Originally Posted by
River in Sight
It's not great news, but frankly, I do not think this change will impact my actual stays at Hyatt. It is likely to impact my credit card usage.
I travel a lot with my family (I had 81 butt in bed nights with Hyatt last year, nearly all personal) and there is no better program for traveling with a family than Hyatt:
- Confirmed suite upgrades - especially useful in Europe where base rooms often do not accommodate 3 people. 30 of my 81 nights last year were confirmed into suites and I consider this benefit incredibly valuable.
- Breakfast - for a family, superior to Marriott and Hilton for sure
- Late-checkout - extremely useful for my personal travel and I can pretty much rely on it with Hyatt
Then there's the credit card half. I put all my personal spending on a Hyatt CC and even started paying my estimated taxes on it last year (I value Hyatt points at 2 cents a piece, so was coming out slightly ahead when you consider it also helped me earn more SUAs). Now I will really think critically about whether this behavior continues to make sense, and I doubt it will.
But as to the actual stays, where else would I go? Marriott or Hilton are not going to meet my needs any better (in my opinion). By the way, I'm already Lifetime Titanium and don't get anywhere near the same treatment.
Where would you go? FHR gives you breakfast and late checkout, so that's an option.
Or eat locally outside the hotel when traveling, especially in Europe? I actually dislike the tension I feel when being presented with a free hotel breakfast knowing that I'm getting a version of the same standard hotel breakfast that exists at every US-based hotel chain when I could be out in the culture I'm actually there to visit, finding something at least a bit more foreign and new.