mebluemouse

I am almost 59 nights now and prefer to stay in SPG for the rest of the year and hit the last night at later Dec.

I have not used up all my TSU yet and no plan to use the cat-7 within 120 days. Just feel really awkward for the situation...

lancexfang

I'm with you. Hit 55 in august. Will do the other 5 in dec

martinplas

ditto for me. Haven't stayed much with Hyatt so I don't qualify too early in the year. Seems like a misguided WOH idea that has to be costing Hyatt revenue. Upside is I will be SPG plat lite due to this

stvr

Counterexample: I qualified in July but have been steadily hitting the 70-80-90 targets. I think I will stop at 90 and not do 100. My DSUs will expire steadily during different parts of the year. I can see why Hyatt structured it the way it did.

AZ Travels the World

It will be interesting to see. My money is on this being one of the things the new regime changes. I know far more Globs in the holding back camp than I do the 70, 80, 90, 100 night camp.

Hard to imagine at the end of the day it's a higher margin approach for them.

s0ssos

I forget what the point was hitting 70, 80, 90. And looked it up. Nothing special. Not like spg75 with the your24.

I don't use enough DSUs to use up all 7 (got another 4 recently because I hit 60 nights, even though I wish I could save them for future use as I still have 3 leftover from this past year).

craigthemif

Yep, I will be holding on 58 or 59 nights until December as well.

Hopefully the new regime will make the very simple change to have TSUs valid for the rest of the year in which they are earned, as well as all of the following year.

And count me among those who think that earning a Cat 7 free night now isn't particularly valuable when I would have to use it in a November - February window...

GUWonder

Stacking the deck with some bad cards with those bad cards to be tossed at some future date and thereby make the "opposition" happy that they have "won" something? Whether that was the intent from the get-go or not, that's what this will be.

CloudCoder

Count me in for the "holding back" camp. I'm at 99 nights. Haven't stayed at a Hyatt in months. Will stay the 100th night (and earn a TSU) in late December.

I'm sure that Hyatt's policy to make awards expire soon was designed to save money. But that same policy ends up costing them big-time. Think about it. Their short-expiration-date policy affects only a certain small group of customers: frequent guests. But that's exactly the group you want to attract rather than repel. And within that small group, the MORE you stay at Hyatt Hotels, the MORE you're penalized by the abusive expiration-date policy.

To sum it up, Hyatt lost thousands of dollars in revenue from me, and all they got in return was a slightly greater chance to cheat me out of an award which I earned.

Mark this down as one of the top corporate blunders of all time.

Here's hoping that the new regime quickly corrects the 2017 mistake.

michellt

My case is, that I need to use two TSUs for December 2018 stays.

So I had to decide, whether to hold back this year so that I cross 60 nights checking out on 12/31/17 (so TSUs won't expire too early in 2018), OR to go crazy super early next year so that I earn them early enough in the year that I can use them for December. But ultimately that second option didn't make sense since I can actually book the resorts this November and would have to wait longer to upgrade the rooms.

Very odd system that lets you book 13 months out but has TSUs that expire 12 months from when earned. So for popular resorts you have to book, then time your 60th night a month later, then redeem TSUs.

Meanwhile ironically, I'm finding that the best use of my free nights is to stay at Hyatts but avoid night credits so I can hit 60 on the last day of the year.

stvr

With Hyatt's IT as it stands, this is not always so easy!

MarkOK

I am in full agreement with many of you in that TSUs shouldn't expire in just 12 months - it seems like an unnecessarily short expiration date, but I feel like some of you all are just overthinking this too much. I would rather get my TSU's now and get them all booked into my spring and summer trips before the availability for such upgrades at choice properties on choice dates goes away rather than waiting 3 months just so that I can use them next Fall (normally, a slow travel season). And if I could get 4 now by hitting 60 and get another every 10 more nights through the end of the year, then I would have 5 or 6 next year, a couple of which are good going into the fall anyways. Hyatt Suite upgrades are pretty much unmatched elsewhere and even after 60 nights I would consider going for 70, 80, 90 and 100 nights before trying to rack up status elsewhere that won't give me any suite upgrades (yes, at a certain point SPG gives you 10 NIGHTS of upgrades, maybe that works better if always take really short trips, but each Hyatt's upgrade works up to 7-nights, if I had them for 2018 I would use them for 4 planned stays with 24 total nights!)

So, I understand the complaint, but I don't understand the strategy of waiting because I would much more fear losing the ability to use them when and where I want to use them than fearing not having one next Fall.

The bigger deal to me is the 120 days on the Cat1-7. Even with a hefty rate of travel, you don't get that until the summer or Fall, and then you only have 4 months to fine a way to use them during a time of the year where it isn't the easiest to take trips if you have kids and the school year to contend with and finding availability may be tough the times that are convenient. Next year, I plan to hit 60 nights in September, and using that Cat1-7 in a smart way between October and January is going to be somewhat of a frustration.

smilee

The Hyatt corporation didn't hire a high school kid to manage the loyalty program, so you can rest assured that they debated the issue of giving a 120 day expiring certificate and the 12 month suite upgrades with lots of thought. Unfortunately it has myself, and by the sounds of it many on this forum upset.

I am doing like many of you. I am holding off on stay number 60 until late November or December. In fact, it forced me to burn my cat 1-7 cert at a cat 3 hotel this weekend because I didn't want to earn a stay night (and the nightly rate was quite high) and throughout the year their was either no availability at the Cat 5,6 &7 hotels I wanted to use it at, or the in my case I wanted to use the suite upgrade and couldn't with this Cat1-7 certificate.

I rarely can use the suite upgrades anyhow, so earning them now or 40 days from now makes little difference.

I am holding off on stay 58-59-60.

CloudCoder

To add insult to injury, if you happen to luck up and find a way to use your Cat1-7, then that _entire_ stay becomes ineligible for a suite upgrade. It peeves me every time I think about it.

For example, I have an upcoming paid stay at the Hyatt Churchill London. I used a TSU. But if I stay an extra night using my Cat1-7, the _entire_ stay is ineligible for a suite upgrade. Solution: give the Cat 1-7 to my spouse and book the "free" night in a separate rez her name. Notify the hotel that we have two reservations in two names but we're the same party. Give the hotel the chance to do the right thing. At best, the entire stay is in a suite. At worst, the last night is in a regular room. In either case, I get to use a suite upgrade on a paid stay, which is how the program should have been designed.

They make the rules. We find the loopholes. That's how the game is played.

MarkOK

Yes, that too is pointing to a totally unnecessary thing that may seem like small deal in a committee room somewhere but out here in the real world makes for a headache. Looking far out into the future (Jan 2019) when I should have my cat 1-7 and will have suite upgrades, I think I will do something similar with regards to setting up the same situation and hope the hotel does the right thing.

Heck, I will soon get my free cat 1-4 (for hitting my 30th night this year) and that is going to be hard enough to put to good use. I have a 7 night reservation for a suite at the HR Vancouver in March, which I think is only cat 3 but pretty pricy for a cat 3, and the most value I can get from my certificate would be to adjust my reservation to 6 nights (with the suite, assuming the prices don't adjust upwards when I need to rebook), reserve a regular king on the free cat1-4 on the first night, let them know of the back to back 'free room' and '6 nights in suite' reservations and hope they make it easy and just put us in a suite the entire trip vs moving us.