Clarifying A Couple Of Questions About World Of Hyatt

World of Hyatt has been pretty active the last month or so.  After making major changes to their program last year, they had a few positive changes recently.  First, they made a much-needed change by counting award nights towards elite status qualification. At the same time Hyatt announced they would extend the expiration date of free night certificates.  They followed that up by retroactively crediting award nights to members for their 2017 stays.  Hyatt even issued status, upgrades and free nights based on those changes.

These were huge positive changes for a loyalty program that has suffered a bad run of PR for their changes under World of Hyatt last year.  I do get why some members are upset.  That being said, at the top of the loyalty program, I believe I’m getting as good or better treatment as a Globalist versus the days of Diamond.

I’ve heard from many of you in regards to those changes.  In some cases, it was just to vent or celebrate the new announcements.  In many others, there were questions. They loosely revolved around these two issues;

1. Will loyalty members receive multiple night credits if they book and pay for (or redeem points for) more than one room at a property on the same night?  Some folks reported this may have happened with the retroactive credits for 2017.

2. Will award nights count towards brand explorer awards at some point? Brand Explorer awards are free nights you can earn for every 5 unique brands you stay at.

Answers

The folks at Hyatt were happy to answer both questions for me. Rather the try to sift through my inbox and social media accounts to find folks that asked about these items, I thought it would be beneficial to include them in a post for others in the future.

In reference to multiple rooms per night counting towards elite nights, Hyatt had the following to say:

In 2018 the free night awards will only count if a member is staying in the room – one paid or one award night will count per night.

I didn’t see a more formal announcement about multiple rooms counting towards elite status, so I expected this answer.  Whenever we vacation as a family we try to snag two rooms to have extra space.  We don’t all share one bedroom and bathroom at home.  Plus, we’ll sometimes travel with extended family where I’m redeeming points for their room.  When I travel for business, I’ll sometimes be paying for more than one room as well.

Being able to earn credit for multiple rooms is a nice perk of the Starwood Preferred Guest program.  Since the folks running World of Hyatt come from SPG, I’ll hope for a change here in the future.

I was curious to hear the answer on Brand Explorer free nights.  These are a nice addition for folks who stay frequently.  Stay at 5 different brands and you’ll earn a free night, good for redemption at a Category 1-4 hotel.  Stay at a total of 10 different brands and earn a free night at any Hyatt hotel.  I hit 5 brands pretty quickly and also thought I had tacked on the Grand Hyatt brand in 2017.  That one was an award stay but didn’t show in my progress meter.

So, what was Hyatt’s official answer on award nights counting towards Brand Explorer?

2018 nights on free night awards do qualify toward the 5 different Hyatt brands free night award. 2017 nights on free night awards do not count toward the 5 different Hyatt brands milestone.

Yay!  While I’m sure I would have ended up at a Grand Hyatt on a paid stay eventually, its nice to have award stays count.  I’m sure our family will visit a Hyatt Ziva property again for a vacation at some point in the future.

The Final Two Pennies

There you have it.  Two quick answers to questions that I’ve heard from a number of you.  I’ll be cheering for a change on the multiple nights counting towards status, but I’m pretty happy with the tweaks Hyatt has made over the past few months.

Are there any other questions about the World of Hyatt program you’re curious about?

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