrictions on their standard rooms, and therefore apply those to free nights. And Hyatt doesn’t require hotels to make as many standard rooms available as Marriott does (at hotels that are not ‘all suite’), for instance.
In 2022 I wrote that Park Hyatt Aviara just did not make standard rooms available for sale or with points in advance opening up unsold inventory only close-in.
In 2019 I wrote about Hyatt Centric Waikiki creating a fake room category so that only 20 rooms on property were considered ‘standard’ and imposing a 3-night minimum stay for those such that only 9% of the time an award was available.
You simply couldn’t book awards at either of these. However Carissa Rawson found a way to make these two hotels open up space.
- At both hotels their ‘ADA compliant rooms’ were standard rooms
- In order to avoid offering those rooms as awards, they were not selling them online
- But withholding disability accommodations from your website, making guests with need for them call when other guests can book online, is… legally problematic.
She called out the practice on Award Wallet’s blog and suddenly the two hotels reformed! They went from hotels that refused stays on points to hotels that are nearly always available on points.
There are still other hotels that don’t live up to the ‘if a regular room is available for sale you can have it with points’ idea.
- Alila Ventana Big Sur doesn’t make standalone Friday or Saturday nights available on points
- Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort almost never makes standard room awards available (but will sometimes make suites available)
- Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile has gotten better, though still appears to play games at peak times, while the rest of Paris has cleaned up its act.
It is, however, huge progress to find a way to fix award availability at two of the worst offender hotels that until now Hyatt had shrugged its shoulders at. It took finding a violation of disability law to get this fixed.
And the good news is it’s not just ADA rooms being offered on points now, either. If it was, that would have been sad, pushing guests who don’t need those rooms into them (such that they might not be available for those who do). We’re now seeing non-ADA standard rooms available at both properties.
Love it. I’ve been wanting to stay at that Aviara for some time.
Ha! Suck it Hyatt Waikiki!
No, there is no such requirement in WoH T&C. The “rule”, likely yet another fabrication of this site, if true, would make folks that run WoH dumber than their hotels’ doorknobs…
Ventana awards are bookable (subject to availability) with 3 night minimum stay on weekends
Huh. I just had a two night stay at Ventana (Thurs and Friday nights) so I don’t think three night min is always enforced and they definitely do make weekends available. Availability wasn’t great but I kept checking and eventually found it. I also had a two night stay at Andaz Maui exactly one year ago. The availability, again, wasn’t great but I kept looking until good dates became available. Regency Paris I actually do look often (although the last actual stay was right before Covid) and I always find good availability! Prob will be booking a night or two there next months to use up my free night cert as the dates I needed are available.
But I’m super happy to hear about Hyatt Centric Waikiki!
@dcs
Hyatt Place Anaheim is being remodeled but they now want 4 nights for a point stay.
Aviara being sneaky doesn’t surprise me in the least. I had problems with confirming a suite upgrade, improper resort fee charged, valet charges for a non-existent car and… Arguably racism. I wrote about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hyatt/comments/16mfh4q/park_hyatt_aviara_watch_your_wallet/?rdt=59445
Let’s just hope the relevant properties don’t return to their previous habits or other games to block standard room availability to use points. For those expecting Hyatt to migrate to Marriott, Hilton and IHG type pricing of room nights in points and that ending this kind of game by hotel properties, don’t count on it being the end of such customer-unfriendly games by the hotel properties.
Speaking of regulatory capture, it looks likely that the former CEO of Air New Zealand has capture more and will form the next government. The former Air NZ CEO seems confident he will become PM of New Zealand after the just concluded election.
Is he the first legacy major airline CEO to take over a country? In the old days, it was the likes of the European “East India companies” with their fleets that were taking over places where they were market players.
@DCS
Per Hyatt (https://help.hyatt.com/en/faqs/world-of-hyatt/world-of-hyatt-awards.html#/2)
“World of Hyatt Standard-Room Free Night Awards are available when hotels have standard rooms available at the Standard Rate. If a standard room is not for sale at the Standard Rate on a particular night at a property, a free night award cannot be used at that property.”
Hyatt definies “Standard Rate” as a cash rate (as you will see if you ever try to make a Hyatt booking).
Please stop posting misinformation. It’s not helpful.
@Ziggy — LOL. Says one who is clueless and misinformed!
I am well aware of the FAQ on the policy and the claim that “Hyatt requires hotels to offer standard rooms on points whenever they are offered for cash” is a gross, self-serving misinterpretation that was originally fabricated by this site to make the same claim about SPG awards according to some cockamamie concept or policy it called “true redemption”. Though there was never such a thing, the same bogus claim was transferred to WoH awards after the demise of SPG.
All the FAQ says is that free night awards can be redeemed when a limited number of standard rooms set aside for award redemptions remain available. What it does not mean is the more expansive misinterpretation that “if a standard room is available for booking with cash then it must also be available for booking with points.” That is just total nonsense, which it would be the dumbest policy in hotel loyalty if it were true. Do you know why?
All Hyatt Place Anaheim has done is to finally set a limited number of standard rooms available for redeeming with points, like most compliant hotels. Previously, the property simply showed no availability at all and was not policy-compliant. The requirement for 4 nights is definitely not a WoH policy, so it remains non-compliant.
@DCS I can appreciate why you’re choosing to interpret the FAQs in the way you are (because it plays to your own narrative and allows you to continue your unyielding and stunningly egotistical belief that you are never, ever wrong) but, unfortunately for you that is an incorrect interpretation.
Still, I’m going to leave this discussion right now because (a) I have corrected your misinformation and (b) I’m not stupid enough to waste any more my time arguing with someone for whom the only acceptable facts are the ones that fit their preconceived bias.
G’day (as you would say).
The Alila Diwa in Goa, India has a ***14 day***cancellation policy on points redemptions, and if you cancel within 14 days of the stay, they refund the points and charge your credit card the full cash rate for the stay. Completely insane.
I have Ventana booked for 45k for two nights on Friday and Saturday night Easter weekend so I do not think there is a 3 night minumum
Heathrow Hyatt Place was like that last year. No availability for the entire year that I checked, but it appears they have some availability now. Wonder if that helped.
DCS is presumably not privy to the language of the agreement between hotels and Hyatt. This agreement is not made public. As an owner of several Hyatt hotels, I can assure you that standard room free nights must be (and at my hotels are) always available when they’re for sale.
PH Aviara is a resort factory dump anyway….can’t imagine who would want to waste points or cash there.
Yeah, that’s right. Get personal when you are losing an argument.
I asked you whether you knew why it would be utterly dumb for Hyatt or any hotel loyalty program, for that matter, to have policy that says that “if a standard room if available for cash booking, a property is required to make the same room also available for booking with points”, but I got no response. You got personal instead.
Now I will show why it would be dumb for a program to have a rule that makes any standard room that is available for booking with cash also available for booking with points.
It is actually just simple common sense. Consider such rule applying to a highly coveted destination like the Maldives. Right now, a one-night stay in a standard villa at Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa would cost $736 in cash, excluding steep taxes and other fees, or 30,000 in WoH points.
Let’s say the property has 50 standard villas and all all 50 are available for booking with cash. According to the claim you are defending, it would mean that the property is required to make all 50 standard villas available for booking points. Now consider the consequence if that were true.
This site values Hyatt points at $0.014 each (a more accurate value is $0.015, but that does not affect my argument). The property being highly coveted for award redemption, the policy that a property is required to make any standard villa that is available for booking with cash also available for booking with points could lead to all 50 villas at this property being booked with points by WoH members, so that rather than fetching $736 per night per villa + taxes and fees, the property would be getting just
30,000 Hyatt points/night * $0.014/Hyatt point = $420/night !!!
Does it seem to you like a very smart policy to sell 50 villas for ($736-$420) = $316/night less than the property would fetch if the villas were sold for cash instead?!!!
That is why no program, include WoH, would ever have such policy. They all set aside a limited number of rooms for award redemptions. When those rooms are gone, no more redemptions are possible, even when standard rooms can still be booked with cash. Hotels aren’t playing “games” with awards. They just run out of standard rooms that they are set aside for points redemptions.
The only two programs where rooms that can be sold for cash are also always available for booking with points are Hilton Honors and Accord ALL. The two hotel chains can do that because they establish a direct proportionality between cash and points that makes the two currencies equivalent or interchangeable, i.e., you use points as if they were cash.
In the Accord ALL program, 2,000 points have a fixed value of €40. Therefore, members simply pay for stays in any room with the number of points that adds up to the cost of the stay in €. A €400 stay would cost 20,000 Accord ALL points. It’s straightforward.
In the case of Hilton, certain rooms are designated as “premium” room awards for which there is a direct proportionality between a Hilton point and a $1 US. This proportionality varies by property and location and fluctuates according to “markets forces.” For instance, when I was checking awards costs for W Maldives over a year ago, the proportionality between Hilton points and USD was $0.0021/points for “premium”award and it was linear:
— The cheapest “premium” room award cost 1,226,000 in Hilton points; $2,655 if one paid cash.
— The most expensive “premium” room award cost 11,810,000 in Hilton points; $24,772 if one paid cash.
Bottom line: Until WoH established such a direct proportionality between their points and hard currency, which will result in their points and cash being equivalent and interchangeable, it is simply ridiculous to keep perpetuating the myth that Hyatt properties are required to make available for booking with points any room that is available for booking with cash.
G’day!
@HVC — Well, if that’s the case it’s not very smart all…which perhaps why you “pay games” with award availability to make up for the stupidity?
@DCS – Genuine question here: Why is it so critical for you to absolutely never admit that you’re wrong? Sure, no one – myself included – enjoys being wrong but you really take things to a whole other level. My wife assures me regularly that I’m wrong on some things and that keeps me honest. You just always seem to want to die on whatever hill you’re on rather than compromise or admit to being mistaken. You’re obviously quite bright and can on occasion make keen and insightful comments. It’s just tough to interact with someone who will absolutely never meet you half way.
@Christian — That is a ridiculous comment because it presumes that I am wrong without providing any facts to support the presumption. I easily admit when I am wrong and I have done so in this space, though not very often because I rarely make claims that I cannot support factually or logically.
What’s funny is that you are probably among those that also wanted me to “admit that I was wrong” about challenging the equally bogus claim that a Hyatt point is “worth” than any other hotel points currency.
I cannot meet you half way when you are dead wrong. Provide arguments that make sense and we will proceed from there. As of now, you have provided none on the topic being debated, making the comment even more ridiculous…
G’day.
@DCS – Nice self awareness.
Your argument is that you’re always, always right unless you feel that you’re not. Good thing you’re in academia because as a business owner I can assure you that perspective doesn’t fly in the real world. At any rate, thanks for the reply.
@Christian– I know what my argument is, which is why it is clear to me that you have no clue about what I am saying. Therefore, you may be better off providing us your arguments as business owner that you claim to be because if were indeed a business owner, I would not need to convince you of the utter lunacy of any program requiring a property to offer for award redemption (i.e., for free) every single standard room in the hotel even if it is pretty confident to be able to sell the room for cash.
“….if YOU were indeed…”
Well, this is a lovely conversation but DCS you are wrong about several things in your argument.
Most critically, if a hotel occ on a given night is at or above 95% (or 90 for some brands etc) then the hotel receives 95% of the average ADR of the paid nights for that evening. So your argument that if a hotel had 50 rooms and ALL 50 of them were taken by points burners just doesnt make sense. The likelihood of a hotel only have 50 standard rooms (and no suites etc) is pretty much zero and the likelihood of an entire hotel selling out with points burners is unlikely. If there was **that** much demand, the hotel would likely sell even one room at full rack rate and, as such, be compensated for all of those points redemptions at 95% of the rack rate. Even during high demand events like the Super Bowl, hotels take large groups well in advance of transient booking windows opening so there are already paid room nights in house before any regular transient rooms can be booked by points or cash.
And before you claim that 95% does not equal 100%, you are correct but the paid rates have all sorts of other costs such as credit card fees (not applicable to redemption renumeration), travel agency commissions (10% or more) and the fees for WoH earnings (if the guest on the paid night is a WoH member) to name just a few.
Here’s the lunacy of that “policy”, if it were true, restated more succinctly.
A one-night stay at Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, October 30-31, 2023, would cost
— $1,575 in cash
or
— 40,000 in WoH points, worth approximately 40,000 WoH points * $ 0.014/WoH points = $560
What those pushing the “policy” would have us believe is that Hyatt would actually require Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme to offer for 40K points worth “just” $560/night every standard room in the property that could sale for $1,575/night in hard currency if the room is available for booking with cash!!!
Do you see the lunacy of the “policy”, and why it will remain bogus or a pipe dream unless Hyatt some day decides to set up direct proportionality between their points and hard cash to where paying with either becomes equivalent, like Accord ALL awards or Hilton’s “premium” awards or airline “any time awards” that are always available but are exorbitantly price?
Have I now shot dead the ridiculous and bogus claim, once and for all ?
Oops! That should’ve been: “…every standard room in the property that could sell for $1,575/night…”
@DCS
The misunderstanding (and general lunacy) of how hotel loyalty programs continues in your post(s)
You cannot equate the value of points as assigned by this blog (or any other) with the compensation a hotel receives for a redemption night. For times when occ is <90 or 95% there is a flat rate paid that is set each year. It has NOTHING to do with the value of points as described by this blog. Rather there are tiers and each hotel fits into a tier based on their previous years ADR. Hence why hotel categories change annually. And just to be clear, that rate is closer to the marginal cost of the room than these silly valuations of 4 pennies/point or whatever. The reason it works is because there simply isn’t a situation where the entire hotel is sold out on points as I explained aov
@Hotel guy — Are you defending the lunacy or just trying to poke holes in my arguments? Your arguments invoking the actual reimbursement rates based on occupancy change nothing because they still do not establish the equivalence between revenue and award stays. Hotels will always make less on the latter.
Anyway, my examples using bloggers’ values of points currency was the best way to establish the lunacy in terms that can be easily understood: to require hotels to treat revenue and award bookings as essentially equivalent, Hyatt will have to set up a direct a proportionality between their points currency and hard cash to where it makes no difference which currency is used, like Accord ALL awards or Hilton’s “premium” awards or airline “any time awards” that are always available but are exorbitantly priced as a result.
@DCS: Your “analysis” as to why no program would ever have that rule is flawed, because HOTELS ARE NEVER PAID IN POINTS. They are paid in cash by the rewards program at a rate that is based NOT on the number of points redeemed but the cash rates the hotel is actually getting and the vacancy rate.
The hotel is selling rooms at $736. A rewards member books that room with points. If the hotel is booked full, the rewards program pays that hotel… $736, or something close to it.
That the average value of a point is regarded as $0.014 is totally irrelevant, because, again, hotels are not paid in points.
This works because the rewards program issues tons of points that are never redeemed or are redeemed at perceived high value to the guest and low cost to the rewards program (because when hotels are not full, the rewards program pays much less.)
So your whole “analysis” fails at the comparison of $736 vs $432 “worth” of points because, again, that’s not what the hotel is paid.
@Chris Raehl – I am tired. Please see my prior response., which already addressed your point. The simplication was simply easier for folks to understand that revenue stays and award stays are not equivalent, and nothing in what you wrote changes that.
The claim is stupid so I will leave this with the bottom line
@Chris Raehl — my response will be forthcoming once it clears “moderation”
@DCS – your logic is flawed in that you are assuming unlimited or in industry parlance, unconstrained demand at the price point the hotel is selling at when, in fact, that is not ever the case.
If there truly is unlimited demand, then the hotel can sell every single room at either cash or points and assuming they have priced the hotel properly, they will receive nearly 100% of the ADR that night as several of us have pointed out.
The fact is, there is hardly ever a time when there is truly unconstrained demand. Yes, it is a problem if a hotel ends the night at 94% OCC vs 95% in order to get fully compensated by the brand for the points rooms but this rarely happens and can be adjusted anyway but putting rooms out of order, the hotel buying their own rooms to hit 95% etc – all of which hotels do all the time!
Further, owners are willing (or forced) to take a bit of a haircut because of the PAID bookings a hotel loyalty program brings their way. When a hotel has 80% of the guests in house that are Bonvoy or WoH members, that is the program working for the owner. And it happens all the time. Why do you think there are more and more hotels becoming branded – nee Autograph etc. And hotels with outside redemption numbers are paid extra by the brands to further compensate the owner to ensure they do allow rooms to be booked using points.
@hotel guy — I made no such assumption and there is little in what you wrote that I take issue. What is utterly ridiculous and I have my beef with is the claim that Hyatt requires hotels to offer for booking with points any room that is available for booking with cash. It is ridiculous and stupid.
Hotel loyalty programs, like airline loyalty programs, are not built on opening their entire room or seat inventories for booking with points or miles. They are built on something more sensible, which is that a limited number of rooms or seats is set aside initially for redeeming with points/miles. Then, more or fewer seats/rooms can be made available depending on demand for revenue rooms or seats. Programs have statistical models that they use to estimate how many rooms or seats they can potentially sell and, therefore, how many to set aside for points redemptions. The reason that such models is necessary is the obvious fact that points stays and cash stays are not the same and should not be treated as if they were. Therefore:
I am repeating myself, so, I a done here. Constant claims that “hotels play games with availability” are my evidence that the notion that Hyatt forces hotels to offer for booking with points any room that they can potentially sell for cash is a pipe dream and another travel blogosphere fabrication.