Seagull689

you have 0 nights this year and are considering a 60 night mattress run next year? You’re trying way too hard to solve a “problem” that doesn’t exist.

gudugan

I will reach Lifetime Platinum pretty much organically without any work over the next few years. Considering I spend lots of nights in hotels, might as well get something out of it. Hyatt in China is just as cheap as other “throwaway” options.

ElevatorEnthusiast

I recognize that a major gap for me in my experiences are international Hyatt properties. I intend to travel predominantly outside the US in 2023 and have 67 nights booked at Marriott up to the beginning of April and 3 nights booked at Hyatt (all on points / certs). As someone who likes hotel-hopping, I'm challenged on the thought of focusing spend on Hyatt as I don't think I can get 60 nights next year by diverting 1-3 of my Marriott nights to the 1-3 Hyatt properties in the destinations I'm planning to visit. If I can't get to 60, then investing in Hyatt seems like a losing proposition as the differences in benefits between non-Globalist and Ambassador is very significant.

Now, my US stays at Hyatt have been trending quite poor from a pure hard and soft product quality aspect. Hyatt should work to improve the experience at hotels in their home country as losing centralized control over the experience muddles down their major differentiator. Of course, one only needs to look at corporate-managed properties, like the PHNY, and their terrible Elite treatment and poor on-property service attitudes to see where Hyatt Corporate is trending towards.

scubadu

I guess what I'm curious about is why do you need Globalist? Is it just FOMO from reading happy Globalists on FT or what? I mean if Marriott and it's footprint/program work for you, what is the purpose of pursuing yet another status?

Perhaps holding the Marriott Platinum status via credit card gives you the opportunity to take a breath and not need to simply shift the issue of "chasing status" to a different program. And frankly, if you are planing to really "concentrate" you stays on Hyatt, then do you really need Marriott Platinum status? (i.e. paying a $650 annual fee for a card on a program that you are no longer focusing your stays).

To be clear, I'm genuinely not trying to be adversarial, but just trying to provide some food for thought. I just find that many on FT get themselves on a hamster wheel of endlessly chasing status (then needing to "requailfiy" again next year) without really clarifying their "why" and whether its really necessary/worth it.

And we do love Hyatt, but our travel is primarily leisure and thus the "footprint" is whatever we want it to be and really isn't a problem for us, so we really don't need to do unnatural things to maintain Globalist.

Regards

xooz

In my limited experience, the issue of the Hyatt "small footprint" was most often noticed when I traveled to smaller towns. That said, those locations were ones where I got limited to no benefit from Plat status since I was staying at a Fairfield, Courtyard, etc. For me it became a question of what program seemed to have a better award program. I have been more pleased with Hyatt these past 2 years than I have with any program since HH in the early 2000s.

gudugan

Yes, I have FOMO, and am really really really bored.

ElevatorEnthusiast

This is too funny - it's basically me - I spend my time on vacation thinking about hotels and planning my next one. Perhaps, that's an issue, but there are worse addictions!

gudugan

haha! I have decided that I dislike flying so have no airline loyalty whatsoever. That means more time to focus on hotel status, which objectively has better benefits

HoustonConsultant

Unless your travel patterns happen to align really, really well with Hyatt's footprint, Hyatt takes at least a little more "work" than Marriott/Hilton/etc.

However, my leisure travel is always with a wife and three kids. Globalist suites, free breakfasts, and waived resort fees become bigger deals for leisure travel (plus, after being Globalist for so long, I have a big psychological block to paying resort fees - I understand hotel motivation against simply raising the room rate and dropping the resort fees, but it just irks me to no end).

Marriot's Lifetime Zirconia just does not compare to Hyatt Globalist. I'm never going to be able to get a Marriott suite upgrade where and when we want to go, and so then we are looking at two rooms and two resort fees, etc.

So, when it is just me, I'll put in a little more work to get Hyatt Globalist, and then use those benefits for family leisure travel.

nameaname

Using a Hyatt credit card and booking Vegas Stay can be an easy way to reach your status.