Explorist: the most pitiful status level in the Hyatt program.

The way I see it, Explorist is weak in benefits to start with, and even then is inexcusably unreliable in delivering on “upgrades” and bottles of water.

On my last trip, I stayed at two Hyatt Places and got upgraded from a standard room to a suite with a balcony at one and a "deluxe" high floor room at the other. Those 4 nights of upgrades were worth a lot to me. I don't think I'd have gotten those with Discoverist as another person I was with was Discoverist and received no upgrades at all. Maybe I got lucky on my first trip as Explorist (I have the trial through the end of the year). I know people said it wasn't worth anything but I have found that not to be the case.

I definitely feel like hotels try to go above and beyond for Explorists especially when occupancy is low enough to where giving a suite leaves a great impression with nothing lost for the property.

Also, don’t forget to match to MLife.

Were these proactive upgrades or did you ask?

As an explorist I got upgraded to a higher category room more than 50% of the time. In the majority of cases that was done proactively. I don't know how much value that really provided...many of the upgrades probably weren't that huge of an improvement..but it was nice.

Yeah, I wasn't explorist for long, but out of like 5 stays, I was upgraded to a very large suite on one and upgraded room types on the other 4.

It was definitely a noticeable and sudden shift from getting terrible rooms to getting great rooms. I don't think that many people on this forum have any idea what kinds of terrible rooms hotels have and non-statused people often get. Just about every HR has a row of rooms that face a hot blank asphalt smelling roof with air conditioning units buzzing. I've seen several in my prior years of infrequent travel with Hyatt.

Well I think I am going to go for it. The only “cost” is staying at a Hyatt Regency instead of a Marriott on an upcoming trip.

And the sweet thing is once you get Explorist you can keep it for the foreseeable future with M-Life Status matching. So even if the benefit is only marginal, you won't have to earn it anymore.

What exactly do you mean by this? I just got Explorist.

Status match to M-Life Gold with your Hyatt Explorist status. In the future, if necessary, you can do the reverse as well (status match to Explorist status with your M-Life Gold.) It's a pretty open secret. Many many blog posts about it.

Top floor corner rooms, proactively asked about late checkout, and two successes with opening availability for an additional night with a call to the property. I am still making the push for Glob as I irrationally value free breakfast and hate resort fees.

Anything can be a good value at a low enough price. Getting a higher category regular room is worth something if you would have paid for it. Same for 2 pm checkout.

This is definitely worth something if you stay at places with relatively decent regular rooms. Corner king rooms, etc. It is relatively worthless at places that don’t have many categories.

Doesn’t the new Hyatt biz card grant explorist? I’d do that before I tried to mattress run for it.

Discoverist, not Explorist.

To be honest I've been very impressed with Hyatt. I've had good upgrades with low / mid-tier status at Hyatt.

As a Discoverist, just before the pandemic, I was upgraded to a huge suite in Macau at the GH. When staying at HR TST in HK I was regularly upgraded to great view rooms. At London Andaz upgraded to a Large Suite. Always had no problem getting a 2pm check-out, unlike Hilton even though I have LT Diamond....

I'm now Explorist and can see I've already been upgraded to have club access on an upcoming stay at HR Amsterdam!

I'm well on my way to re-acquire Globalist status so hope the good treatment doesn't stop then!