Why Hyatt doesn't win @ Freddies?
 

I was banging my head against the wall last night when I was attending at the Freddies. It is beyond of my belief how Marriott could win and be the second best program so many times. Personally I would rate the Marriott's program the worst of the four I participate in and the Hyatt's the best.

What Hyatt is doing wrong? The FFN is the BEST hotel promotion out there and yet they don't win anything.

This is my personal preference list
1. Hyatt Gold Passport
2. InterContinental Priority Club/Royal Ambassador
3. Hilton Hhonors
4. Marriott Membership Rewards

With far more Marriotts than Hyatts, it's a good bet there are more Marriott customers than Hyatt customers.

Yes I think much of it can be attributed to Hyatt's smaller program.

No credit card affiliation?

I agree that Hyatt has the best promo in FFN bar none. It's amazing to me that they don't win awards for it.

Ffn
 

I agree that FFN is the best promo around, so I will usually requalify for Diamond during FFN period (only).

The fact that Hyatt Customer Service is near non existent is driving long time customers away.

Their recent focus on the Hyatt Place and Summerfiled Suite is also taking resources away from the higher end properties (ESPECIALLY PARK HYATT).

Their ad campaigns seem to fail one after another. Has anyone notice that the "This is not your typical hotel story, this is the Hyatt Touch" BS campaign is gone?

Then the "Salvation, or something nonsense" about a new breakfast menu is so cheesy....

The Diamond tier mean absolutely nothing outside of the US when a "Regency" or "Grand" club LEVEL room is not available prevents me from even considering Hyatt Diamond a "Good" elite level, let alone the BEST. :rolleyes:

Then you have Park Hyatt GMs that address the wrong name to a response to a complaint initiated by the guest......obviously a cut and paste effort. To add injury to insult, a promised follow up call never materialized, even after THREE attempts to Consumer Affairs.....absolutely NO customer service at all.

I'll only vote Hyatt for the Best Promotion (FFN). Other that than, Hyatt fails miserably in Customer Service, Elite Level, and its BRAND MANAGEMENT!!!

Oh, and PLEASE!!! FIRE YOUR MARKETING CONSULTANTS! :mad: What's up with the Hyatt Wake Up???

I agree that FFN is the best hotel promo out there by far. However, FTers probably only make up a small percentage of all freddie voters, and the tips here on how to maximize FFN redemption probably skew our perspective. FFN availability at the best Hyatts get booked up quickly (especially on weekends).

For example, I helped some family members use their FFN at the London Churchill, by pre-reserving the dates with my points. Otherwise, by the time they would have earned the FFN (toward the end of the earning period), I'm positive there would have been no space left. A "regular" person likely wouldn't get nearly as much value from the FFN promo. On the other hand, the Priority Club double points promo (which did win for best hotel promo in N.America) pretty much benefits everyone, though the rewards aren't nearly as great.

I am afraid that I think it also has to do with the small numbers of Gold Passport people against the other brands.

I do think the change to the upgrade rules outside the US has had an impact for me and I'm more likely to mark Hyatt down.

However, what amazed me was the US members NOT voting for Starwood when the rest of the world had. There was a pretty strong message for them about not changing their redemption levels until AFTER the Freddies, as Inter-Con won something as their changes came after voting closed.

I'm not even sure that FFN is my reason for Gold Passport's being the best program. Over the last 10 years, I've remained dedicated to Hyatt for one simple reason: I'm able to use my points for places I want to go; and when I get there, they treat me well. I neve felt that with Hilton.

SPG has done a good job at this as well, but there's something about the consistency that I get from property to property within Hyatt.

I was disappointed to read comments from another fTer about about service. Hyatt's customer service is another reason I love the GP program so much. I"ll put their Diamond line light years ahead of SPG's relatively-useless Platinum Concierge, anyday. Any issues I've had have been quickly resolved.

my guess as to the reason in order:

1. No credit card

2. Lack of choices on car rental

3. Shortage of other opportunities to earn points (ala the various malls done by some others)

I think the shortage of hotels is also a factor, but that the Hyatt Place etc. purchase opening, largely fixes that.

It pisses me off, too, that Hyatt never wins. I want Hyatt to get the recognition they deserve for running by far the most valuable program, with the best customer service.

Regarding the quote above, I asked Randy a few years ago this very question in "Only Randy Petereson" and he replied that "could not be the issue" because all the votes are "scaled" to the size of the program. I don't distrust Randy, of course, but I can't believe this effort at "scaling" is accurate, because Hyatt ought to be #1 all the way. I have been top tier in most of the programs, its no secret Hyatt is the best.

The reason it doesn't win is because it's not the best program for most people. I like GP, but I don't think it's even close to the best program. The people that vote for these things vote for the programs they find they can take advantage of. If they don't take advantage of GP, they won't vote for it.

The fact that Hyatt has had the smallest number of properties compared to Hilton, Marriott and Starwood and even Priority Club affiliated properties means less people stay at Hyatt properties and there's a smaller universe of potential voters for the program.

That said, FFN has always been overlooked for best promo. But the reasons are the same (smaller universe of eligible properties means less people can take advantage of the promo and thus it gets less votes) even though it merits getting that award IMO.

-David

Without getting to the merits, its that exact factor that Randy says is supposedly not supposed to impact the voting and why Hyatt should be on "even footing" with the "big guys".

Sure, if voting is done based on size of program, Hyatt can't compete. Perhaps the Freddies should then have a category for Hilton, Marriott, Starwood and maybe IC, then have a category for all other smaller hotel affinity programs. But that is not what they do (supposedly). Supposedly they actually modify the vote counts to completely dial-out the factor you cite.

The Freddies are not a popularity contest. There may be more votes for Marriott than for Hyatt, but the number of votes just validates that program to win an award. A program with more than 1% of the votes is qualified. Beyond that, each vote also contains a "value vote" which is used to compute the actual score. Hyatt did not win because its value vote was lower than the value votes of other programs. In order to win, Hyatt does not need more votes. It needs a higher average value vote.

Understood. But I don't think it works out that way in actual practice. (And I'll be the first to agree that that's a subjective statement on my part.) On the other hand, SPG has done well in the past and they are about half the size of Hilton and Marriott.

Perhaps most people feel (as I do) that GP isn't as good as some other programs. As we all know, there isn't one best program for everybody. But if they remove the size factor from the voting, I don't understand why FFN hasn't won best promotion.

I think xyzzy is on the right track with the value vote, but that still doesn't explain FFN never winning best promotion.

-David