Hyatt announced a new Global Head of Loyalty this morning. Here’s my open letter to Mark Vondrasek, who spent 15 years working for Starwood in a similar role.
Dear Mr. Vondrasek,
Welcome to Hyatt. I congratulate you on your new appointment and wish you tremendous success in your new role.
Your experience at Starwood will be valuable, though Hyatt’s far smaller global footprint must be carefully weighed as you transition to World of Hyatt.
I’m one of your most loyal customers, a Globalist member who spends two months per year inside a Hyatt hotel room. I care deeply about Hyatt, both as a travel writer and an affected customer.
My Three Suggestions for Making Hyatt Great Again
The press release announcing your new position states one of your roles will be “creating and scaling new business opportunities, products and services.”
While this sounds promising, the devil is always in the details. My advice is threefold. First, focus on rewarding hotel loyalty. Perhaps that goes without saying, but at the core of loyalty is a simple cost/benefit proposition that seems miscalculated by many policy choices (such as mid-tier benefits) of the World of Hyatt Program. Second, work on your loyalty website. Its functionality constraints on both the front-end and back-end annoy customers. Third, always be honest with members. Sometimes cuts are necessary and they should never be sugarcoated as positive enhancements.
Your boss, Mark Hoplamazian, stated–
We are fortunate to welcome a leader with a reputation for transformation who can accelerate Hyatt’s loyalty platform, advance innovative products and expand Hyatt’s partnerships. This work is critical to our experience-based growth strategy and will deepen the relationship we have with our existing guests as well as expand our base of customers.
Expanding partnerships and offering innovative products is a good thing. I look forward to staying in the Miraval Resort later this year, a promising new addition to the Hyatt portfolio. But just remember when using the world “transformation” that Gold Passport was the most beloved hotel loyalty program for many years.
Also in the press release, you stated–
I’m eager to collaborate with the amazing team Mark has built to accelerate the forward momentum powered by World of Hyatt, the company’s movement into wellness and other opportunities to expand beyond traditional hotel stays.
Again, this is an innovative approach to loyalty. While I have my doubts to whether this is a wise use of resources, I hope you find great success in it. But just don’t neglect the little things like suite upgrades or even being able to pull up old folios online. That builds loyalty too.
Congrats again on the new position.
Best Regards,
Matthew
Don’t know Mark Vondrasek? Here’s what he’s most proud of at Starwood–
Although it leaves me out in the cold. Loyalty should be $$$ based. That includes Upgrades and benefits received under each tier. For decades Ive gamed the airlines and hotels. But usually those calling for everything including the kitchen sink to be given for free, spend very little $$$
Ive been told weeks ago that Hyatt knows they went way too far in the program. But thats because they were way too on the opposite side for years. No bank today will pay you 2% in a savings acct, yet if they want new $$ they cant pay .001% either. So they pay little to thos ewho have next to nothing in the bank and much more with those who are their top depositors say $200k+.
Thats what the airlines and hotels should be doing but they gotten Greedy and dont want to give anything if they can help it. Hyatt should go out of its way to take care of not those who do the 60 nights (since a person can do them via C&P at a Cat 1 or 2.) But those that do the 60 with dropping substantial $$$, not dropping the $$$ should yield you a little something but much at all. I would tie getting DSUs to having to have met the min Spend and remove Suites except Jrs from the upgrade pool w/o uisng a DSU. that shoul;d allow them to take proper care of those dropping the $$$
Go back to comprehensible names like Diamond. Make Diamond reasonably attainable with stays. Not matches and challenges
Issac is largely right as much as it pains us points folks. Hyatt should be rewarding big spenders the most. Although I differ with him a little bit about a spend requirement while spending 60 nights. Even at 100 bucks a night at a cheap hotel that is still 6k in spend – maybe requires 10k-15k
I’d say if you spend 15k+ you should only need 25 nights to top tier. That encourages the high value business travels to stay at Grand Hyatt/Park Hyatt properties in major cities. The biggest weakness with the program now is that it provides no incentive for semi frequent travels in high value professions to choice Hyatt.
I disagree with what Isaac wrote. I think Hyatt has now gone too far down the path of only rewarding the high value customers and telling the frequent but not spendthrift customers to go away.
If they don’t like the Hyatt Place guests, then take the Hyatt name off the sign. If the only Hyatt in town is an HP, then when I stay there I expect full Hyatt benefits. I do not want to be told I only paid $99 for the room, so I’m not “valuable.”
Matthew, I am not too optimistic. I fear the many years of loyalty with Hyatt will be coming to an end soon. Watching the video showed how proud he was of the enhancements he made at Starwood. None of them made me give incentive to switch to Starwood.
Because I don’t have some large corporation paying for my travel, I choose travel loyalty programs based on VALUE. Certainly Hyatt has decreased the value with their new WOH program. Simple as that. I understand why many have moved away. If this shows their profits have increased, then I am sure Hyatt will continue to move in this direction. I think the only hope of them moving back towards the great Hyatt program of yesteryear is if these changes didn’t increase profits.
Looking at how much typical room rates have gone up in the US with the strong US economy this year, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are celebrating the new WOH program, and possibly going to make more “enhancements” of the type we don’t like.
It is a thoughtful and sensible open letter recommendations.
It’s not like you’re asking for unrealistic benefits such as in-room whole body massages delivered by Brazilian bikini models with special emphasis below the appendix area. 😉
Um, the “big spenders” aren’t staying at Hyatt properties people – they are staying at MO, 4S, Peninsula, or even high end boutique properties. Maybe a few of the Park Hyatts out there. But that isn’t a winning strategy.
It’s not like “reward the high spenders” has gone fantastically well for the airlines. They’ve publicly said so.
My point was link the best benefits to the Spend. What kills the programs is how they do matches even challenges and then bingo they are inudated with folks like me , that will use pts for the top places along with a DSU. 60 nights at a Cat1 using C&P isnt much in Hyatts pockets. Then they will have to deal with that person looking at a PH with a DSU. Well make the Spend high enough to get the DSUs and all of a sudden many folks wont bother since it means having to actually spend some money, much more then they are willing to since the pay back wont be worth it to them = they wont be getting something for nothing
All I meant to say was take care of those who are taking care of your program, which will leave many folks very mad as they wont be able to justify the spend for what they will get back if the Spend is high enough. The airlines want the Spend but at the same time dont give back anything either, which is why Im satisfied with the LT status I have on UA & AA and serves my needs. Didnt make sense for me to spend $12k and see very little if anything back in return. People are ticked at Hyatt since till now they were able to live teh life of Rielly which they never could have afforded to do and then bang Hyatt pulled teh rug out from under them and it was back to Fairfield Inns and having to face reality that they cant live as if they were on the top of the ladder rather then the middle or bottom
@isaac – good points, but the hotels program were already “revenue based” on the earn side anyways. Spend $200 and you get 2x as many points as spending $100 on a room, more or less.
It’s also easier for hotels to treat “better” guests anyways – look at annual stay patterns and such, reward those frequent stayers w/better rooms, F&B surprises, etc.
I doubt there are oodles and oodles of top tier elites out there doing 60+ nights at $100 ADRs.
“Reputation for transformation”? “Accelerate Hyatt’s loyalty platform”? Seriously? My suggestion for a first step in the right direction is to stop the marketing babble that consists of nothing but a string of buzz words.
The suggested second step would be to fire anyone who thought WoH was a good idea. But that would apparently require some housekeeping in the C suite, so probably not going to happen.
Globalist Status for $100,000/year spend on Hyatt Credit Card would be nice. I would love to see greater rewards for the Hyatt CC Program with Chase. The Club Access Certificates for $50,000/year spend is ok, but not very rewarding, since many don’t have Club, many Clubs are closed, and House/Place have breakfast.