Some people seem to compare the Mr&MrsSmith acquisition pretty much interchangeably to (1) Design Hotels + SPG/Marriott and (2) SLH + Hyatt. I think those two are materially different and I hope it will be more like the former rather than the latter in terms of loyalty program and benefits.

The big differences to me are:

- You can book Design Hotels on Marriott's website at the same price as if you book direct, so in essence we don't need to "pay" extra to earn points and night credits. In contrast, with SLH the only times that it makes sense to pay extra by booking on Hyatt's website is when there is a Hyatt points promo such that earning the extra points can tilt the scale, sometimes.

- Design Hotels can see the guest's status with Marriott and they differentiate upgrades between an Ambassador guest, Titanium, Platinum, etc. With SLH/Hyatt, Globalists don't get anything different than Hyatt guests with lower status because I don't think they can even see who is Globalist or not. So the upgrade is usually limited to +1 upgrade, and when it's better than that, it's usually because that particular hotel decides to be generous in general, such that SLH Indulged tier guests also get those better upgrades which means I am still not getting a better upgrade by booking on Hyatt.com than on SLH.com. Conversely, I have had lots of suite upgrades at Design Hotels that I would not get if I was not Marriott Ambassador Elite.

So the best we can hope for is something like DH/Marriott and if so then I will be fairly satisfied. Arguably it could be possible to end up that way, because Hyatt will own Mr&MrsSmith (and Marriott owns Design), unlike SLH which is not owned by Hyatt. But if it ends up like SLH then the value of this acquisition to Hyatt guests will be modest, and even more so, if the arrival of Mr&MrsSmith causes SLH to drop from Hyatt then the addition of new properties will be less than advertised.