I'm just going to quote this Hyatt fan as a representative of half a dozen+ others in the first few pages of this thread.
You guys must have a rather limited travel horizon if Hyatt works for you.
I just spent two months in Europe, where Hyatt's footprint is ludicrously small. Sure, they've managed to somwehat obscure this fact by adding tons of Small Luxury properties -- where you don't get benefits. You might as well stay some random place where you have no status. Sure, these are often nice hotels, and you can redeem Hyatt points, but let's not lose track of the fact that there are no Hyatts in major cities like
Strasbourg,
Lille,
Brussels, not to mention secondary cities like
Stuttgart or Nuremberg -- all places, coincidentally, where we had decent to great Bonvoy stays this summer.
Yes, my typical Hyatt upgrades are far better than my typical Bonvoy upgrades -- in fact, I'm inclined to say that my typical Hyatt upgrades surpass my exceptional Bonvoy upgrades -- but none of that can distract from the fact that
in all of Europe, there are 8 PHs, 3 GHs, 4 Andaz, 6 Centric, 25 HR, and 8 Unbound properties. It's quite similar in Asia -- count the number of Hyatt resorts, and you'll find that they have fewer in all of SE Asia than Bonvoy has in Bali alone.
I think the bottom line for any frequent traveler is, and has always been, that you need to work different chains to get an optimal outcome. Hyatt does great on upgrades and has some amazing redemption values. Bonvoy has the most honest BRG in the industry, which continues to deliver shockingly good deals. Did I love my Park Executive Suite upgrade on a Cat 1-7 free night redemption at PH Paris? Absolutely, but I'd never pay €800 or 30k points for that hotel, considering that I was able to BRG the nearby
Renaissance Vendome for €125 or use a 40k IHG free night at the brand new
Kimpton.