FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Any Hyatt elites like me? Mostly for leisure, paying 100% out of pocket
Old Oct 19, 2019, 12:04 pm
  #10  
projectmaximus
 
Join Date: May 2014
Location: Taipei
Posts: 1,104
Thanks I appreciate the replies!

Originally Posted by AirbusFan2B
Such a long post. What’s your most critical question right now?
Nothing at the moment. All of my critical questions have been answered in the forums already!

Originally Posted by ZBigFam
You do have a long post...lol but to summarize I think you are asking if globalist is worth it as a family traveler. For me it absolutely is, my family is much larger than yours and the benefits from guest of honor, free breakfasts, and suite upgrades are immense.

I wouldn't manufacture if you had to manufacture half your nights but using the credit card could help.
Thanks. I mean this thought process is why I think it makes sense for me. I should be able to reach globalist without manufacturing nights out of nothing, but I'm sure there will plenty of times paying more for Hyatt when it's not the best value, or staying in Hyatts that are 15 minutes from where I would prefer to stay.

Originally Posted by WantOnlinePoker
You said you book suites with points so the benefit there is easy. You'll save a lot of points by booking standard rooms and using a TSU instead. Breakfast for a family of 4 will be substantial savings.

How are you spending 60 nights in 5 cities without a single Hyatt property that works? Hyatt's strength in its footprint is cities - it's the more remote areas that tend to have a Hampton inn and a courtyard Marriott but no HP.
Lol this makes sense. With TSUs I'll deliberately look at far higher categories than the suites that I booked so far. The cities would be Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, SF and somewhere en route to SF from Portland.

Vancouver would be staying with family.

Seattle appears to have plenty of options but wow they're expensive. Airbnb is pricey too but there are more options and therefore some better value plays for us. I guess that's just what you get with Seattle in the summertime.

Portland is a one-week stay and would need 2 bedrooms, as close to the center of downtown as possible. Found a 2/2 luxury apt on airbnb that is the same price as a single basic room in the HH on the outskirts of downtown. Found ok 2 bedroom options on the outskirts that are cheaper than a single room in the HH. Staying at HH just doesn't seem to make sense. Still waiting for the HR and HC's to provide pricing but it seems certain they will be higher priced than the HH. I'll pay significantly more for a full-service Hyatt vs Airbnb, but not what will likely be triple or more.

SF would be over a month. Hyatt offers a tremendous selection of properties here, but when staying over a month I just can't possibly justify, or really even afford it.

Originally Posted by gengar
Based on what you've posted, I don't think it makes sense to chase status - especially with WoH, where a huge limitation will always be Hyatt's footprint. You're also often going to get significantly better value as a family out of AirBnB, and acknowledging that they absolutely vaporized superguest, I'd be amazed if they don't eventually roll something out.
Curious to see what happens!

Originally Posted by craigthemif
Completely disagree. Once you get towards nomadic traveller status, 60 nights in a year becomes super easy, footprint or not.

28 nights in a suite minimum (with simple planning), and as many more as you like if you use points and or choose suites for the 70, 80, 90, 100 night milestones... Very easy to fit 2+2 into HP or HH rooms.

4 free breakfasts is a huge savings. Lounges are perfect for those soft drinks, snacks, etc.that the kids will want. Earning points gets you an automatic 10+% rebate, more for promos.

Airbnb gets you... nothing but an apartment where you do it all yourself... I'm not saying that there isn't a place for them, especially in places where hotel options are limited. But to walk away from hotel status to do nothing but Airbnb is short-sighted...
Yeah, like I said before, this is the kind of perspective that gives me some reassurance. Our travel patterns will likely be evolving in the coming years (more international travel and possibly relocating our base to Asia) so it feels pretty likely that maintaining status will be worthwhile.

Originally Posted by jameswes
I'm in a similar situation - I have a little bit of work travel, but effectively all of my travel at Hyatts is self funded. Between my wife and I we have a lot of Chase/Hyatt points which help provide a lot of flexibility.

HP/HH aren't high end, but they will always work for 4 people, and since there are a lot of them at 5K points, it can provide a really great value and work towards globalist and free nights/TSU upgrades. We spend about one weekend per month at an "away" sporting event, so we're already up to 24 night credits.

We use the WoH credit card to get some free night credits. We spend at least $15K on it every year to get the free night certificate + 6 night credits.
So at this point we're up to ~30 night credits.

In resort/vacation places or in locations where we just want to upgrade to a larger room we'll use a TSU. We do about two, 1 week long family vacations per year so that adds 14 nights and now we're at 44.

And the remaining are from long weekend trips, going to see family, and in a pinch extra spend on the credit card. Prior to the CC I would do a little bit of mattress running during promos since I could more or less break even and that would get me up to status.


I agree with other posters (obviously not a random sample since this IS the Hyatt forum), the combination of breakfast for 4, lounge access, waived resort fees, free parking on award stays, late check out/early check in and regular room upgrades all mean that it is very valuable for us to maintain globalist status. Given that for us we need to do a lot of 2-3 night stays, we just don't love airbnb. I feel like it works well if you're going to be staying somewhere for a week, but checking in/out of AirBNB is always a little bit of a pain. With a hotel you can just show up whenever you want and you're never imposing on someone else. And if you need to overstay the next day (up to 4PM), I've never had an issue with Hyatt, it's always been granted.
Thanks James. I must admit that I was hardcore airbnb for awhile but have recently come to really appreciate the benefits of nice hotels. It sounds like you are saying you're doing 50-60% of your nights at HH/HP and credit card spend, which means all of those "nights" don't really offer you any benefit. So with your remaining usage, you definitely find that it's worth it to be globalist?

Last edited by projectmaximus; Oct 19, 2019 at 3:40 pm Reason: Mixed up Seattle and Philly in my memory
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