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Hyatt’s loyalty program was once considered one of the better hotel programs around with top-tier elites treated especially well (I loved Hyatt Diamond status for the year that I had it). Sadly, since the program was ‘refreshed’ and rebranded as ‘the World of Hyatt’, it has dropped down to being little more than mediocre and not particularly appealing to a lot of travelers.
Hyatt now appears keen to make up for some of the mistakes it has made with the World of Hyatt program and it recently announced that, going forward, award nights will count towards elite night qualification.
This is a welcome move from Hyatt albeit one that simply brings its loyalty program into line with most of the other major hotel loyalty programs.
It was understood that this rule change would come into place for the 2018 elite qualification year but it looks like things may be a little better than that.
One Mile At A Time has reported that some World of Hyatt members are getting emails with the following content:
Thank you for letting World of Hyatt be part of your travels and the unforgettable memories you’ve created.
We understand every night matters. That’s why we recently announced nights on free night awards will now count as tier-qualifying nights. Plus, they will count toward achieving more rewards when you complete 70, 80, 90 or 100 qualifying nights in a calendar year.
In appreciation of your loyalty, your nights on free night awards in 2017 will count toward more rewards. With your free night award nights and your other eligible nights in 2017, we’re excited to let you know you achieved one of these milestones. You will soon receive an email to choose your reward–a suite upgrade award or 10,000 Bonus Points.
This would appear to indicate that, at least for some people, Hyatt is retroactively counting 2017 award nights towards the 2017 status qualification year.
This could be great news for a lot of Hyatt loyalists as the retroactive crediting of 2017 award nights could easily push them over the threshold needed to reach the next elite level.
Is Hyatt Introducing Rollover Nights?
Rollover nights are elite nights earned above an beyond the elite threshold a traveler has reached and which are then rolled over into the following elite qualification year.
Marriott and Hilton have both offered rollover nights in the past (Hilton on a targeted basis) and IHG still offers rollover nights to its members, but Hyatt never has (as far as I can tell) and that makes what I’m seeing in my account somewhat strange.
Recently I had a 6-night award stay with Hyatt which spanned New Year. 5 of the nights fell in 2017 and 1 night fell in 2018 so, per the new rules which now count award nights towards elite status, I was expecting to have 1 elite qualifying night credited to my account for 2018.
But that’s not what I’m seeing in my World of Hyatt account:
That screenshot of my account clearly shows 6 nights counting towards my 2018 elite qualification target.
From the information published by OMAAT we know that Hyatt is retroactively crediting 2017 award nights towards the 2017 elite qualification targets but, as my 5 award nights in 2017 were the only nights I spent with Hyatt last year, I wasn’t expecting them to appear anywhere.
You need 10 nights at Hyatt properties to earn the first level of status in the World of Hyatt program (Discoverist status) so it makes little difference whether or not Hyatt retroactively credited my 2017 award nights to my account – 5 nights or 0 nights I still wouldn’t qualify for any kind of status.
It looks like Hyatt has retroactively credited my account with 5 award nights from 2017 and rolled them forward to 2018.
Thoughts
Hyatt has recently brought in a new head of loyalty to take a look at what’s gone wrong with the World of Hyatt program (good luck to him!) and it has been mentioned that he’s keen to rebuild bridges with one-time Hyatt loyalists driven away by the changes.
Allowing award nights to count towards elite qualification is clearly the first move in his bridge-building exercise and it’s definitely a positive step….but I’m struggling to believe that rollover nights are here too.
With all other loyalty programs that have (or once had) elite rollover nights, members have had to at least reach the first status tier before nights would be rolled over….and that’s clearly not the case here with me. So what’s going on?
I have no idea!
The World of Hyatt qualification year runs from 1 January to 31 December and, as I’ve only stayed a single night in Hyatt properties in 2018, I can’t picture a scenario in which I should expect to have earned 6 elite qualifying nights towards the 2018 qualification year….and yet there they are.
Anyone else seeing any elite qualifying nights in their account that they cannot explain or, better still, can anyone explain why I have 6 elite qualifying nights in my account?
Checkout date is the driver here, so if you check out in 2018, all nights of the same stay count towards 2018 status. that’s been the case with Hyatt ever since I recall. they are not “roll over nights”.
I doubt Hyatt will introduce roll over nights. Even Marriott is getting rid of this benefit for 2019.
Thanks for the explanation…but this raises another question:
If I had needed the 5 2017 nights to hit a Status target would hyatt still have credited them to my 2018 total?