Colin

I spoke to a Chase supervisor today who confirmed that the 2 qualifying nights (per $5K spend) transfer into WOH just after the Chase statement close date.
WOH credits the 2 qualifying nights based upon the Chase statement close date.
The $5K spend threshold never resets to zero - a continuous counter so you never loose out on any spend not counting to the $5K threshold.

VegasGambler

I suspect that the supervisor is correct in this case, but there's no reason to believe that a supervisor (or any employee who you would ever talk to) has any particular knowledge into how the system works. They are just repeating their understanding of what they have been told (or maybe even just making assumptions about what they believe to be reasonable)

If you asked 10 different employees, I'm sure that all the answers would not match. I also wouldn't necessarily assume that the most common answer would be the correct one.

So... mitigate your risk accordingly, depending in how much you care that the outcome will match your assumptions

beachfan

Colin

iflyjetz

Thanks for posting that information. Please update if there are any changes to how Hyatt credited those nights - I'm mostly interested in the 2 night credit for $5K spend. I'd expect them to fix the 5 night 2018/9 thing; I'm not surprised considering the crack IT team at Hyatt.
Also, can you let us know if the $5K counter was zeroed at the end of the calendar year?

VegasGambler

I hope not; I have $1100 of "overflow" spend there.

It seems like kind of a rip-off to zero it out, but if they really did credit on Dec 31 for mid-statement spend (which it sounds like they did) it wouldn't surprise me if it was zeroed. If it's not, then I really am impressed with Chase calculating this correctly.

I have a statement closing in a couple of days but I won't be able to tell from that if it was zeroed or not.

iflyjetz

Zeroing out at end of calendar year can go either way; I have no insight on what will happen.
However, I will say that the addition of being able to earn night credit with spend on their credit card makes Hyatt's program one of the easiest hacks for top tier status among hotel chains. Add in getting credit for points nights makes the current Hyatt program easier to get top status than the old 50night/25stay requirement.

josephstern

iflyjetz

They were essentially forced to. I spent the last year just burning points without paying for hotel rooms so I hadn't been monitoring room rates. However, I'm now based out of SFO and I was in shock at how inexpensive the airport HR was over the holidays. I was able to get rooms multiple nights for $85. Hilton and Marriott couldn't compete; even their budget brands near the airport were a bit more expensive.

I hadn't stayed at the SFO airport HR much in the past, but I did notice (I used a couple of club certs) that the lounge was very crowded, especially when one factors in the low occupancy rate. That's probably due to the Explorist club certs; those likely increase lounge access quite a bit. It was one of the most crowded Hyatt lounges I'd seen, although the San Francisco HR on Embarcadero was very crowded when we stayed there 4th of July weekend a couple of years ago.

Even those changes (credit card nights, night credit for award nights) may not be enough to win back the once loyal 20-40 night/yr customers they lost with the higher stay requirements. I wouldn't be surprised to see Hyatt lower the requirements or go with double night credits (effectively halving qualification requirements) when the hotel business softens a bit. Eventually, they'll have to accept lowering the qualification requirements.

escape4

I had $20k spend in late December (after my statement date) and $20k spend in early January (before my statement date). I was expecting 40/5*2 = 16 night credit in 2019 but only got 8 night credit (plus the 5 nights for simply having the card). That means the $20k spend in late December counted for 2018 not 2019.

I timed my purchases specifically to reach 100 nights in 2018 and nothing more, but sounds like I ended at 108 nights instead, so I am "losing" the 8 nights which I would have preferred to count in 2019 not 2018. Had I known that they were using December 31st as the cut-off rather than the statement closing date, I would have timed my large expense differently.

joe_miami

It never made sense that any full $5,000 increments accrued before Dec. 31 would carry over to 2019. Not sure how that became the default assumption here.

escape4

Well among other things, @Colin spoke to a supervisor in the first half of December who said that is how it would work. Obviously nobody can have the right answers 100% of the time, but it's easy to see how people on FT got to believe that is how it was more likely to work.

Colin

joe_miami

Nothing therein suggests 2018 spending would count for 2019; only that any earned nights would post after a statement closing date.

josephstern

escape4 - do you know that you got 108 nights in 2018?