Hotels

AA/Hyatt partnership opens door for Quad earning

American Airlines Business Class 777-300ER
American Air 777-300ER Business Class

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Yesterday, American Airlines and Hyatt announced a new partnership where Elite loyalists of both brands will be able to not only earn points for stays and flights within each loyalty program, but an additional point in the partner’s program alongside those base earnings. That’s a great deal and a win/win as long as you carry some sort of elite status. Let’s break down this new deal.

If you’re flying on American Airlines

  • If you’re Discoverist, Explorist, or Globalist you’ll earn a bonus World of Hyatt point for every dollar spent on AA flights

If you’re staying at Hyatt hotels

  • If you’re Gold, Platinum, Platinum Pro, Executive Platinum, or Concierge Key – you’ll earn a bonus Aavantage mile for every eligible dollar you spend at qualifying Hyatt hotels.

If you’re one of the uber elite AA Concierge Key members, congratulations, you’ll receive comped Globalist status.

This is huge. Globalists not only get free lounge access and breakfast, but upgrades to standard suites. As far as I can tell, its unknown as to whether this Globalist status will coincide with a full fledged, suite upgrade certificates and all, globalist status, or a watered down version. Regardless…it’s a monster perk for Concierge Key members.

Status challenges in both directions.

Each company will extend unique status challenges for their elite members, and the status you’re challenging for will be extended to you during the challenge window.

Unique to this collaboration, AAdvantage Platinum, Platinum Pro and Executive Platinum members, and Explorist and Globalist World of Hyatt members will also have the opportunity to participate in limited time status challenges. Upon registering, these elite members will be able to immediately enjoy their new loyalty benefits in the reciprocal program tier as they work to maintain that elite tier status. AAdvantage elite members will have access to World of Hyatt elite status benefits, including a dedicated check-in area, late check-out upon request, room upgrades and free premium internet. World of Hyatt elite members will have access to AAdvantage elite status benefits such as priority boarding, free checked bags, free preferred seats and more.

When does this happen?

The press release says sometime later this year.

Analysis

It’ll be interesting to see what status challenge parameters ultimately end up being. It would be a major win if Hyatt Elites were able to challenge for AA status without an EQD requirement. This is highly unlikely, but one thing it should be it richer than the status challenges AA usually extend for a price.

As a Hyatt Explorist ( matched from MGM ) this is welcome news. I don’t carry any status with AA anymore, but do travel on them domestically here and there. If I were able to do a challenge with minimal spend requirement to Platinum I’d be interested especially if it fell after July ( the status would last for nearly 20 months then).

No one really loses in this partnership. You can still earn your base currency for flight and stays, but also earn Hyatt or AA points concurrently.

How you could Quad earn

Booking a flight on AA:

We’re all about juicing every ounce of return on flights and hotels. While we’ve stayed loyal to Alaska the last fews years, it’s become increasingly difficult to solely fly AS metal in the states from LA. With this new partnership, it may end up that we try and status match into AA to have a little bit of status for the times end up on AA flights.

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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4 Comments

  • […] What Does The AA/Hyatt Partnership Mean:  It’s always exciting when airlines and hotels partner up to offer perks.  Many times the consumer wins. The latest partnership involves Hyatt and American Airlines.  What does it mean for you? […]

  • Magice March 6, 2019

    Seconded the comment on Alaska and California. After their last round of route cut, I can’t go anywhere from SFO/SJC without a stop in either Seattle or San Diego. It sucks.

  • Christian March 6, 2019

    Globalists who don’t get matched to a high elite level lose. They get no guaranteed benefits while there’s suddenly an vast influx of new Globalist members to compete for award space and upgrades. I could deal with that if there was elite reciprocity.

  • mojo March 6, 2019

    I am already a Hyatt Globalist, and my AA Plat status will expire Jan 31, 2020 – impossible for me to hit the required $6k EQD spend anymore since Special Fares/TY portal scheme no longer works 🙁

    I’ll have to wait until Feb 2020 to take part in any sort of AA challenge. In the meantime, extra points in either program for no extra effort is always welcome.

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