A couple recent Hyatt devaluations begin today – one not so bad, the other really bad. Here’s what you need to know:
The ‘Not So Bad’
Hyatt Place previously offered a free breakfast to anyone staying the hotel. Starting today, you now need to be a World of Hyatt member when you book an eligible rate in order to receive their free breakfast.
Joining Hyatt’s loyalty program is free and frankly you should be a member to earn points on your stay anyway. The other important restriction is that you need to book an eligible rate.
Let’s dig into Hyatt’s terms on what an ‘Eligible Rate’ is vs ‘Ineligible Rates’. I highlighted part of the ‘Ineligible Rates’ definition that shows a room using a third party site such as expedia.com or hotels.com is an Ineligible Rate and therefore won’t receive free breakfast.
I don’t think I’ve ever booked a Hyatt Place using a third party website before since I typically use Hyatt points so I don’t see this as a huge devaluation.
The ‘Really Bad’
And now for the bad news – Hyatt also made changes to the Cash + Points bookings. Before today, you were able to book standard rooms for a set amount of points and cash based upon the hotel’s category.
But starting today, the amount of points based upon the hotel’s category stays the same but the cash portion is now 50% of the standard room rate.
Let me show you how bad this is – just a few weeks ago I stayed at the Hyatt Place in State College, PA for Penn State’s Homecoming weekend.
Before today, you could have booked this room for either 12,000 Hyatt points per night using the standard award. Or using the old cash + points option, you could have used 6,000 points and pay $75.
Now with the new Cash + Points chart – you still use 6,000 points but the cash option swells to $349.50. Definitely a pretty bad devaluation.
It looks like I’ll be going back to only using the full point standard awards.
What do you think about these changes? Do you typically book Hyatt Place using a third party website? Or did you book lots of Cash + Points rooms?
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