Originally Posted by
craz
The airlines make their $$ either off those with high Spend or those hit left and right for Fees. If you dont fall into either of those they really want you to walk away as you wont be adding much if anything to their bottom line. Hyatt I think is simply following in those footsteps but in the hotel industry
I can't quarrel with the point that high-end spenders and fee-victims are the cash cows for airlines (and their analogues for hotels), so, sure this looks like what Hyatt is up to.
I do question the idea that one wants to get rid (completely) of folks like myself and some others on the board. I do enjoy elite benefits at Hyatt (and at AA). But hotels, like airlines, have wasting assets -- an unsold room or an unsold seat has no future value. I know that they have more and more elaborate pricing systems for filling rooms and seats, but a lot of those systems involve low prices, and the presupposition that anyone is actually looking for space or seats at those times.
Like, I suspect, others here, I am pretty good at using and maintaining my elite status by capitalizing on non-peak inventory. With a loyalty program (forgetting the affective elements), I am an easy capture, more motivated at the margin than a random person in the population (who doesn't care what the price of the Lexington, KY HR happens to be, because there is nothing in their lives or incentive structure that might ever lead them to capitalize on it). Because I value certain status aspects (late check-outs and sometimes b'fasts at Hyatt), I feed them some higher-end business (both on OPM and on my dime) and I keep cheaper beds and seats filled at duller times (usually on my dime). What's that 4pm checkout, which makes a getaway weekend day or two possible for me, really costing them at the non-peak times I am requesting them?
I kind of get how AA, an oligopolist, can't wait to see my backside headed out the door. They are shrinking flight banks at PHL and will have fewer seats to fill.
But all those Hyatt hotel rooms (small footprint notwithstanding) ....