Oh, goodie: A Hyatt devaluation, too!


‘Tis the season for award chart adjustments and the Hyatt devaluation for 2014 is now public. Their  new award chart for their Gold Passport program effective for bookings made after 6 January 2014 was published late today. The good news is that the changes aren’t too horrible in most cases. The bad news is that there are a couple properties and one specific award where the new chart really stinks.

HyattCompare

The properties most significantly affected are six Park Hyatt hotels: Beaver Creek, Milan, Paris, Sydney, Tokyo and Zurich. These are now in a new Category 7 where the basic room redemption starts at 30,000 points, an increase of 36% over the old rate of 22,000 points. Suite bookings at these properties jump to 48,000 points, an increase of nearly 50% over the old rate of 33,000 points. Bad, but not horrible. Also, there are 38 hotels switching categories with 17 going down a level and 21 going up a level (plus the 6 moving to the new level 7). Again, not a horrible set of changes.

Finally, what I consider to probably be the most significant change is with respect to upgrade awards. The Suite Upgrade award has been a spectacular value in the Gold Passport program. At only 6,000 points for up to 4 nights in a suite from the Hyatt Daily Rate it was phenomenal. The new rules are much, much less so:

UPGRADES ON PAID STAYS
The points required to upgrade your paid stay to a Regency Club®/Grand Club® room or suite will be on a per-night basis. Regency Club/Grand Club upgrades will require 3,000 points per night, and suite upgrades will require 6,000 points per night.

That’s a lot more for suite upgrades, up to 300% more for a 4 night stay.

One really nice thing that Hyatt is doing is that they are going to proactively honor the lower rate for stays after 7 January 2014 at the properties where the rates are going down. They will also honor the old rates for future bookings without issue. They’re even giving a 5 week buffer, until 15 February 2014, for changes to be made against such bookings while still honoring the old rates. Some more details on that are available in questions 7 & 8 in the FAQ.

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Seth Miller

I'm Seth, also known as the Wandering Aramean. I was bit by the travel bug 30 years ago and there's no sign of a cure. I fly ~200,000 miles annually; these are my stories. You can connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

6 Comments

  1. The bloggers are much less outraged over this.
    But, if you see the cost of a suite (that you get to AFTER getting off the plane on a F class that cos you 100% more), the prices went up 100%
    It appears that many of those on the F class are now staying elsewhere as they have used up all their UR points, perhaps at Club Carlson or even the Holday Inn with a free night every year.
    UR points have been heavily devalued now and the best card all round may be the 2% cash back card, using things like Blue Cash Amex for 5% backon gas and groceries.
    The rest of the Hawkers Stall Cards are best used for sign up bonuses and then move on.

    1. There are no awards which are 100% more, other than the upgrades (and those could be as much as 300% more!) so I’m not entirely sure what the point is you’re trying to make. The program still offers some decent values, though there are far fewer scenarios now where Chase UR->Hyatt does better than 2% cash back.

      Still the Hyatt CC is a decent value proposition with the free night and the accelerated earnings if you happen to be staying at a Hyatt.

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