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In 2013 Hyatt and MGM entered in a partnership, and MGM Resorts stays in Las Vegas counted towards Hyatt status.
- MGM has a lot of hotels across price points. Some, like Excalibur, are very cheap.
- And they’re even cheaper midweek.
- You could check in using their mobile app, without ever being in Las Vegas.
- And earn Hyatt nights easily, quickly and cheaply.
When the MGM-Hyatt partnership was announced as ending (a move I predicted a year earlier), one of the first changes before it actually ended was to prevent guests crediting an MGM stay to Hyatt from checking in using the MGM mobile app.
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.
Thank you for 3 years of Globalist https://t.co/od4IGSEE08
— Amol (@PointsToPointB) October 16, 2023
People go to great lengths to earn Hyatt status because guests earning 60 elite nights per year:
- Earn 4 confirmed suite upgrades valid for up to 7 nights apiece, to book a suite when reserving a regular room (2 of these are actually earned at 50 nights)
- Earn a category 1-7 free night
- Receive a concierge to work with on all things related to Hyatt
- Also earn a category 1-4 free night (at 30 nights)
- Plus 5,000 bonus points or $100 Hyatt credit (at 40 nights)
And Globalist status gets 4 p.m. late check-out at non-resort properties (where it’s only subject to availability) and the breakfast benefit is ‘real’ in that it actually defines what a hotel has to provide, meaning where there’s no club lounge breakfast it’s a full buffet or entree and coffee or tea and juice, inclusive of tax and gratuity. Hotels aren’t allowed to just offer a continental breakfast or play games like with Hilton and Marriott (though some still do).
Marriott was supposed to replace Hyatt as MGM’s partner this month but that’s been put off. It seemed like an aggressive timetable to begin with, and have to speculate that the MGM data breach which shut down their systems for an extended period likely trumped making progress on the Marriott partnership. Here’s what Marriott has to say about timing,
Our two companies are excited to deliver world-class offerings and benefits for our guests. We look forward to debuting MGM Collection with Marriott Bonvoy by early 2024.
It will be interesting to see whether ‘phantom stays’ at Excalibur as a means to earn Marriott status will eventually be part of what’s possible when it finally goes live.
In the meantime, those on a quest for Hyatt still will want to look seriously at their credit cards.
- The World Of Hyatt Credit Card awards 5 qualifying night credits toward your next tier status every year and also earns 2 qualifying night credits towards your next tier status every time you spend $5,000 on your card. You receive a category 1-4 free night each year for having the card, and another after $15,000 spend in each cardmember year.
- World of Hyatt Business Credit Card currently has a bonus of up to 75,000 points: 60,000 Bonus Points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. Additionally, earn 15K Bonus Points after you spend $12,000 in the first 6 months.
You’ll receive up to $100 in Hyatt statement credits – spend $50 or more at any Hyatt property and earn $50 statement credits up to two times each anniversary year.
And the value here is the role the card plays in elite status: 5 Tier-Qualifying night credits toward status and Milestone rewards for every $10,000 you spend in a calendar year.
Fare thee well Excalibur phantom stays, you will be missed by many.
For some dumb reason I clicked on this article, not realizing it’s clickbait. I’m so naive.
Directing nearly 100% of my spend to the business card right now. I’m at 44 nights and probably have seven nights left in actual hotels for the remainder of 2023.
@ Gary — I find Hyatt Globalist to be super-easy to re-qualify for. I’ve never understood the myth that it is difficult. We usually end up with 70-90 QNs, with about 55-80 from actual stays. That is on top of what I consider a difficult (ie, expensive) task — earning IC Royal Ambassador, while still trying to use a reasonable amount of points (points stays don’t count towards IC RA).
It would be nice if Hyatt offered some sort of promotion to earn extra credits before the end of the year.
We all know Hyatt has the best loyalty program but MGM is cutting cost and removing amenity from guests, which MRT is good at. Its reciprocal dilution at play.
The Bilt promotion earlier this year will undoubtedly keep the numbers higher for next year
cull the herd
Hah, thanks for quoting my tweet. But in my case, I actually was going into the Excalibur to check in! Can’t speak for others who used other ways to get nights ….
Hyatt has challenges all the time
30 nights in 90 days
Bang Globalist
Sixty night does not give you four suite upgrade awards, it gives you two.
So many words and such little content. Other than promoting the credit cards you’ve offered nothing of value as to how to qualify for Globalist status.
Oh come on. It’s a pretty ‘select’ type of customer that were doing MGM runs to get Hyatt globalist status. And good riddance to them. They were the customer that would get cheap status and buy points and then go to one of the high end resorts demanding special service and upgrades for their instagram shots. And, what that has meant for the rest of us is a sort of combative attitude at these few hotels towards globalists. Frankly, as a tried and true Hyatt Globalist, I would love to see a few fewer of these people in the Hyatt ecosystem. I bet over time, the properties that paly games on standard suites and minimum stay relax a little bit.
I can’t figure out why anyone who doesn’t have enough legit stays to reach globalist would want to go out of their way, spending time, energy, and money, to manufacture stays to reach status that they obviously aren’t using all that much. I mean if you’re a few nights short, and plan to shift lots of stays to Hyatt the following year then I could understand, but the twitter twit thanks Excalibur for 3 years of globalist…so you bought status that you didn’t utilize enough to even requalify…3 times? How predictably moronic.
So just like gifted airline status, if people are globalist but aren’t staying much at hyatts, then their impact on other elites will be very muted.
I’m globalist, over 80 nights so far, and have only been able to use suite upgrade cert 1 time this year. The problem is that a standard suite (and a standard room you’re originally booking into) have to be available for the entire stay. So many hotels are gaming room classifications that this is exceedingly rare for anything longer than a couple nights, so good luck using it on a 7 night stay. So I hope you’re not making all these machinations for status just for those suite upgrade certs, you might be disappointed.
I didn’t see MGM-running Hyatt Globalists being a problem akin to Hyatt’s devaluation of points and Hyatt hotels playing games with regard to availability of rooms using points and upgrades for Globalists. The MGM-running Hyatt Globalists didn’t devalue the points and cause Hyatt hotels to play customer-unfriendly games with the availability of rooms using points and with upgrades — that massive his is all on Hyatt. I’m still a Hyatt fan to some extent, as the major alternatives are sadly already worse; but I will still give Hyatt the criticism it deserves for not being better about its failings.