Originally Posted by
kenbo
I'll admit I don't understand who makes the decisions and how they come to decide which features get added, but if I'm a manager of a Chase co-branded credit card, I'm going to try and differentiate my card from the CSP as much as possible. I can't imagine someone at Hyatt doesn't recognize this. Are there some other factors in play here?
We all know that this card has never been great, other than the sign-up bonus, and that Hyatt and Chase have been thinking of ways to enhance it for some time now-- we've heard scattering reports of cardmembers taking surveys over the past few months, and I personally attended a focus group on this card and its benefits well over one year ago. I'm a little surprised it has taken this long for them to add benefits that I think a FT focus group could come up with in five minutes.
The good thing is that they have made some changes. Let's not forget that the anniversary free night was not originally part of the card's benefits and was just added about one year ago, and now one year later they have added some new benefits. Of course, during the past two years a lot has changed with competitor cards-- there are now far more cards with no forex fees (one of the big differentiators when the Hyatt card first came out), and of course now there is the CSP which was overhauled significantly last summer. So I suppose these changes have really been more reactionary than anything else.
Perhaps there will be something else in store for us cardholders one year from now...