Hotels

Hyatt follows Hilton’s lead with cancellation flexibility and loyalty extension

a stuffed animal on a fence

We may receive a commission when you use our links. Monkey Miles is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com and CardRatings. This relationship may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Monkey Miles is also a Senior Advisor to Bilt Rewards. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.


Every loyalty brand is handling this crisis differently. At the end of March, Hilton set a great precedent allowing cancellations, extending status, free nights, and as of this morning…Hyatt has followed suit by emailing members an update. I was just on an Instagram Live with Spencer Howard from Straight to the Points and someone asked us about their upcoming Park Hyatt Paris booking.  They had booked an advanced purchase rate and the question was when should they cancel. We both agreed to wait as long as possible because odds are things will get more lenient than not. And they have. Let’s take a look.

Waived Change and Cancellation Fees through June 30th, 2020

The biggest thing to note with these policies are they apply to bookings made directly with Hyatt or the Hyatt app. If you used a third party like Travelocity or Booking, etc – you may have different restrictions. Hyatt has also increased their footprint via SLH and the acquisition of luxury brands like Destination Hotels and Alila, but decreased value by cutting Points + Cash and introducing Category 8 hotel pricing.

Booked for travel up to June 30th

This would help out our Park Hyatt Friends since they had a prepaid booking…which now is cancellable.

All existing reservations (booked April 1 or before) for arrivals through June 30, 2020 can be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival. This includes Advance Purchase Rate reservations.

Booked for travel after June 30th, 2020

This also includes future travel reservations.

With some very limited exceptions noted below, reservations booked between April 2, 2020 and June 30, 2020 – for any future arrival date – can be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival. This includes Advance Purchase Rate reservations. The only exceptions are reservations booked after April 1, 2020 at Destination Residences and Special Events Rate reservations booked after April 1, 2020. The cancellation policies for a Special Event Rate will be noted in the rate’s Rate Rules section when booking.

World of Hyatt changes

In addition to the delay of peak award pricing…World of Hyatt has the following changes

Points expiration pause

We are suspending the forfeiture of points through December 31, 2020. As a reminder, our general policy is that points do not expire, but they will be forfeited if a member’s account is inactive for 24 months.

Free Nights, Club upgrades, and Suite Upgrades are extended

All unused Free Night, Suite Upgrade or Club Lounge Access awards with expiration dates between March 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 will be extended to December 31, 2021. This includes existing awards and awards that may be earned throughout this year with a 2020 expiration date. The award extension will be generated by World of Hyatt – members do not need to take action. Awards that expired between March 1 and March 31, 2020 will be replaced with new awards on April 20, 2020. All other qualifying, unused awards will be updated by the 20th day of the month in which the award would have originally expired.

Elite Status Extended

Status and benefits will be extended for all existing elite members without having to re-qualify. This means that whatever your status was as of March 31, 2020 – whether Discoverist, Explorist or Globalist – it will be automatically updated to reflect a February 28, 2022 expiration date. All elite tier extensions should be reflected in members’ accounts no later than April 15, 2020.

My Thoughts

Hyatt remains one of my favorite hotel programs and continues to offer great value on redemptions. I wouldn’t say I’m a future travel pessimist, but I’m not overly optimistic about how eager people will be to crowd into places. I just wonder how many programs are going to waive cancellations fees and extend status, but also potentially roll back programs to make them more attractive and status easier to attain. Kudos to Hyatt and keep an eye on your status to make sure it has been extended until 2022.

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

a blue credit card with lines and symbols

Learn More

 Affiliate link 

Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
4.8/5
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
  • 3x on select streaming services
  • 3x on online grocery purchases
    • (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel Portal
  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 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 Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
  • Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
    • Primary rental car coverage is my favorite

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.

2 Comments

  • Christian April 4, 2020

    I’m gonna disagree with your headline. Hyatt didn’t just follow Hilton’s lead, they leapt out way in front of the pack. Hyatt is extending well, everything, while holding off on variable award pricing. Since Hyatt has more to offer in extendable things, what with lots of ways to get cat 1-4 nights, club lounge passes, and confirmed suite upgrades, they’ve left Hilton – who did start the party, to be fair – in the dust.

    Odds that Arne undergoes an epiphany and decides that the customer is no longer the enemy and follows suit?

    • Joseph N. April 4, 2020

      Knock, knock, Marriott. Are you going to answer?

Leave a Reply to Christian Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.