Time traveller

As with any hotel program, whether top tier is worth it depends on what level hotels you mainly stay at. For Hyatt, if you mainly stay at HP/HH, then you really don't need status as it doesn't really make a difference. Same goes for Marriott and Hilton and other hotel loyalty programs (if you mainly stay at limited-service hotels).

The main benefit with Hyatt Globalist is the upgrade and lounge access at full-service hotels (i.e. typically Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency). Even without using TSU, there are many hotels that will upgrade you to a suite as a globalist. There are also many hotels that will try to upsell their suites (even if you are a Globalist), by sending all expected guest emails saying they can upgrade to a suite for a modest amount. It all depends on the property. However the suite upsell email prior to arrival is not necessarily unique to Hyatt family hotels.

If I were in OPs situation, I wouldn't go out of my way to get Globalist, especially if OP has to stretch to get 60 nights a year. If you have a family with 2 young children, often times the Hyatt Place has larger rooms with 2 Queen beds and a sitting area, compared to a standard 2 double bed room at a full-service Hyatt property.

schriste

I used to play the status game before the program switch to Globalist from Diamond. 10 years ago, it was fairly easy to justify going for status. There were “G” bonuses at hotels that could provide 2,000 points. You could get points for closed lounges. There were the FFN promotions. You could even buy $100 gift cards at Costco for $80. But today... we’ll... I just gave up. No point (for a leisure traveler). Now when I stay at a Park Hyatt I use a Prive agent and get confirmed in advance upgrades, free breakfast including room service, and a $100 credit and even a welcome amenity. Right now I’m staying at the Shangri-La in Vancouver using a Virtuoso rate and am in a far, far, far nicer hotel than the Hyatt Regency a block away.

The TSU is the wild card. If you NEED the space and would be willing to pay for it... then did the math and found you could save money... I guess going for Globalist could pay... but you need to add up the cost of getting all those nights. Plus factor in you will potentially be staying in a lot of hotels you would otherwise not chose (I’d be stuck in the Hyatt Vancouver and would have missed staying at the Shangri-La in Vancouver).

steveholt

It seems like you could recreate most of the benefits you enjoy with Hyatt by using the credit card for spending, booking suites with points (or cash + point upgrades), and occasionally using Amex FHR for free breakfast, late checkout, etc.

toomanybooks

I am Globalist, travel a tiny bit for business but mostly personal.

I will never ever give up Globalist, no matter what.

I often am booking in cities, where Hyatt shines. Free parking in Chicago for example worth $70 a night. 4 pm checkout. Often early check-in. Lounges. Suite upgrades, guaranteed 4x a year, up to a week. Book for friends/family and they inherit my status. Enormous value. Book your boss or business associate into some amazing hotel, saving him hundreds, and you will see what I mean.

Let me walk you through what I just did. Over 60 nights, you get 10000 per each extra 10 nights, so that’s 1000 per stay if you time it right. Call it $15 each. The Hyatt CC has a promo $50 off $300 (16%) at Hyatt Place this quarter. Also triple points.

I just booked a HP for $80. Will get back 16% on CC promo, 20.5 points per dollar on the triple (5+5+5+4 [CC] + 1.5 [Globalist]). That’s worth 30%. Business trip, so tax-deductible. And the 1000 points, $15, about another 20%.

Free trip.

I can also buy Hyatt GCs at the supermarket for 4x Amex MRs and fuel points worth up to 14% if I prefer.

These deals come up constantly.

The best top status in any chain easy.

ZBigFam

Which supermarket and card? Am curious.

toomanybooks

Amex Personal Gold 4x MR. Limit $25k a year. Amex Blue Cash Preferred. 6% cashback, limit $6k per year. Amex Old Blue Cash, not available any more, unlimited 5% cashback after your first $6500 on the card in the year.

Kroger has the most lucrative fuel rewards program I know of. Up to 14% back in free gas during 4x promos.

Other supermarket chains I use are Jewel and Meijer, but there are tons.

projectmaximus

Considering the conflicting recommendations in this thread, I'd say it hasn't exactly been answered. Not sure why you are taking it out on me, but I do hope your relationships with your friends and family improve.

Sorry I must have confused you with my previous posts. For 2020 I do anticipate being able to hit 60 nights with normal travel behavior and CC spending. But I think 2020 will be an anomaly, and I wonder if, given my normal travel after hitting globalist, the reward won't be as worthwhile.

Anyway, I suppose I will just proceed as planned and see for myself. If globalist isn't as beneficial for me as hoped, then perhaps I can spin it off into elite status with a different brand that would be more suitable. (But man I love Hyatt lol)

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I totally see where you are coming from and can envision my family benefiting in the same ways.

And then otoh, this makes a lot of sense too.

So many people with this same mindset. I guess I'll just put my head down, follow along, and reassess in two years! Thanks.

I don't really have anything more to say for this topic, but if there are other primarily leisure travelers and/or nomads who have some trips, deals, experiences, tips that seem most suitable for others of this type, please do share.

MarkOK

My wife is a remote employee, and I am a college professor (meaning I can easily work remotely on my research, 1/3 of the calendar year). We -just- got into the loyalty business a few years ago when we found that we had enough income to really get out and travel more, and I was more regularly traveling for work as well. We live in a smaller town but are not small town types of people, so we enjoy our gardening and peace at home, but have to get out regularly to feel sane! Some trips we take off work, many trips though we work remotely and have fun in the evenings.

Overall, I get about 10-30 nights a year from work, about half of those times I bring my family along with. We travel ~40-50 nights a year as a family on purely personal trips. I get another 30sh nights a year credit now with the credit card. So, as you can see, I can make globalist without work travel, or without credit card, but not without both.

My notes:
1. Globalist's value is huge for family travel -- free breakfast for 2 adults and 2 kids is a big deal. No resort fees is a huge bonus, and free parking on award stays often factor in as well. The TSU upgrades we use on our longest stays, because the longer your stay, the chances of getting a free upgrade at the desk goes down a ton (I get upgraded to suites about 70% of the time on 1-4 night stays, but 0% of the time for stays 5 nights or more). Globalist status makes frequent travel sooooo much cheaper. And, with status, I've found things like rollaway beds rarely get charged to me, etc. I do still pay cash for suites when it is that important, my TSUs are used up, and the rates are reasonable.

2. We let hotel rates dictate where we go for our longer stays a year (i.e. between 7-14 days). Last year, that took us to Orlando in January, Vancouver in March, New York and Paris in June, Atlanta in July, Lake Tahoe in September, and Miami in December. This year, it took us to Minneapolis in June, New Orleans in July, Hawaii in August. The biggest factor in getting good deals was looking broadly and booking WAY early, like 12 months out, and reevaluating on a every 2 month basis if rates went down even further. Fun habit is to spend two hours and just search hotel rates in 20 cities or so and see if a good deal is to be had anywhere. When a 300-500$ a night location is bookable for $100 a night, I jump at it. Most of my points are burned when we want to get away at a certain time, find a good airfare somewhere, but hotel rates are high.

3. HP/HH are great for building to status at first, but once with status, I find that the real value is in full service properties. There are a few HH/HP locations that I genuinely like, but most often I am searching for good rates at full service hyatts, and when they have good rates they are usually better (or as good) as HH/HP rates at the same time in the same city anyways.

4. I have yet to have a footprint issue -- I really see that to be much more a problem for work-dependent globalists who get pulled into going to mid sized and smaller cities all the time, or, if you get set on certain locations at certain times of the year and don't plan far ahead, because a lot of Hyatts will book up regularly and not be available any longer a few months out if there is a conference going on (or, in the northern US especially, it's crazy how many rooms are booked on weekends in the summer for weddings)

5. Airline programs are worthless. Even with 8 solid family trips a year, it is quite hard to crack into the lowest level of an airline program. Frequent flyer programs are for business travelers; for personal travellers, you get nothing for loyalty even if you spend 10K a year for your family to travel on one airline (since status metrics are split per person).


So, again, flexibility I find is key, on both locations and on times. Atlanta and New Orleans are quiet and cheap in July, but you know what, it's just about equally hot about anywhere in the northern hemisphere that time of the year anyways and visiting places when it is quiet has a ton of advantages beyond cheap airfares and hotel rates. The biggest issue for us is the school calendar (I am limited when I am teaching courses, but it's the darn kid's school calendar that is the bigger headache -- not enough days off after New Years to take advantage of January bargains, and can't take advantage of May shoulder season when a lot of hotel rates are quite favorable still, and though lot's of places are cheap in March for spring break, airfares on weekends around spring break go through the roof).

gengar

No, I interpreted your post correctly. My point was that if Glob isn't useful for you for 3/4 of a year (even when you do qualify) and even qualifying itself is an anomaly, I think it's a huge question as to whether it's worthwhile at all.

drewp123

I’m a leisure traveler, and I happily plan my leisure (to a large degree) around Hyatt

River in Sight

I think MarkOK lays it out well. This year with Hyatt I have 3 business nights, 17 credit card nights, and 30 leisure nights with 7 more leisure nights planned. I used to be a 200 night per year road warrior but changed once I had a child and now just barely squeak in to status, I focus nearly all my stays on Hyatt to accomplish this.

I find Hyatt Globalist to be incredibly useful for my family. My family loves to travel and the breakfast, waived resort fees, suite upgrades (very useful with children) and other benefits are a huge value to me. Guest of Honor is a fantastic benefit we use for Grandparents when they travel with us, they can get treated just as well as we do. We typically visit Miami (Confidante) 2-3 times per year along with 1-2 visits to SoCal, Chicago, and various other destination and I find we are consistently treated well and get great value from Globalist. Additionally I appreciate the free night certificates (milestone and credit card) to be of great value for one nighters throughout the year.

My only complaint is the relative lack of properties in Europe but within the US coverage is fine and Hyatt has great properties in many of the cities I like to visit.

jmandc

Another happy Globalist here. We have zero business travel and so it takes tremendous effort to hit the threshold each year. But we always find a way.. Going forward will be particularly tough as this is the first off what may be 12 or more years of college tuition (3 kids, each 4 years apart). In an act of desperation, I'm even considering paying a 2.75% fee to charge $50,000 of tuition and housing on the Hyatt card in order to earn those 20 nights.

We love getting treated like royalty wherever we go. It can something as simple as getting two free bottles of water each day and a corner room at a Hyatt House to getting upgraded into the Presidential Suite at two properties in Hawaii and countless other suites and villas (some using TSUs, many without). Waived resort fees, parking (sometimes not even on a free night) lounge access (some have such good breakfasts and nighttime food that we can go an entire day without eating out), and my concierge who I never thought I'd use and now I can't imagine my life without her. The list goes on, but if you have a chance to get this status and really take advantage of the benefits, you'll never be able to go back.

schriste

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Hydro88

I think you're dead right, for the vast majority of leisure travelers the math doesn't add up. But the soft factor of feeling special is a big motivator for many (nothing wrong with that).

projectmaximus

Thanks for all the response. Especially Mark for breaking down your family's approach. This will probably be our blueprint, except we have the flexibility of hitting shoulder seasons