PortlySpartacus

...and Hyatt executives reading this have to laugh. We think this promotion is all about Hyatt admitting WoH is failing so they need to create this campaign to get more Globalists. I don't think Hyatt gives a rats arse about significantly increasing their top tier member count to be honest. They are looking at Q4 of 2017 and asking, how do we drive more revenue to the company so we get a bigger bonus. Hey, how about we dangle Globalist in front of a bunch of folks that chase status? Perfect

iflyjetz

Well, as I pointed out in a previous post, the sale of real estate masked YOY profitability being approximately halved. Hyatt management can only use such accounting tricks for a finite period of time. Burning the furniture to stay warm isn't a good long term solution.

MarkOK

OPM as in the federal office of personal management?? I honestly don't know anything about those people, what they travel for, and what they do. But, in my general opinion, I don't think 'federal' or 'state' travel rules on rewards programs should be any more stringent than the private industry norms. In general, government travel is highly restrictive in terms of per diems compared to industry norms. (If I want to woo a prospective research sponsor with wine and dinner, the wine comes out of my personal after-tax income as well as any dinner costs above the GSA rates -- the Bank employees at the company my wife works for threw a fit when they tried to limit such dinners of wooing clients to only $1500! And get this, if I do win a 100,000 contract, the university collects 35K off the top into the general fund for 'overhead costs').


And, I know I was stringing a bit of strawman here, but I am saying the 25 stay/25 night runners were NOT "in large numbers", if ANYTHING, I am implying that they are small enough that of WoH probably does just find losing them at the gain of winning more of the 30-40 nights travelers with longer stays who are getting more out of the changes. The only 'elites' that are mad seem to be the ones that were qualifying on 25 stays but can't in any way qualify on 60 nights.

MarkOK

What does this refer to exactly?

jmanirish

OPM = other peoples' money. Used to refer to travelers who don't pay out of their own pocket (e.g., corporate reimbursed travel).

MarkOK

Gotchya. I'm not used to the all the shorthand here.

I don't have any problem with traveller's using OPM getting status based on that travel. Most people using OPM choose their travel and direct business, so Hyatt gets something out curating loyalty with those travelers. Regarding the points, that is up to the other people that is providing the money on how to handle that.

ericcheung

I am not sure this promo necessarily means WoH is a loser or the number of elites needs to be fixed.

It's a promo and a relatively low cost one at that. The forth quarter is generally slow for business travel (fewer travellers around the holidays) and this promo gets additional travellers to perhaps switch stays to Hyatt or maybe make an extra stay with Hyatt that they wouldn't have otherwise (mattress runners are generally profitable if the hotel has low occupancy band would stay empty anyways.

They could throw additional points, free nights or make each stay a double elite qualifying stay. One difference with WoH is that many of the benefits - free nights, TSU are nights linked. Gifting status doesn't cost much and the marginal costs are only incurred if they stay at full service Hyatt's which are limited and generally a positive if it brings in new customers.

It has been a while since many airlines had their double -eqm specials. But they were generally timed around low travel seasons and impacted elites in a similar way. As long as Hyatt differentiates the high spend/high night travellers there shouldn't be too much to be angry at.

Boraxo

Received an identical targeted promo through my employer about a month ago.

Have been holding off on registration so as to get the maximum value from the 90-day qualification period and decrease the # of mattress run EQNs. Unfortunately the time span is typically a slow travel period for me.

Has anybody run a calculation yet to monetize the value of Globalist aka Diamond? I think I did this on a similar thread earlier this year when we had the short time frame to qualify for 2 years (2017 & 2018). At that time it was not worth the $3k it would have cost me for mattress runs in the expensive bay area, but others may have cheaper options...

I should add that 20 nights is far preferable to 20 stays as my business trips generally exceed 1N and I often see cheap weekend rates that cover 2N. So a lot easier/cheaper to qualify than the last time.

Why would anyone do that? It is no skin off the existing elites. Hyatt has offered similar challenges under the old program for years, with even easier qualification reqs.

Where do you see that?

The 4 upgrade certs are a key factor - if they are not included then really no reason to bother. I don't roll the dice on upgrades, I find I usually crap out.

LA2CDG

Interesting tread, I was surprised to get the email as well, I did smile a bit.

I am one of those "25 stay" diamonds.
Since 2012, I've had between 28 to 35 stays.
I was not going to qualify for Glob... in 2018. With this promo, I can push about 10 nights from business trips back to Hyatt and do 10 MR around the LA area ($1,000) Thus giving me another year to burn my 500k points.

I enjoyed the treatment I received this year. no resort fees, free valet and free breakfast is worth it.
I had stays in Palm Springs, Scottsdale, Orlando, Vienna, Nice. upcoming trips to Carlsbad and Andaz London.

I think many are in my shoes, why not enjoy another year at the top level for relatively small cost.

JackE

Since you somehow think a shorter time frame is more representative than a longer time frame, let's just go with today. Checking at 12:34 Pacific time, Hyatt is up 1.41% today and Marriott is up 3.39%. Hey, that makes Marriott 240% better than Hyatt! Or we can check the last 5 minutes if you think that is more representative.

BTW, your picking a start date that basically corresponds to Marriott's last high point is pretty much the definition of cherry picking.

notquiteaff

It's discussed upthread.

But to flip it around - where do you see in the T&C of WoH that acquiring Glob status gives you 4 upgrade certs?

jacobguo

Totally agree with the OPM part. Same with airlines. Obviously never gonna happen though.

nhwiki

I'm one of those 25 stay diamonds, and was for many many years. But it wasn't 25 stays/25 nights, it was 25 stays and about 45 nights. With our money, we focused on a couple of nice stays at *good* hyatts, Andaz 5th, PH DC and PH Tokyo,Huntington Beach, Tamaya, Kauai and such, each year, and even with DSU's, those stays were not cheap.

We got to the 25 stays not by mattress running but through taking totally optional weekend trips to places we wanted to go anyway but chose the Hyatt when we did. Now those dollars are going elsewhere, certainly not to Hyatt. Looking over the Hyatt financials for the last couple of years, REVPAR and occupancy rates have not gone up all that much. I would be curious to see what the weekend occupancy rates were at some of the properties that typically draw business travellers and those of us who used these places to get to 25.

We were on a first-name basis with the staff at the Hyatt Logan (Harborside now, or Boston Harbor or whatever it is) and did a bunch of stays in Cambridge as well, because it made sense to do so to get to diamond. Total win/win all around. It came to about 2K year, plus quite a few meals at the Harborside. We haven't been back to either location since last summer, and have taken that money to other places. I can't imagine we're alone. I'm really curious, for instance, what the weekend situation is at all the HP's and HH's, or the Hyatt Greenwich. Oh well.

This year, we paid for a suite at one Grand and one Park, but that's going to be it for Hyatts for us. FHR and Virtuoso are driving our vacations now, as is Chase UR.

Biggie Fries

No, you are not alone. Sounds exactly like us, if you swap out PH Tokyo for PH Paris-Vendome, and HR Princeton and Hyatt at the Bellevue for the NE places. Yeah, I had thought it was win/win, since there was no doubt we were "stretching" during the year for me to keep what was then Hyatt Diamond. And, yeah, mixing up a lot of FHR and ICs this year for a lot of the highend vacation travel.

What's "funny" about it is that I've actually stayed a fair number of nights at PHV this year, but mostly to burn off points and TSUs. Not enough to re-qualify, though, and as a result I have stopped doing the airport HPs and extra HR and occasional GH quick vacation stays. I can't figure out how they thought this was going to play out for all but the road warriors, and if people want to tell me that that's all who Hyatt wants, I'm thinking that's all Hyatt gets.

rfrost

I was for most of the last 14 years another of those 25 (21 or 22 the last 2 years, thanks to CC spend) stay Diamonds, with about 35-42 nights. In all those years, I think I had a total of 6 nights at HH/HPs, and have no intention of returning to either of them.
Most of my travel nowadays is international, and a significant amount of it is to places without Hyatts.
As I've posted elsewhere, I felt liberated by WoH. The impossibility, and undesirability, for me of 60 Hyatt nights freed me to try other brands and stay at other properties I preferred, and I've really enjoyed doing so. I promised myself that I'd spend some time this year, while I still had top tier status, burning my points, trying a couple of Hyatts I hadn't made it to previously, and doing a farewell tour of my 6 or 7 preferred Hyatts. I've done a good job burning my cache of about 350K points (even transferred some additional UR points), and did try the desired Hyatts, but haven't quite made it to all the favorites, and am not sure that my travel plans for the rest of the year will allow me to do so.
There are a two cities where, by virtue of hard product, service and location, a Hyatt is my absolute first choice, and as fate would have it, I now have plans to spend about 10 days in one of them. If those plans hold, I may switch some other reservations to Hyatts and do a couple of MRs to hit 20 nights. I'd be happy to have another year to finish my farewell tour and continue to enjoy breakfast at the properties I will revisit, but I don't think I'd get enough value out of WoH to warrant a major effort or expense to retain my status.