vxmike

Totally agree. Hyatt points are awarded on spend, so it's not relevant if one stays at Hyatt Place for $149 or Hyatt Maldives for $1,000. The cheaper hotels could even be more profitable when one considers land/construction costs, utilities, imported food, labor, etc. Who knows, but I can't imagine a major chain wanting to limit itself to certain customers.

Anyways, the OP was concerned about targeted bonuses. These are rarely "fair" across the spectrum of all hotel chains and airlines. The business is trying to attract NEW customers with promos not give a handout to existing customers.

TallestHotelInJapan

etsmyers, I am in the very same position. Let me also call Hyatt SHENANIGANS! No promotions whatosoever for this diamond member here

TallestHotelInJapan

Not at all! We are Hyatt clients, so no need to "think from management point"

etsmyers

As an ER RN and past paramedic, I have thick skin. I dont consider these attacks, just people not seeing things how I do.

TrojanHorse

Well that solves that issue.. next

peteropny

I've looked at this thread daily, and did remove 1 post that was clearly a personal attack. The remaining ones maybe borderline but I don't think they are personal attacks. We do eyeball posts daily.

Peteropny - co-mod - Hyatt

SMK77

Hyatt should continue to offer all kinds of hotels from low-key to high-end. People have different demands at different times and will be happy to have a trusted brand they can go to.

Every airline needs economy but that's not where the money is made. Hence airlines are paying more attention to the passenger in the front and have split their frequent flyer programs:

Singapore Airlines gives PPS Club exclusively based on flights in Business an First. Lufthansa HON Circle is only counting flights in Business and First.

If you want top tier status you need to be a high margin customer. For Hyatt, you will not be a high margin customer if you frequently stay at Hyatt Place.

Hyatt's management thinks money and margin. That's why they will and should pay more attention to guests spending an average of 500 USD vs 100 USD a night. They also should not hand out freebies just for the sake of handing them out.

Hyatt has already a hidden revenue-based loyalty program: I take that you get a Personal Line Rep only if your average annual spend is above 20K USD and Lifetime Diamond is also tight to your total spend (200K USD). See SQ and LH.

TrojanHorse

Why do you guys automatically associate high room rate with high margin?

1st situation: If I'm in a $500 room in an expensive city like NYC, London, Paris etc and it the total cost of me in that room is $475 then the margin is ~5%

2nd Situation: If I'm in a $75 room in BF Egypt during the off season where the cost of me in that room is $50 then my margin is much much higher

In the 2nd situation I've brought the same profit to the properties but my margin is way higher in the 2nd situation

So If I do this 25 times (separate stays of course) then while the bottom line is the same for my stays, the margin is much greater in the 2nd situation.

Now are you saying that the Diamond from the 2nd situation is not as worthy as the first situation?

iflyjetz

I think you want to say 'high spend' customer, not high margin. I disagree. 8 of my 25 stays last year were at a Hyatt Place (one night was a mattress run to get the 25th stay) and I'm a Diamond.

Many of my FS stays are at the same hotels so I am recognized as someone who does repeat business with their hotel - in 2012, 8 of my stays were at the same Hyatt and 3 stays at the same Hyatt Regency. I know many of the staff by name, and they recognize me and take care of me. And I doubt if I ever paid more than $200/night - most of those stays at the Hyatt were under $100 and at the Hyatt Regency under $150.

When most of my business was with Marriott, I was a Platinum Premier for several years. Almost all of my stays were paid for by work. And almost all of my work-paid stays were in low budget Marriotts (Fairfield Inn, TownePlace Suites, Residence Inn, and Springhill Suites). I'm just a few Marriott Rewards points short of lifetime Platinum, so it's not like you HAVE to spend a ton of money in order to achieve top status.

I get almost all of the same benefits of Diamond status as someone who spends $500/night, yet my average nightly spend is around $100/night (and probably less than that). That's because I've learned a lot of tricks of the trade here at Flyertalk and reading travel blogs. Of course I'm spending my own money on rooms and no longer getting hotel nights due to work paying for my room so I'm price sensitive, unlike most business travelers.
I've got a nutty idea. Hotel loyalty programs should stop crediting stays/nights to business travelers. They've got to travel anyway, so Hyatt 'should not hand out freebies just for the sake of handing them out.' (your words)

As far as rewards for higher spend, hotel programs already do that by giving you points based on spend. If Hyatt decides to go to awarding Diamond status based on spend, they will lose a lot of Gold Passport members, especially those that spend a good deal of nights at Hyatt House/Place. I'd simply shift my Hyatt business over to SPG.

And no, I do not advocate denying stay/night credits to business travelers.

4aks

FF airline miles, and Hotel loyalty programs act as a kickback to business travelers, as the primary costs are usually covered by firms and their clients. There are a few firms that go out of their way to collect the FF miles and use them corporately, but it's pretty rare. The US Govt once tried to prevent its personnel from collecting miles, they tried to implement a process where the staff had to transfer them to the govt, but after much outcry over both the administrative effort involved and the loss of a travel perk, they gave up.

Travel service firms want the individual perks in place to drive self-directed business travelers to select their service over the competition.

A few years back, Hyatt had a very generous loyalty program, so the bottom line value of the rebate to the individual was relatively high. But, at the time, that's what they needed to do to compete, as the chain has less locations of value, relative to Marriott/Starwood/Hilton - and the range of locations for redeeming the rebates is key to the individual value portion of the equation.

TrojanHorse

How do you propose that the property determines if you are on business or not? Are you saying the FDC should assume based on how you are dressed? Should they ask? Should you tell them the truth?

Let me amuse you and say they do as you state: All of a sudden, I would just move to a chain that didn't have this policy. My guess is every chain out there would go out and advertise that they welcome business travelers with open arms (and points).. No one would stay at the properties Sun-Thu nights

I'd go far as to say that the business traveler is whom they should chase and not give anything to the personal traveler. That said and done, no way that happens as the business traveler wants his perks when on non-business travel.

austin_modern

corporate code vs other rate.

iflyjetz

4aks, TrojanHorse, I can see that my subtle jab at SMK77 in response to his suggestion to reduce others' benefits was a bit too subtle. Didn't you guys read the last line of my post? I purposely separated it from any other sentences so that it would stand out.

Many times, the business traveler has no choice as to where he stays. Those hotel nights are already guaranteed. I spend my own money and have complete discretion as to where I stay. But again, I do not advocate taking away points/credits from business travelers, even though I no longer travel for business. The point was that it's easy to offer cutting others' benefits when there's no impact on your benefits.

SMK77

Great! You stay 25 times a year with Hyatt and Hyatt loves you to bits for that. Let's assume for a moment that you always stay 1 night and you have already shared that your average spend is 100 USD. So Hyatt got 2,500 USD in business from you. They want you to come back! You are loyal and you keep spending with them. That's great.

Now you want a better room, free wifi, free breakfast and more promotions because you are "a Diamond member". Bottom line, you wanna give Hyatt 1 dollar and you expect 10 dollars in return. I am sure you understand without much explanation that that can't work. Why exactly are you worth Diamond status for 2,500 USD spend? If your 'margin' is 5%, Hyatt makes 125 USD out of you. Still you want benefits and benefits and benefits because you are such a loyal member.

Hyatt's challenge is that there are more and more educated travellers like you that know all the tricks and loopholes from FT, ending up as unprofitable customers. You are one of them. And United's infamous line of the 'overentitled elites' was exactly along those lines: you cannot get more than you give. Flying Economy for 10 USD and expecting a free upgrade to First Class and lounge access can't work in the long run. Same goes for Hyatt.

Hyatt has to find ways to keep you happy as they want your business while reducing spend on benefits for you. Alternatively they need to make you spend more money with them. Hyatt opted for the first way by cutting on promotions: that's the easiest way to cut off unprofitable customers. That customer group most likely belongs to the "I give dollar so I deserve 10 dollars in return" group and Hyatt won't miss those customers a lot when they go to competition.

iflyjetz

Beautiful. You're angry that a few people, such as myself, are able to achieve Diamond with less than $3K annual spend. I know; I'm not a "true elite."

Let's hit a few points:
Free WiFi: I get that with Platinum status. Hyatt gives me Platinum status with my Hyatt credit card.
Promotions: I don't care much about promotions. I'll enroll in them when they're offered to me, but I'm not complaining that I didn't receive a targeted promotion. That's not one of my criteria.
Free Breakfast: I like that. However, I can usually get breakfast included in the AAA rate so it's not a dealbreaker.
Lounge Access: I do like that but not enough to pay for it.

Now let's go indepth as to why I'm not a money loser for Hyatt. Most of my stays are on weekends when most hotels are nearly empty. The $100 I pay for the room is better for the hotel than if the room was empty. If I need to stay in a hotel during the week, it is usually at a Hyatt Place/House unless I get a great rate at a FS hotel. And the only reason why a FS hotel offers great rates during the week is that the hotel is nowhere near capacity.

How much do they spend on my benefits? Seriously? Do the math.
Wifi? No; I get that because of the credit card.
Breakfast? No; I can get that with my AAA rate.
Suite Upgrades? No; they give those to me when they aren't sold. I usually book last minute because I see what different chains offer me ... I also have top status with Marriott, Hilton, and SPG so I have quite a few different choices.
Lounge? Does my presence really cost them money?
Promotions? Sure, that'd be a savings. But again, I don't care about promotions.

Hyatt can move to an annual spend requirement for Diamonds. As soon as they do that, I'm history. You true elites sure hate us fake elites.