Book These Hyatt Properties Now Before Award Prices Go Up Next Week
You have just a handful of days to make an award booking at a number of Hyatt Hotels that are due to increase in price for award rooms on Tuesday, March 25th.
Hyatt recently announced award category changes, something they do on an annual basis. As usual, the changes are a mixed bag. We did a deeper dive on the category changes here.
First, a quick refresher on the Hyatt award chart. Hyatt is really the only major hotel brand that publishes an award chart any longer. That’s a solid benefit for members, to know how many points they’re likely to need for their next vacation. Each category has some ranges. Here’s a look at World of Hyatt’s current award charts:
Standard Award Chart
Suite Award Chart
All-Inclusive Award Chart
Extra Person All-Inclusive Chart
As you can see, Hyatt maintains a number of different award charts for different types of properties. There’s also the Mr. & Mrs. Smith collection, which relies more on dynamic pricing of awards.
A number of really good Hyatt properties will move to a higher award category (which means it will cost you more points in the future). Some examples of properties you may want to make a speculative booking for are:
- Grand Hyatt SFO (increase from Category 5 to 6)
- Grand Hyatt Indian Wells (increase from Category 5 to 6)
- Thompson Palm Springs (increase from Category 5 to 6)
- Hyatt Regency Coconut Point (increase from Category 5 to 6)
- Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport (increase from Category 4 to 5)
- Grand Hyatt Kauai (increase from Category 7 to 8)
- Hyatt Regency London-The Churchill (increase from Category 6 to 7)
- Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars (increase from Category 5 to 6)
- Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui (increase from Category 4 to 5)
- Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills (increase from Category 7 to 8)
- Grand Hyatt Tokyo (increase from Category 7 to 8)
- Andaz Papagayo (increase from Category 7 to 8)
There are also some desirable properties getting cheaper (dropping in award category). Once March 25th rolls around, you’ll be able to book these properties for fewer points. And, if you have an existing booking at one of these hotels, Hyatt will automatically refund you the difference in points when the award price drops on the 25th. Here are some examples of properties that are dropping in award category:
- Hotel Figueroa (drops from Category 5 to 4)
- Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country (drops from Category 4 to 3)
- Thompson Hollywood (drops from Category 6 to 5)
- Hyatt Regency Maui (drops from Category 7 to 6)
- Park Hyatt Doha (drops from Category 5 to 4)
The Final Two Pennies
Hyatt continues to be one of the few brands that broadcasts these sort of award changes on an annual basis. There seems to be more bad news than good news this year when it comes to some of my favorite Hyatt hotels. There are a few bright spots (Hyatt Regency Maui, where we had a wonderful stay this past summer). You can see the full list of properties changing category on the Hyatt website.
Make sure you book any of the properties increasing in value before March 25th. Remember that in the vast majority of cases, you can cancel your reservation later (ahead of any cancellation windows) and get a full refund of your points.
I’ll admit, when Hyatt added peak and off-peak rates to their award charts, I thought that the elimination of award charts completely wasn’t far behind. That’s proven to be wrong thus far. Let’s keep crossing our fingers.
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This is yet another consecutive year where the number of hotels increasing in category vastly outnumbers the number decreasing. Remember not so long ago when category 7 only had half a dozen total hotels? Now how many exist? And there are no downtown NYC hotels usable with a category 1-4 certificate and Chicago is rapidly approaching the same situation. Globalist status increasingly gets you nothing of note at limited service hotels or the perplexingly vast number of all-inclusive hotels Hyatt is fervently acquiring. Meanwhile full service hotels are largely being forgotten and club lounges have largely become a joke domestically, even in Hyatts that still have one.
I’m afraid Hyatt has lost it’s way. I’m a Globalist and I’m not leaving yet but it’s tough to construe Hyatt’s ignoring full service hotels – what made Hyatt work – and doing death by a thousand cuts to their loyalty program as being anything less than intentional. Yes they still have an award chart and that absolutely is a positive feature of WOH but when the best anyone can muster is “It could be worse” you know things are truly bad. Genuine apologies for being a downer as I’m generally a fan of your optimism.