In early 2014, Hyatt Gold Passport added a new hotel category for redemptions. Specifically, they added Category 7 hotels, which go for 30,000 points per night. Fortunately Hyatt hasn't moved too many hotels up to this category, but rather has kept it for what are truly their most expensive hotels, like the Park Hyatt Sydney.…
Continue reading: Hyatt’s Bizarre New Category 7 Hotel Is Where?!?
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I ended up using my two free nights at a low category hotel and not at an aspirational stay. People with normal 9 to 5 jobs and lives will find it very difficult to align all their duckies to wring out value from all their loyalty points. Which is why I stopped paying attention to bloggers pushing limited time credit card deals. They don't have the reader's best interests at heart, just their own.
This was formerly the Edition hotel (part of Marriott). Its nice but not in the same league as Park Hyatt.
"Which is why I stopped paying attention to bloggers pushing limited time credit card deals. They don’t have the reader’s best interests at heart, just their own."
Odd, since you seem to continue to pay attention to Lucky, constantly. Seems actions, and words, are two very different things in your world.
But please, continue to "stop paying attention to bloggers...." it makes for great reading.
Quick, I think your mom is calling from upstairs, your breakfast is ready.
My guess is it has to do with (1) formerly being an Edition property, and (2) ownership pushed this due to the redemption rate reimbursement the property receives as a negotiating point for Hyatt to get their fee structure. Keep in mind, these hotels are large investments, not hostels.
I can't see many people using their awards for a night's stay at that rate, when rack rates seem to be reasonable in comparison.
Definitely bizarre!
The LAX Concourse hotel didn't accept points bookings either when it was an "affiliate" hotel. Except people might have wanted to spend 12,000 points for it since it was theoretically a Cat. 3.
I bet this is just a "don't bother asking about booking with points" placeholder.
"Unfortunately I suspect the hotel’s lack of success (which I assume prompted the change) has more to do with being in Istanbul than which hotel group it belongs to."
What's wrong with Istanbul?
@Mark Sadowski
The current political and security situation in Turkey has deteriorated somewhat over the past few years. They used to try and position themselves as "European" but have been drifting away from that.
"What would help ensure we limit exposure to points redemption stays?"
"Let's be a Category 7 property!"
Just checked Hyatt.com, it seems they switched it to a category 3 hotel, makes more sense.