txhyattlvr

I mentioned several other considerations. One thing that's notable about Hyatt is their willingness to "fire" customers. We saw them fire (likely) thousands when they switched from Gold Passport to WOH... the fact that they do this AND have never done better financially is interesting, at least to me.

joe_miami

Hyatt didn't "fire" anyone with the increased requirements of WoH, and there's no chance that these $100 gift cards are being sent out or not sent out because any particular person isn't throwing enough corporate business at Hyatt or is transferring too many points from Chase.

SethLevy

Fully agree with you! I don't know Hyatt's precise logic around who they sent these gift cards too - or the holiday gift - I received both and note that I have 60 nights this year, about 30 through the credit card program spend. I had much 'ess than 100 nights last year, I do not send any corporate business to Hyatt, I do not buy points through chase and I complain a lot about poor service, which has resulted in significant compensation being offered by Hyatt and the various hotels as service recovery efforts.

What I know for sure is that any service company does not "fire" customers or actively take steps to encourage them to take their business elsewhere. That would not be smart business.

joe_miami

Well, hotels and airlines do fire customers, but they don't do it in passive-aggressive ways, such as hoping a person will find out they didn't get a $100 gift card in the mail.

txhyattlvr

Yes, companies fire customers all the time. My company does it. There are customers that are simply too much trouble, cause too much stress to satisfy, take up too much time, and even though they might be profitable, you just don't want to deal with them anymore OR when it comes down to it, they really aren't all that profitable because of all the hassles they cause/compensation they expect, etc. If a customer causes your staff so much stress that good staff quit, you'd rather fire the customer and keep your good staff.

As for Hyatt - they recently fired thousands of customers. When they went from 25 stays to 60 nights in order to be a Globalist, they fully knew that thousands of their previous "Diamond" customers would be a) pissed that they would no longer get suite upgrades, free breakfasts, etc. and b) take their business elsewhere. You really think this wasn't on purpose AND expected? Of course it was. The bet was that this would actually be a good business decision in the long run and Hyatt financials indicate it probably was... but make no mistake, Hyatt execs fully knew that a large chunk of the Diamonds were going to migrate away, and decided to do it anyway. In a beginning I think they lost more than they anticipated, but even with some modifications to the program, they still have far fewer Globalists than they had Diamonds (ask any Hyatt manager to confirm). It may NOT have been a "your fired" but the effect was the same.

Back to the topic at hand - do I think they are trying to fire the people who got neither the xmas gift NOR the giftcard? Not necessarily, but I do think it's an indication of who is more valued and who, frankly, isn't. How else can you interpret such things? For example, if you spend most of your $$ on low-end HP's and HH's rather than higher margin HR, PH's, Andaz, etc... then it's probably less likely that they are going to send you gift cards.

joe_miami

Good grief. Hyatt increased the WoH thresholds because occupancy rates have been through the roof for a decade and because devaluations elsewhere had made GP way more generous than the competitors’ programs. It was not, in any way, shape, or form, an effort to “fire” customers who “only” stayed 25 nights per year with Hyatt.

SethLevy

Agreed!

gengar

Imagine my surprise when I found a letter from Amy Weinberg sitting in my office mailroom today. So 100 nights was not a hard cutoff.

As a data point, about half my 96 nights were Mlife nights too. So if the selection criteria for this gift looked at nights at all, it probably didn't distinguish Mlife nights.

easy_money

Out of curiosity, out of the MLIFE nights that posted, how many were comped?

gengar

I've never had a comped Mlife stay give me night credit, but none of my Mlife stays last year were comped (intentionally, so that I would get WoH base points for all my spend during those stays).

mnredfox

Same for me, email within a few minutes.

footastic

skywalkerLAX

Did it give you some indicator if this gift card can be used on corporate rate stays?

Considering to take either the 5k or $100. I have a stay at HR Vancouver coming up where I'd like to apply the gc to.

CloneCones

Man I stayed 100 nights at both Hyatt and Marriott last year and didn't get either gift card. Ah well.

mnredfox

No limitations, basically $100 Hyatt bucks.