boolean64

I'm a lifetime SPG Plat and have had Hyatt Diamond for 3 or 4 years now. I lapsed last year because i was travelling to a place without a Hyatt. But am now trying to requalify for diamond. For me the benefits of Hyatt...

1. The ability to confirm suite upgrades at booking when travelling with family is huge (vs between five days out and never with SPG SNAs). And as mentioned by OP, these are stay-based not night based. The only property where i've seen games played on this front is the Andaz Maui and I still managed to stag a suite over thanksgiving for five nights.

2. As stated elsewhere there are no games with breakfast. Breakfast is free. period. None of this "well you can do the buffet but if you want hot items you have to buy up to it" or "you can get a bagel, coffee, and yoghurt at the coffee shop as your plat amenity" nonsense that happens way too often with starwood. And to my knowledge, there is also no games with "excluding resorts."

3. Some of the aspirational properties for Hyatt are very much our style. The Andaz Maui is easily our favorite property in Hawaii. Love the Park Hyatt in Buenos Aires. Lots of great SPG properties too but nice to have options.

4. For the most part, i just feel like i'm treated better. The phone agents tend to be friendlier and more effective at cutting through hotel hiccups. The properties tend to treat globalist as a bigger deal. And one example of the perks mentioned above... that stay at the Andaz in Maui. Breakfast was i think 45 per person, valet parking was i think 35 a day, and resort fee was 35 a day. All of that was free, no questions asked. So for five nights, we saved $800! Starwood we would have only gotten the breakfast...maybe.

5. One last note on earning and burning. There are very few properties in Hyatt's top tier. Maybe 7. This is how SPG's top category started out when they introduced it but the number of hotels that are in SPG's top tier have grown rapidly over the years.

The footprint for hyatt is small so it definitely doesn't work for everyone. But if your travel patterns allow, it has worked really well for me. Other than footprint the only thing i can think of that SPG has over hyatt is fifth night free. But in the grand scheme of things, certainly not a deal breaker. Which is why hyatt probably has not bothered matching it.