Hyatt is the most generous with frequent guests when it comes to breakfast. Globalist members don’t just get ‘continental breakfast’ if there’s no club lounge available. Instead, Hyatt is clear that they get access to the hotel’s buffet or to menu items, and they go so far as to define what the menu items have to include.
There’s no allowance for excluding high dollar entree items from the benefit. Guests – the member, plus a registered guest in the room, and up to two minor children – also get coffee or tea and juice. The benefit includes tax, and it includes tip. In other words, they define things to avoid hotels playing games with the benefit and ensure it’s delivered.
Globalists will receive daily complimentary full breakfast (which includes one entrée or standard breakfast buffet, juice, and coffee, as well as tax, gratuity and service charges) for each registered guest in the room, up to a maximum of two (2) adults and two (2) children.
Some hotels even go above and beyond this. For instance, many Park Hyatts offer breakfast via room service as an option – many Park Hyatts (like Paris, New York, DC, Chicago, Abu Dhabi) and the Andaz 5th Avenue just to name a few.
This gets expensive! And the Hyatt Centric Victoria Harbour Hong Kong has an interesting way to try to hold down costs – guests entitled to breakfast, either because of their rate or status, receive an offer of a folio credit if they give up breakfast.
The hotel gives about $10 per eligible guest per night to opt out of breakfast. (The offer must be applied to all room guests for the full duration of stay.) The credit can be used for other restaurant or facilities charges, or even against the hotel’s room rate.
The hotel also appears to be trying to limit the number of patrons they need to serve breakfast to, with the main breakfast restaurant Farmhouse currently closed for renovation and breakfast being served at Cruise. In any case, I find this really interesting!
- Since it’s an option I don’t mind so much, even though $10 is not very generous. They pitch it as allowing you to get out and explore for breakfast, but the credit only goes so far.
- I wish this is what Hilton did when eliminating elite breakfast in favor of a food and beverage credit in the U.S. market – let members choose breakfast if that’s what they want, or a credit that usually doesn’t cover breakfast if that’s what they’d prefer.
Of course, I would not expect the hotel to offer a very large credit. The cost of providing breakfast to a guest (once they already have the restaurant, staff, ingredients) isn’t very high. Then again, if enough people take them up on this, over time they can scale back on staff and food cost.
The idea here is that the hotel benefits if you take them up on it, and since the guest is choosing it they believe they benefit as well. I do think I consider this win-win. What do you think?
(HT: Michael)
I’d take the deal.
It’s a good thing as long as the hotel doesn’t lean on this if the restaurant is closed for whatever reason in the future (renovations, private event, etc) and they claim this is the standard alternative.
Been with Hyatt since 1984 and a lifetime Globalist for the last five years. I would never choose this “low” credit. The breakfast benefit is one of the better perks that Hyatt offers in their program. Especially in Cities that breakfast could run you $40+ per person like NYC, Chicago or Paris, France. Everyone should be vocal about changes like this to benefit hotels and not members of Hyatt’s program.
No deal. As a Hyatt Globalist the breakfasts are a primary benefit that keeps me loyal.
No deal. Big breakfast fan, agree with Kirk it’s one the reasons I’m loyal to Hyatt
Where are our Asia correspondents, @Mantis, @JacktheLadd, etc. for their ‘on-the-ground’ look at this? We need your ‘hot takes,’ fellas! Don’t hold back. Lay it on us. Help us out so we don’t have to go all the way to Kowloon to Chow Tai Fook ourselves.
@Richard Hamilton — Paris, “France,” you say. Not to be confused with Paris, Texas, or the other 20+ cities in the USA with the same name, but no notoriety. Gee, boy, howdy, you saved us with that clarification!
Plenty of people the $10 appeals to, including people going to a meeting anyway when there’s likely coffee/pastry at the meeting. Or people that value a better cup of coffee than any hotel is likely to serve you. Or people that are not breakfast people. Not the best deal of course for a family of 4 if it’s $10 an adult so $20 not $40.
The real question is if this is really saving the hotel any money – are they really getting such a huge uptake on this offer that they are making less breakfast on a consistent basis / able to reduce staffing?
10 dollars is spitting in your face perhaps double that and that or 1500 WOH points to opt out for Globalists