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Hyatt’s New Loyalty Program: World of Hyatt – Official Site Launched
Yesterday the blog-o-sphere was going crazy with news that Hyatt was releasing a new loyalty program: Wold of Hyatt. I believe the news was initially broken by Matthew Klint of Pen and Passport and has since been detailed by a slew of bloggers. There’s a good article over at Frequent Miler, released this morning, that has some good analysis of Mattress Running with the new program. It’s always fun to sit down and take a look ourselves. Here’s Hyatt’s New Loyalty Program: World of Hyatt
The Overview:
*( images courtesy of hyatt.com)
Here’s what the program currently looks like:
How to Achieve: 
And then benefits
And then here is what World of Hyatt will look like: –
How to qualify
And then benefits: 
Officially the program starts March 1st, 2017
Whatever status you would be given for 2017 year you will be matched. For instance, if you were to be Platinum, you will be given Discoverist – if you’ve qualified for 2017 Diamond you will be given Globalist. However, if you have Diamond in 2016 and fail to qualify for Globalist, it’s being reported that you will be awarded Explorist. What is unclear, is whether you have to have stayed more than 10 nights but short of 60. For instance, I’m not certain if you have stayed 8 nights as Diamond, will you still be given Explorist or do you have to fall in the gap? It looks like it will be up to Hyatt’s discretion.
What is also being reported, via Frequent Miler, is that the terms of qualification under the old rules will still count from Jan 1st to Feb 28th, 2017. Meaning, you could mattress run for 2017 and 2018 status during the first two months of 2017 under the Gold Passport rules.
3 levels of Status with World of Hyatt vs 2 levels with Gold Passport
Gold Passport
- Platinum
- Diamond
World of Hyatt
- Discoverist
- Explorist
- Globalist
Status will be based of nights, meetings, and spend, not stays.
As you can see, mentioned above as well, Status will no longer be based of “stays,” but rather off nights and spend.
In all honesty, Hyatt was insanely generous with their “stays” qualification terms. It was also watering down Diamond status. I think it’s perfectly fair for Hyatt to make achieving top tier status more difficult. I also think the Explorist tier is pretty nice and competitive with other hotel chain’s commensurate status levels.
Where do the two programs most differ?
In the table below are the most significant differences in the two programs per my assessment. The ones that stick out the most are:
- Club access:
- Explorist gets 4 certs to use on up to a 7 night stay
- This is a new differentiating tier
- Globalist gets access all the time
- Similar to Diamond status now
- Explorist gets 4 certs to use on up to a 7 night stay
- Room upgrades:
- The biggest change, IMO, is that Globalist gets an upgrade to a suite. Diamonds never used to get this, only to best available standard room with club access. This is a great added benny.
- The free category nights
- Category 1-4 with 5 different brands avail to all tier levels
- Cat. 1-4 after 30 nights or 50k base pts
- Cat. 1-7 after 60 nights or 100k base pts
- This essentially gives Globalists 2 free nights every year they stay 60 nights, and if that’s spread over 5 brands…well they get 3. 10 brands, they’ll get 4. Pretty great really.
- Certs will expire after 120 days
- Waived resort fees on all award nights
- Globalist gets fees waived on all eligible nights
- Resort fees were never waived for any guest, at any tier level…now they are. That’s great
| Base | Discoverist | Explorist | Globalist | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category 1-4 Free Night after staying at 5 different brand | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Resort Fees Waived | Award nights | Award Nights | Award Nights | Any eligible stay |
| Room Upgrade | Higher Floor in room type | Preferred room but not club or suite | Upgrade to best room including standard suites. | |
| Free Category 1-4 night after night min or spend min | After 30 nights or 50k base points | After 30 nights or 50k base points | ||
| Club usage | 4 certificates good for up to 7 nights per cert and can be used on points or cash rates | Yes | ||
| Category 1-7 free night cert | After 60 nights or 100k base points | |||
| Confirmed Suite Upgrades | 4 after 60 nights or 100k base point | |||
| More rewards after 70,80,90,100 | 10k points or another suite upgrade at each benchmark | |||
| Free Parking | On award nights |
Impression of the changes
Great for the big spenders and heavy road warriors. Not so great for the leisure traveler and blogger with a monkey.
Even though it’s never great to see top tier status become harder to achieve, I think this is a fair change in the program. There are SOOOOOO many Diamonds out there and with the addition of the Explorist tier ( which I think is pretty decent, but inferior to Marriott Gold) it gives Hyatt a nice mid tier status level. Let’s be honest, the current Platinum level is pretty worthless, and Diamond was insanely easy to get if you did much work travel at all. Even if you didn’t, with the point promotions that Hyatt put on it was easy to Mattress run with stays to get top tier at a reasonable price( I’d written an article about how you could get it for less than $1300 and earn 33k points.)
Would I run for Diamond/Globalist for next year
If you are anywhere near qualifying I think it’s DEFOS worth it. The top tier elites will start getting weeded out, which means less people will enjoy the top tier bennies. So if you could pay to get a couple nights and qualify…do it.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.