We’ve reached June and I’m facing a new reality: qualifying for Hyatt Globalist status is going to be even more difficult than I thought.
I knew that 60 nights is a far different beast than 25 stays. Last year I ended the year with 40 nights at Hyatt, so I figured I could squeeze 20 more nights out over the year. But if I am going to do that, I have some catch-up work to do.
We’ve reached the end of the first week of June and I’m at 20 nights so far this year. That means I will need to double my effort for the remainder of the year if I want to keep Globalist status. The problem is not that this is an impossible task, but whether it is worth it.
The two greatest draws of being a Globalist member of the World of Hyatt program are 1.) free breakfast / lounge access and 2.) suite upgrades. I love hotel breakfasts and WOULD pay them if they were not “free” (and putting free in quotation marks is vital).
But let’s do the math
If we average out breakfast prices and value them at $20/day (I think that’s conservative), that comes to ~$1200/year in value for just myself. Half the time my wife, brother, or friend John is with me and also partakes in the breakfast benefit.
But let’s be reasonable: I only need about 40 nights per year, not 60. So if I average $150/night and I’m paying for 20 nights I do not need, that comes to an extra $3,000: quite a bit more than the breakfast savings.
And yet I think about my Ambassador Suite at the Park Hyatt Vienna with delicious breakfast (room service breakfast bill ran over 100EUR and was fully covered). I think about securing suite upgrades when I travel with my wife and son, so the baby can have his own room. And I figure that spending the money for 20 extra nights, even though foolish from a pure short-term ROI standpoint, is an excellent way to build additional content for the blog and treat my family to mini-vacations (for example, weekends at some of the many great Hyatt properties in California).
CONCLUSION
If my chief end was the accumulation of wealth, I am just stupid not to be putting this $3K into an investment fund rather than blowing it on Hyatt hotels. But I don’t like the thought of life without Hyatt status. Anyone else in the same boat?
I was until I looked at the confirmed suite upgrade benefit (limited window of use) and the overall program benefits (Free bottle water? I still get charged until I fight it. Best room available? Yes but with 98124 conditions and/or you must fight for it).
The whole program is starting to wreak and I see a slippery slope in Hyatt’s future.
No, sadly. I think the future is purchasing breakfast and /or purchasing club level or suites. I don’t feel compelled to chase any loyalty milestones anymore, I will take advantage of promotions and continue to rack up points casually when it works for me, but now I value schedule and price with airlines and convenience and comfort with hotels and am willing to pay for the perks that are so often elusive with loyalty programs.
I love Hyatts, and I’ve loved Diamond/Globalist for the past year that I’ve had it. We’ve gotten consistent suite upgrades since the new program started, so I’ve actually been pleased mostly with the changes (though I miss the 1,000 points or wine each night I check in).
My problem is it’s still too easy to get SPG Platinum, and then pair that with Marriott Platinum, which helps getting low-tier on United. Right now, I’m set to get Platinum for next year, and land at Explorist by year’s end. I think my plan is to ride out Globalist for the rest of the year, where I’m getting married at the Grand Hyatt Playa del Carmen, and the honeymoon in Jan. 2018, where I’m staying at Hyatts in Hong Kong, Bali, and Phuket.
I fortunately live in Phoenix full-time, so summers can be easily used to rack up cheap Hyatt Place stays. 4th night free brings the overall number of nights needed to 45. That way, if I really missed status, I can just wait until Summer 2018 to qualify again. Plus, who knows if any qualification changes might be made!
I’m in a similar situation and decided not to pursue it. There’s also the opportunity cost including time and effort.
at this point it’s not about the $3000 anymore, but rather, spending 40 additional mattress running nights away from your family. of course you can always check into a Hyatt property nearby your home and never bother sleeping there, but that’s really throwing $3000 down the drain for a suite upgrade here and there
(UA status comps Marriott Gold which comes with free breakfast at a wide swath of Marriott group properties so I’ll strike that out as a particular advantage for Hyatt Globalist)
i’ll only consider status running of any kind if my regular business plus leisure related travels get me 75% the way towards the threshold.
I’m probably going to requalify for Diamond/Globalist this year. At 26 nights this year. Have 3 nights this month but all on points so they won’t count. I’m going to end up maybe doing a mattress run locally. I’m also jumping off the AA EXP hamster wheel after requalifying this year.
It’s just easier to pay for breakfast/club and F/J seats than it is to bother to requalify now.
try doing points and cash they still help you qualify
I’ve been Diamond for ten years and am at 17 nights this year so far. I don’t think it’s worth going for Globalist. I’m also Platinum with Starwood, on my way to lifetime status, and think I will focus on that. Starwood/Marriott has a ton more properties and they still offer status based on stays. Hopefully the merger will go smoothly.
…I also despise the new “World of Hyatt” branding and as a designer, it actually makes me not want to give them my business! It’s horrible!
So, the hotel chains have you thinking irrationally because of that piece of plastic and subsequent ego-stroking with occasional fantastic upgrades, huh?
Good job, Hyatt.
In all seriousness, if you actually just paid cash for what you wanted in hotel rooms, (including paying in cash/points for suite “upgrades” and “free breakfasts”) would you come out ahead? Or does the mattress running come out ahead if you go “well, I would have to pay an extra $200 a night for that suite I want”? Or does the suite only become tempting if you get it with a status upgrade? In which case, well, you know the cost in cash mattress running now.
Personally, I am willing to take a moderate amount of free bennies, but frankly I am fine in small hotel rooms myself when it saves hundreds in expensive places like Hong Kong (and brand loyalty in a town like Bangkok where you can throw a rock and hit a four star for $100 and a nice breakfast buffet for $20-30 strikes me as crazy). But in the end it’s up to you.
Pretty much.
Well, if you really REALLY think “well, this could bring something back to the blog in business value, enough that this + what I’d spend to upgrade my travel might pencil out”, OK, you spend the $3000 for mattress running in 2017, and, this is the important part, make some quantifiable measurements on the return on what you spent (track upgrades and put some cash value on them, track additional traffic/revenue from blog posts, etc.), and then re-evaluate against the goals (“I should get $3,000 value out of my mattress running in 2017 for 2018”) when doing your 2018 plans for 2019. People drop 5-6 figures on silly business ideas all the time (“I’ll open a restaurant!”), so OK, it COULD be a $3,000 mistake, but as long as you’re not fooling yourself, go in with eyes wide open, and you’re going to actually evaluate it as a business/financial decision, instead of pretending it is one when you really just want warm and fuzzies from a shiny card, it doesn’t seem that harmful to me.
I stopped trying for Hyatt Globalist. Was nice when I had it, but just not worth it to continue trying to hit a status with a chain with such a small global footprint (700?). They lack hotels in many major European cities. So much easier to get gold at SPG/Marriott and get the lounge benefits and occasional upgrades with 6000+ properties.
I think the element that you briefly touch on missing from the calculation here is the point accumulation. As a current Globalist, Matthew is going to earn 5 points/$1 plus a 30% bonus on top of any credit card he chooses to use to pay for it. Earnings without any other expenses will reach 19,500 points and if we assume a redemption rate of $.02/point then there is a value received back of $390. If we also assume that he will use the Sapphire Reserve card or the Hyatt card and earn 3x points on hotel/Hyatt spend, then there will be another 9,000 points at the same redemption value of $.02/point adds another $180 to the equation. So out of $3,000 there is an agreed breakfast value of $1200 plus the combined point value of $570, brings the chasm down to only $1230. The real question is whether the personal concierge (available next year), unlimited upgrades at checkin and four confirmed suite upgrades for up to 7 nights per upgrade is worth $1230 – which to me it would be.
You know what I think of “free” hotel breakfast, so I won’t bore you with that argument here 🙂
I’ve personally come to the conclusion that chasing hotel status is burning money. That being said, part of it is that a) I WOULDN’T pay for hotel breakfast at the going rate if it weren’t included, especially at a 5-star hotel, and b) I value upgrades at far less than the actual markup, because if I’m not willing to pay full freight, then clearly I don’t think it’s worth the full upcharge. Plus, while I kinda understand your affection for Hyatt, if you want to treat your family to mini-vacations, I think you’d be surprised at how much money you could save by going with an independent or boutique hotel that gives you goodies like free breakfast, wine hours, etc. even without status. If you do the math that way, I think you’ll find that you’re not going to receive equal value for the $3,000 you’re spending.
In your case, the wild card, as you note, is the potential value to your blog. If you spent the $3,000, what incremental return do you think you’ll get from the extra content? I’ve taken some frivolous trips the last year to build blog content. So far I’ve gotten nowhere near an equal return from clicks, but maybe it’ll pay off some day? Anyway, my opinion is that the blog business question should really drive your decision – not the breakfast or suite upgrades.
I 100% agree that it comes down to the value of the blog. Even then, sometimes we (I) tend to be a hopeless optimist and still make a wrong choice. We will see…
I put no value on hotel breakfasts. I value lounges and suite upgrades. 75% of the Hyatt’s that should have had a lounge I’ve stayed at this year did not have a lounge. I have yet to be upgraded on any stay. I can easily make the 60 nights, but why? For a sad little bottle of water? Hyatt does not value me as a customer, so I have taken my business elsewhere.
I’ve been Diamond for the last couple of years.
I am at 46 nights so far and have another 10 or so booked and so expect that I will qualify soon. In the course of earning those nights – many using points and cash rates – I used a sapphire reserve card to earn more points and suite upgrades and took my family on three awesome trips (France, Costa Rica, and US). One of the trips where I used a suite upgrade we went from a standard room to a 1700 square foot palace with its own plunge pool etc.
If you have a family of 4 or 5, the suite upgrades and the breakfast benefits really start adding up – like $200+ a day adding up in the case of breakfast. Since ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’, I have eaten that to a tune of at least $3k this just with the family.
True, the new confirmed suite upgrade policies do not always work. But I’ve been getting them, especially at better properties that are corporate-owned. At places where Ive been staying 10 days+ a year I have been getting recognition upgrades that aren’t on a chart.
I love that the new threshold of 60 stays makes mattress running harder. Please don’t bother getting status! Hyatt sucks! Go stay at MarriottSPG! 🙂
Next year I plan to be one of the few ‘real’ Globalists who slept in the beds to earn the status and I will be getting those suite upgrades that have been so hard to secure this year. For those who can wait out the likely attrition, perhaps next year is when this level of status becomes reliably elite.
If you have to actually, you know, travel and stay in hotels some of the math on this thread doesn’t matter…And if you can take advantage of good C+P rates and the upgrades, I think that the status pays off.
they need to bring back diamond amenities period they did no research regarding the program period but points and cash will help allot of you qualify i have a special Hyatt regency lisle that i go to and the breakfast is simply amazing so I’m at 55 nights and plan on keeping my breakfast
I am in the same boat. I not going for it. I have a lot of nights this year (as I am enjoying my Globalist status), but not going to push it/mattress run to get to 60. I have been disappointed with the “best available room,” I don’t want to have to argue with every front desk clerk. Breakfast isn’t worth it… if I did not get it for free, I probably would eat outside of the hotel.
I too am in the same boat, and no way am I going to try to retain status. 80 nights last year. 0 this year. The program is really in trouble. DSUs have become impossible to use, no welcome amenity, no Mlife platinum, etc etc etc. Plus a point earning bonus for the top elites that is pathetic. There is an opportunity cost to not giving those nights to a better chain. Sorry, but starting this year, the opportunity cost is too high.
But, think of all the great Mandarin Orientals and Four Seasons you could be staying at instead. But, even not at that extreme; FHR (and Virtuoso) provide so many benefits and the opportunity to stay at a huge number of great properties. Properties that you would never experience if you were “shackled” to Hyatt. Not to mention, all the great buy 2 get 1 offers + benefits. I’m a hotel free agent (we accept Hilton Diamond, Shangri La Diamond and the usual blah-blah Marriott/SPG/Carlson Gold via AMEX for 2), and I love being one. Just in the past few months :
http://www.chewtonglen.com
http://www.thegainsboroughbathspa.co.uk
http://www.mandarinoriental.com/boston/ (this one was really great off season, with the buy 2 get 1, triple upgrade and extra $200 FHR F&B credit)
Not to mention, my FHR upgrades tend to exceed expectations.
Do I like Hyatt (yes!) Heck, The Hyatt Regency London Churchill is one of my favourites (great cigar bar!) Hyatt Mallorca, spectacular. – but, on a global level I find them so limiting. And, it’s quite rare that there is not an equivalent FHR/Virtuoso property (usually multiple options).
When you are qualifying with OPM, or during the course of normal travel; Hyatt Status (or any status) is a great extra perk. I just don’t see the ROI if you have to manufacture stays. We often would do such things with casino loyalty, but the potential perks far outweigh the effort. I’ll “manufacture” play and stay at a property to get 100% free rooms, and future free play and food and beverage. But, just for “top tier,” no way. It’s just my opinion, but I need a LOT MORE incentive than just top-tier to go to the trouble. Perhaps, the hardest part is giving up a status that you have had for quite a few years. Heck, just your consideration of paying $3000 to re-qualify for Hyatt…. makes me feel like a lot less of a fool for spending €3000 (all-in) for 3 Centurion Cards and 5 Platinum Cards every year. I’ve figured out I about break even, but I still feel a bit like an idiot anyway. $3000 for JUST Hyatt Globalist… that would be really tough for me….
Many valid points… There are many road warriors that are going to spend 60+ nights in hotels because that is what we do as part of our day jobs. Traveling is part of corporate America. I will spend a few extra minutes planning my travel calendar to work in the minimum 60 stays to know that I when I check into the multiple hotels I travel to, I am recognized as a guest that warrants the attention as one of their valued guests.
The company I work for bends over backwards for our top clients and it feels good to be on the receiving end. Yes I know that every guest should be treated well and if one is pushy enough, you can get what you want.. not my style and life is too short. Globalist until I change careers and then will relook at priorities.
Nope. I decided to bail on Hyatt this year. Sixty Hyatt nights is just too much of a stretch. And while there are a handful of truly superb Hyatt properties (Vienna!), there are also quite a few cities where the Hyatt choices are really subpar (including SF, LA, and SD). And too many big holes in the program (e.g., Rome, Venice, Budapest – all zeroes).
Marriott Plat challenged and not looking back.
If you were really heavy on Hyatt points, you might be able to consider P&C for as many of those 40 nights as are available to reduce out-of-pocket cash. Obviously, the points still have value.
I think trying to score 20 extra nights to keep Hyatt status is a tough one. If those nights were all priced $100 or less, I’d probably be inclined to give it a swing.
I love Hyatts, and I’ve loved Diamond/Globalist for the past year that I’ve had it. We’ve gotten consistent suite upgrades since the new program started, so I’ve actually been pleased mostly with the changes.