Article: Guide to maximising your World of Hyatt benefits

[AFF Editor]

World of Hyatt Guide: How to Maximise Your Benefits is an article by our new writer, Wilson:

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/world-of-hyatt-guide/

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[CorporateFlyerMEL]

thanks Wilson. One thing that has been frustrating me is the tendency for Hyatt to ask you to pay for the room at the start of the stay and then whenever you order room service or laundry etc during the stay, they are done as separate transactions (paid again on the spot) and do not appear on the stay invoice and inevitably points are not credited (despite assurances from reception that they will be). Follow up with WoH email tends to not get a response or pushes it back to the hotel, so valuable points go missing...

 

[WilsonM]

thanks Wilson. One thing that has been frustrating me is the tendency for Hyatt to ask you to pay for the room at the start of the stay and then whenever you order room service or laundry etc during the stay, they are done as separate transactions (paid again on the spot) and do not appear on the stay invoice and inevitably points are not credited (despite assurances from reception that they will be). Follow up with WoH email tends to not get a response or pushes it back to the hotel, so valuable points go missing...

I've had this too, although only in Asia. The first time I was a little caught out, but what I ended up doing was paying for the room first, and then insisting on giving a credit card as a deposit. From what I could gather, that seems to be the issue (and that visa/Mastercard debit cards are not accepted for room guarantees). Would recommend giving this a go, yeah it's inconvenient but as you say, those points are valuable!

 

[levelnine]

What I've found is that Hyatt awards bonus points on room charges in a very non-transparent and inconsistent fashion regardless of how they appear on your bill or how you are billed.

Lucky covered this in a blog post last year: Hyatt Points For Incidental Spending: A Consistent Problem

With that said, Hyatt's my favourite loyalty program due to its incredible award chart.

Just this year, I've stayed at the PH Maldives for 35K p/n, PH Kyoto for 40K p/n, PH Canberra for 15K p/n & Andaz London for 18K p/n. Simply incredible.

 

[WilsonM]

What I've found is that Hyatt awards bonus points on room charges in a very non-transparent and inconsistent fashion regardless of how they appear on your bill or how you are billed.

Lucky covered this in a blog post last year: Hyatt Points For Incidental Spending: A Consistent Problem

With that said, Hyatt's my favourite loyalty program due to its incredible award chart.

Just this year, I've stayed at the PH Maldives for 35K p/n, PH Kyoto for 40K p/n, PH Canberra for 15K p/n & Andaz London for 18K p/n. Simply incredible.

That's the biggest thing I love about WoH - the fact that you can get outsized value pretty much anywhere on the award chart!

 

[Berlin]

We learnt to love Hyatt during the end tail of the pandemic when they had the offer to “only” need 30 instead of 60 nights per year to achieve Globalist status and now never want to look back.

After years of loyalty (and admittedly easy Gold status through Amex) to Starwood, when they went under and got bonvoy-ed, both Marriott and more so even Hilton just totally lost their main benefits in my eyes. Way too easy to get status and hence you get treated accordingly.

Hyatt is a different story, there simply aren’t that many Globalists around, even in the US most people actually stay for 60 nights (though, granted, in many areas this might be easier to accomplish as there are more, and cheaper, Hyatt properties around). As a result, we find you get way better benefits including quite regularly upgrades to proper suits just for having status (try that staying at a Hilton these days- good luck!). And on top of that, you get the upgrade certificates for guaranteed suite stays which work a treat.

We also love the Globalist specialty support which actually is a proper benefit, especially if you run into issues with your build or even just getting touch with someone English-speaking in an exotic location: The My Hyatt concierge team is actually helpful in those occasions. And the Hyatt footprint is getting better and better too- all capital cities besides Adelaide and Hobart now have a Hyatt property (though Brissy is pretty miserable), we particularly love the relatively newly added Centric in Melbourne and over in New Zealand the Park Hyatt Auckland is glorious. The new Mr. & Mrs. Smith partnership is mostly just outrageously expensive places but I’ve found some rather decent value exceptions in NZ particularly. Besides that, some other recent acquisitions like Dream hotels are mainly US-based but have some gorgeous properties while Lindner hotels over in Europe might be mostly rather simple places but have upped Hyatt presence in Germany significantly which I highly appreciate. So yea- there’s still much to do but Hyatt is getting better and their benefits are usually much better than what you get from the other big chains.

 

[levelnine]

The Mr & Mrs Smith acquisition is a huge disappointment with dynamic pricing and lack of elite benefits. It's making a lot of the US bloggers call into question their previously undying love to Hyatt, especially as Hilton's integration of SLH has been far superior.

 

[Berlin]

The Mr & Mrs Smith acquisition is a huge disappointment with dynamic pricing and lack of elite benefits. It's making a lot of the US bloggers call into question their previously undying love to Hyatt, especially as Hilton's integration of SLH has been far superior.

I’m disappointed too but see this as a nice to have in places where there’s no proper Hyatt or when you feel like splurging on something crazily expensive. Lack of Globalists benefits is a real shame but SLH wasn’t any better in this respect. To be honest- many of those “US bloggers” simply had totally overinflated expectations, dreaming of cheap awards on Thousand $ plus properties which was never going to happen.

Doesn’t change a thing about overall superiority of Hyatt’s program compared to all the others.