Am I missing something? Hyatt rewards seems very generous?
 

YEARS ago I swore off Hyatt - we were at a property in Washington DC with my little kids (15 years ago?) and they wanted to charge extra for us to use the pool. wasn't mentioned on the website, etc about the extra fee. I was and still am looking for a quality / low cost hotel. Over the years I read how the fancier hotels add all kinds of fees, figuring they have business guests and most don't care. Or just people with money to burn.

Yeah, I hold a grudge for a long time.

From a credit card I opened a while ago, I got an email recently that the Hyatt points were expiring soon because of inactivity (nice that they sent that).. There was about 5,000 miles in the account. We're taking a trip soon (our little kids are both graduating from grad school : ) and I'm using the loads of points I've accumulated with Marriott, Hilton and IHG. I looked what I can get with hyatt.... I use awardmapper.com to see whats in the area when needing to use points... do you have something better?) and seeing that Hyatt's properties are typically 5K - 8K - 12K, in areas where I am using 15K - 20K - 25K at the other chains.

Have I been shooting myself in the foot avoiding Hyatt? at least to get their credit card and the sign up bonus?

Because we've been opening accounts with all the other companies, Chase isn't letting us open a Hyatt account right now. Am I missing something? Hyatt points DO go farther?

THANKS!

Hyatt does have a more stable earn/burn proposition.

But only people paying attention seem to notice. Everybody else goes for the 10 points per $, TRIPLE POINTS promo!!!, OMG get the credit card and earn another TWENTY POINTS and DIAMOND status!!! Only to then require half a billion points for a week's holiday...

You are 100% correct. And these are "smart" ppl who don't seem to realize they've been had. I explained it to a friend and he understands but does not want to switch regardless. He wants a status match before trying out Hyatt.
I stopped trying.

Agreed. I keep on thinking my 500K Marriott points will last me a long time, but that's 6 nights at a high end property. Then poof all gone.

I am three months into my Hyatt relationship and I have loved it so far, even as I'm still a Lowly Discoverist for another two weeks. Loving the current promo.

Thanks. We travel for ourselves / pleasure. Not business. Looking for the least expensive but quality property... prefer breakfast included.

We get all our points from credit card spend.

So $5,000 spend on their credit card for most things is 5K points = equiv to 20K on Hilton, which would take 20K/ 3 points per dollar = $6,666 spend. Marriott 20K points would take $10K spend. IHG? that'll take $20K general spend.

I guess it's like when I saw a new sheraton hotel needing 'only' 10K points thought that was an opening deal. Nah, sheraton points were worth 3x marriott points. :(

Stayed at that hotel a couple times / felt I got burned / over spent my points once I realized my bad math.

Hyatt's loyalty structure has gotten extremely generous with the new (starting March 1) Milestone Rewards.
While Hyatt's footprint remains tiny, that can be offset by getting night credits for spend on the new Hyatt card.

Hyatt still uses static award night pricing, while other chains have gone to dynamic pricing. This makes a big difference when hotel cash prices are high.

Who does that other than Hilton?

"Tiny" is relative esp with Two Roads/SLH/accelerated Hyatt openings. I think for us loyal, legacy Starwood folks, it feels about right, and doable for all the major markets many of us long traveled to.

70% of Marriott is your crappy CY/RI/SHS/TPS-type property. Many people don't need or want a program that has a property in Small Town USA.

If you're primarily doing un-bonused CC spend, then Hyatt almost always comes out on top. Especially because Chase Freedom Unlimited gives 1.5x points for every dollar which is immediately transferrable to Hyatt. So you only need to spend about $3,300 for a free night at the cheapest Hyatt hotels.

Marriott has a lot of cases where they have very few "base" rooms, so they upsell on the "view" room or whatever. And a 3rd floor view of a parking lot costs 25% more than the 1st floor view of the parking lot.

Whereas with Hyatt (in general, I'm sure there are some exceptions) hotels generally have the base room available, and the base room costs whatever the hotel category says it should cost.

Let me know what Hyatt you recommend in Brussels, Belgium.

Coming to Marriott very soon.

This article from 2004 indicates Hilton and Intercontinental went dynamic pricing almost 15 yrs ago: https://www.businesstravelnews.com/M...-Fixed-Pricing

I believe that Hyatt generally provides the best free night award redemption value amongst the major hotel loyalty programs. There are exceptions as every program has sweet spots and special opportunities. One area where Hyatt falls short is that there is no 5th night free on free night awards.