World Of Hyatt Improves Milestone Rewards, Guest Of Honor

This is terrific. I just hit Explorist and while I love the Cat 1-4 certificate, I don’t really have a need for the 4 club access passes I’ve accumulated. Good to see a loyalty program that actually puts thought into changes.

Biggest loss is to Lifetime Globalist - before, reaching lifetime gave you Globalist perks including Guest of Honor for *life*, now to get Guest of Honor you'll have to keep staying and earning milestone awards every year just like everyone else. Makes Lifetime much less valuable as that was the biggest perk for me.

14. I am a current Globalist or Lifetime Globalist as of December 31, 2023. How will the changes to Guest of Honor impact me?
All members who are Globalist or Lifetime Globalist as of December 31, 2023, will receive five complimentary Guest of Honor Awards in their account in January 2024. These complimentary Guest of Honor Awards expire on February 28, 2025.

9. I’m a Lifetime Globalist–am I eligible for any of the Milestone Rewards?
As a Lifetime Globalist, you are eligible to earn Milestone Rewards by completing eligible activity.

Can status matched explorist status book GOH stays?

@ Sam A -- Fortunately that's not quite accurate. Lifetime Globalists get five Guest of Honor bookings per year automatically on an ongoing basis. 🙂

Per the program terms:
"A Lifetime Globalist will receive their four (4) Complimentary Suite Upgrade Awards, five (5) Guest of Honor Awards, and one (1) Category 1-7 Free Night Award each year on or around March 1st (or whenever Hyatt processes elite membership status renewals and changes for the preceding year)."

@ Lichster -- You earn your first Guest of Honor booking at 40 elite nights or 65,000 base points, so matched status wouldn't earn that unless you complete that activity.

Phew... that's good as they don't list that on the announcement page or the FAQ, just buried in the terms.

The terms are a bit hard to understand though: For 2024 only, existing Lifetime Globalists will receive their five (5) Guest of Honor Awards in January... Lifetime Globalist may make use of the legacy Globalist Guest of Honor benefit (as described in section V(i) of this Appendix C) until February 28, 2025.

But I *think* you're correct and that's just about the first year as they come in January not March...

@ Sam A -- Yeah, the five at the start of 2024 are just a courtesy, in light of the program changes. But I've confirmed with Hyatt that lifetime Globalists will get at least five annual Guest of Honor bookings on an ongoing basis.

This would have been a stellar set of changes had the ability to top up a CAT 1-7 certificate with points for a CAT 8 stay also been added. 150 nights is not a milestone achievable for most.

I am a long time Globalist and Hyatt loyalist and regard WOH as the best hotel rewards program but I don't share the excitement over these chnages. A cat 1-8 cert after 150 nights? Who stays 150 nights in Hyatts given their limited footprint? This is simply not possible. The single best change they could have made would have been to recognize their best guests, Globalists, with an unrestricted certificate at 60 nights.

Awesome, thanks for clearing that up. I withdraw my complaint and very glad they didn't mess with lifetime!

I have Gobalist until Feb 2024, and won't requalify this year.

Can I use my 5 guest of honor awards for myself?

@ Kendall -- I don't see any reason that wouldn't be possible. 🙂

@ Regis -- While it would be nice if an unrestricted free night award were offered at a lower level, that's not something that's currently available, so it's not like it's being taken away. Are you not excited about what's actually changing for your specific situation?

Excellent. Very exciting change

Ben - I’m reading this as selecting a cat 1-7 OR 2 SUAs at 60 nights. Not AND as currently. Thats a particular deval.

So as a glob w 60 nights you’d either have a 1-7 award and 3 SUAs or 5 SUAs and no 1-7 free night. No?

Will this apply to future Lifetime Globalists as well or only those who already have that status in 2023?

@ Sean -- You'll see that the 60-night column says "you receive," and lists all those options in white, unlike the other columns. So you receive all those perks. Similarly, you don't have to choose My Hyatt Concierge as a Milestone Rewards perk, but automatically get that at 60 nights.

@ Aditya Siddhartha -- It applies to future lifetime Globalist members as well, yep.

Nevermind - think I misread the graphic!

No, that's not right. If you go to Hyatt's page announcing all this, you see a "YOUR CHOICE OF" header at the tiers where it's either/or. Everything listed under the 60 night tier is just headed "YOU RECEIVE". You get all four benefits listed.

Alright pack it up everybody, LETS GO HOME, ITS OVER! LETS go home.
These changes are fantastic and it's refreshing to find a program that tries to sensibly improve the user experience.
And yes limiting GOH absolutely makes sense with the changes they've made.
Marriot, Hilton, IHG - RIP!!
i was thinking of switching to rocketmiles for my business stays once i hit globalist at the end of the month, but this is tempting!!!

Cool.
And I don't want any of it, I just want to gift my friend a point GoH stay whenever I want to, instead of trying to determine which one of my friend deserves more.
For a leisure traveller with just 60 nights each year, sometimes requiring mattress run, all these shiny upgrades almost don't excite me at all (And I'm saying this fully aware my 20/30 Milestone Rewards are wasted CAAs.
It's clear Hyatt is saving money here, since all those lucrative point booking train can't go forever.
Also, has Hyatt come out with a way to create incentive for people to use their card more?

Also, at least give out a C8 FN at 100 nights? Come on, DCS's favorite program allows gifting their top tier status for a year at 100 nights.

@ Ethan -- You can also get top-tier Hilton status by getting a credit card that costs almost nothing to hold onto. So I'm not sure that's an apples-to-apples comparison?

Thanks for the great post! Does indeed seem rather positive as loyalty programs go…..such a rarity these days! No doubt we will be delving into the changes, if any, to Courtesy Card in the coming days as it always requires digging a little deeper when time permits! Cheers!

1. You can gift it to a non-US resident, which will have significant more value.
2. The attitude says a lot.

@ Ethan -- Totally fair, not everyone will value things the same. A little confused about your attitude comment, though?

Any insight on why no milestone awards for base points beyond 100k? Don’t the flag contracts have a component based on hotel revenue, such that Hyatt is incentivized to encourage spend (maybe more so than just nights)?

@ Hepworth -- That's an excellent question. Previously I wondered why Milestone Rewards stopped at 100 nights, since you'd think that Hyatt would want to incentivize incremental stays. And yeah, now it's totally fair to ask why base points don't count in the same way beyond that.

This is purely speculation on my part, but my guess is that Hyatt thinks those staying 150 nights are more likely to be incentivized by the incremental rewards rather than those just spending double or triple as much as is required for Globalist? In theory you could earn Globalist with a stay in a very expensive suite for a few nights, so I guess Hyatt thinks that kind of consumer may not be driven as much by incremental rewards? I'm not sure...

No wonder Lucky (And many travel influencers) are gloating over the changes. Not mentioned in almost all articles about this update, but on Hyatt website:

Travel Advisors
• Earn 2 qualifying night credits for every $5,000 USD (up to $150,000) in eligible room-rate spend booked each year at participating hotels and resorts, when booked through Hyatt Privé or directly with Hyatt when you associate both your IATA​ number and World of Hyatt membership with the reservation. That’s up to 60 qualifying night credits, enough to earn Globalist status.

Now every travel influencer with their own booking service will get free Globalist / 60N each year, of course it's a huge plus.

Good for Hyatt to get more business, sucks to be a john doe who has to hit 60 nights by themselves every year.

@ Ethan -- You seem to have a chip on your shoulder with all your comments. I don't participate in the travel advisor program, and I'm also a lifetime Globalist, so I don't need the elite nights.

I'm "gloating" about the program changes because they're objectively positive for most members. Just look at how most of the other comments about this are positive... it's for a reason.

Is there something you want to share specifically about why you're so unhappy with these changes? Were you making so many Guest of Honor bookings per year with your points, or why are you one of the few who is not happy?

Well certainly the Club awards have been a joke, most US clubs closed and the awards were useless for Globalists anyway. But 2000 points isn't much. Also I think there was an option at 40 nights for a $100 GC (not just 5000 points) which was useful...

My comments are not picking on you, which is not my intention. And like I said, it's fair game for Hyatt to play, to off incentive for event planners, travel advisors, small business owners to book Hyatt. It's many articles, including yours, miss out on people who earned Globalist each year the hard way, went out of their way to stay with Hyatt. I stay at hotels for 100N each year, but still barely hits 60N with Hyatt each year.
Also being a LTGB, 60N each year still earns a lot of Milestone Rewards, not mentioning the even more lucrative higher MR levels.
I don't think other comments are "mostly positive", one of them is an Explorist. Two Globalist says no normal people get 150N with Hyatt each year. I've seen comments much more critical on forums, and I think people will realize it's a devaluation, at least for people not living in a Hyatt.
Going through my Hyatt activities for the past year I have done 5 GoH booking this year, (wanna call it so many?) 3 is a very low number for people with reasonable amounts of friends who travel. In addition, this hugely discourage using GoH as it intends - A gift for a friend. Many of my GoH bookings are for friends who's Marriott / Hilton loyalists, but wanna see the greener grass, or when I see a friend travels to a city with great Hyatt hotels, and I proactively offer booking GoH for them. Now I'd think again even when a friend comes to me, which absolutely pains me. Just like unlimited data doesn't mean using 1TB each month, it means not caring about how much data you can use.
I also feel like for travel bloggers with triple nights each year with Hyatt, many of them missed out on normal people doing 60 nights each year. Besides 4000 points instead of CAAs, 60N Globalist has one of their biggest benefits slashed from unlimited to 3 times, with 3 TQN, and one possible SUA (???) as a consolation.
Again, with rumor Hyatt is going fully dynamic in 2024, this is not the worst, nor is it bad intentioned like Marriott, but it's also not some genius move improving most Hyatt Globalists' life, not at all.

This is a net positive. But limits on guest of honor booking is a huge negative for me. My family won’t love me as much any more for my globalist status. However this will actually give hotels to receive less globalists to give actual upgrades. Although, i feel that not all Hyatt properties are aware of what globalists are supposed to get.

Ben,

Seems like your husband is most likely going to be getting Globalist via his travel agency though, right? 😉

I for one am pretty happy about these changes. There have been times in the past when I've been interested in doing GoH for someone but the points booking was a super bad value versus paying cash. And now I get a bonus elite night for doing something I was already going to do for others? Awesome.

This isn't a positive. Our guest of honor abilities are greatly reduced and the only real positive changes are some extra perks after 100 nights but almost no one stays that much.

Bad news

I don't care about GOH bookings -- always found the perk to be too niche, and for people obsessed with 'impressing' friends and family. Frankly, I don't like to advertise that I am a 'diamond guest' or get entangled with friends and family's lives and travel plans. That's perhaps just me, like to keep travel personal and private and my wife is always staying in my room anyways. But, I do like the 2K awards -- sure isn't much, but I will likely make use of it, and the expanded awards on the high end are certainly nice. I've only reached 100 nights once, and may or may not in the future again, but it's nice to know that loyalty can keep paying off up to 150 nights now.

Do you know how this will be handled for lifetime globalists? Will they lose the ability to have guest of honor bookings if they do not meet the elite night criteria?

@ Matt -- Lifetime Globalists will automatically earn five Guest of Honor bookings per year, not accounting for any earned through Milestone Rewards.

While I acknowledge your stance that the modifications to the World of Hyatt program bring about positive aspects, I find myself less inclined to share in the groundbreaking enthusiasm you expressed. Hyatt has undergone several devaluations over the past decade, encompassing increases in redemption rates across most hotels, adjustments to the qualification criteria involving a significant number of nights now needed to requalify, and a substantial devaluation of the points and cash program, among other changes.

While I appreciate the refreshing shift toward positive alterations, I hesitate to characterize them as truly exciting. The removal of club awards, which were perceived as a somewhat underutilized perk for Globalist elites, particularly in light of Hyatt's trend of closing club lounges, is a positive change as I am pleased with the 2000-point bonus offers an alternative to the club lounge award. But overall that is about the only positive change that will benefit myself.

Regarding the Guest of Honour feature, I concur that the adjustment is a positive step by Hyatt to prevent misuse or manipulation of the program for the benefit of individuals not genuinely known by the member. In summary, while I recognize the positive aspects of these changes, I respectfully hold the view that their impact is not necessarily categorized as extremely positive.

How does the guest of honor award at 40 nights work? If you are not a globalist already, and don’t become a globalist, is it worthless?

"...it’ll also show others the value of having elite status, and maybe get them to be more loyal to Hyatt."

You are so correct with this comment and Hyatt is so smart to try to get new loyalists this way! I wish United would give us some way to share Economy Plus upgrades with friends and family. Kudos to Hyatt for thinking outside the box and enhancing a program in so many ways.

There's rumor saying that Hyatt will go for dynamic award pricing from Q2, 2024. If that's the case, all these new improvements will be slashed..

So, now it seems that a "My Hyatt Concierge" is not an automatic benefit at 60 nights, but a benefit you CHOOSE: either a category 1-7 certificate for 60 nights, OR more suite upgrades, OR a concierge. Am I reading the chart right?

If so, interesting choice. I like emailing my concierge to assist with booking suite upgrades, etc., vs. calling the center. But beyond that, and especially since my last concierge left, there's not been much incremental benefit to the concierge (e.g., making arrangements for special recognition or anything at a particular property).

Is the concierge worth a free night at a category 7 hotel? Hmmm.

Fortunately, you are not reading the chart right. Not the clearest chart out there, but all 60 night things are included, no choice, you have to accept them all.

It's funny because when the program rolled out, there was mass hysteria about how much it cut Gold Passport benefits (and thresholds). I'm pleasantly surprised that they keep tweaking it so positively.

The most I ever hit was 120, and that took some doing!

My question is not on the changes but for the status. I was a globalist till Feb23. Last year, I didn’t stay enough to qualify for explorist let alone globalist. Yet, I am currently explorist thru Feb 25. I don’t know how. I have Hyatt’s CC but that only offers Discoverist. I have been scratching my head since March but still can’t figure out why.

If I understand this right, the GoH privileges with cash are amazing. I take employees with me on trips, and the ability to get them breakfast (or club lounge) benefits alone is an upgrade. A week of breakfast in a UK, EU or APAC hotel adds up.

Add in Milestones above 100 (i'm above 120 this year) is also nice and solves the dual loyalty problem. The WoH team must be spending some time on Reddit. I'm an LTG, but expect to continue this pace for the next couple of years.

Hoping though that rumours around devaluation etc mid-year are just that, rumours.

Agreed with the exception that there’s another SNA to be obtained after 40 nights.

I liked the ability to do GOH for family stays in Europe where a family of 4 needs 2 rooms where I usually apply the GOH to my wife so we all can enjoy breakfast. Now it seems I need to be more strategic about using them.

I have about 10 GOH booking for my parents for their travel plan next year already booked , do we know if the booking fall under the 5 limit for Globalist starting next year ?
Thanks

I wonder what will happen when it becomes apparent that the "gifting" of certain benefits and awards is being widely monetized, something which can be confidently predicted in certain markets.

My other concern is that an offset to these enhancements is on the horizon, either through the implementation of dynamic pricing or by simply bumping up the award categories or a significant number of individual properties.

At least as of now it all looks good from 1 January.

@Ben here is what makes no sense to me. You write that a non -Globalist can now get GOH benefits - that is correct. But nowhere does it say that GOH gifts you Globalist benefits. I think what it means is you gift your current status to someone else. So let's say you are an Explorist, and you reach the milestone to get a GOH booking - then you can gift your explorist status, but no globalist. It would make zero sense that someone without Globalist status could give away Globalist benefits to someone else. That would be crazy and quite frankly bad for real Globalists.

It's probably a soft landing - Hyatt is nice enough to downgrade you by just one level instead of rock bottom.

Still have a chip on my shoulder about that. Earned Lifetime Diamond and weeks later Hilton rolled out the credit card with Diamond status. The only time since then I've ever been recognized as a lifetime diamond was a the Conrad Bora Bora that Toby booked for me.

This is well done by Hyatt, but as someone who doesn’t use GOH, and as a LTG, the only perk I considered valuable was the hope of the Cat 7 being upgraded Cat 8. So disappointing and frankly useless for my years of loyalty.

So if you are an Explorist, and you gift yourself a 5 night GOH stay, do you get credit for 6 nights (1 for gifting plus the 5 for the stay)?

I assume stays using points or award certificates are fine for the 2K next stay award for Hyatt Place/House stays (new options at 20 and 30 nights)?

Here are things that I wish hyatt would do;
- Allow adding points to top off cat 4 and cat 7 certificates
- use two Suite Upgrades for a premium suite
- use of a suite upgrade for a better room. often standard suites are not available, I would much rather confirm a better room like an Oceanview room instead. that's less costly for Hyatt, why not allow it?

it does seem to suggest on the Hyatt website. 40 nights allows a gift to self or someone else 1 GOH (globalist) booking

Value of category 4 reward isn't what it used to be with so many hotels going up in category. Shame this wasn't improved to a cat 5 or some way to use reward plus points introduced.

Losing guest of honor as a tier benefit is a slight downgrade to me. I am not tempted to do cash GoH bookings and since a use GoH to get extra rooms on family trips, I probably won’t get the EQN bonus anyway.

Everyone potentially has a different perspective but I don’t think this is “overwhelmingly“ positive.

Guest of honor isn’t changing. That means, yes, a 40 night Explorist can give themselves or anyone else globalist status. However, a 60 night globalist only gets two additional guest of honor bookings beyond that. Globalist via challenge won’t get any of those, at least right away. Maybe that was a goal of this change.

I wish they had just made unlimited guest of honor, a 60 night mile stone.

If you spent $5000 on your Hyatt card, you would’ve gotten 7 nights. That means you would only need 23 nights of bookings to get Explorist.

Is it possible you stayed 23 nights and spent 5k?

You need to revise your recommendations at 60 nights. At 40 nights you get a choice of one of the options…..GoH certificate OR SUA, not both. Therefore at 60 nights you will have a total of 4 SUA and 3 GoH OR 5 SUA and 2 GoH.

You stated this incorrectly

I stand corrected. Your original statement is correct, my bad

I agree most of the changes are positive. My only negative takeaway is that 150 nights is the new crown, then you get a category 1-8 cert. Like, most of us can’t live half a year in a hotel to get that one night at Alia Big Sur.

And what’s next? Category 9? Need to spend 365 nights to get that one certificate?

Hi! I spent more than an hour on the phone with WoH today. After 3 different reps, here's one DP. The last rep and I read the T&C together, then asked a manager for clarification, and their interpretation is that in 2024 you will be able to stack GoH and SUA. Let's hope that's true.

@ Marcus -- I've confirmed with World of Hyatt leadership that this is not the case. It still won't be possible to stack Guest of Honor and Suite Night Awards.

A little disappointed! I booked 15 Guest Rooms of Honor Stays on one night for my Son’s 7th Birthday, five years ago that include a $1200+ free tab for breakfast for 50+ people at Hyatt Hill Country in San Antonio. Talked our way into most of a wing and all its suites including free Presidental Suite for his birthday party. My Concierge took to the challenge and I don’t think had seen anything like that before!

What changed is that the Cat 1-7 free night used to be redeemable at any Hyatt in the world. By creating a Cat 8 and including Hyatts in it (which is quite recent) that’s no longer the case. And that’s a devaluation.
So I agree with Regis, I wanted the 60 night cert to be redeemable everywhere like it used to.
150 nights is insane, even with CC spending (which most of the world can’t do) I max out under 130

This is a significant downgrade for those of us who qualify through corporate challenges and sometimes needing mattress runs.

I still view it as a downgrade for those elites that are gathering enough points to gift out GoH stays like candy.

A comment and a question from what I read in thje new program terms.

Comment: Other than the tier night credit for gifting Guest of Honor, it is clearly a downgrade by dropping this as a Globalist tier status privilege. For those of us that struggle to maintain Globalist status by reaching 60 nights, that means the most you will accrue is 3 GoH awards.

Question: I was reading on Suite upgrades and it looked like you can only use a suite upgrade on a paid stay? I thought in the past those were usable for on an award stay as well? Is that correct?

I do agree with Ethan that C8 at 100 nights would have been more reasonable. 150 nights is straight insulting. This isn't a Hermes bag.

One small problem though as of today. They have not loaded in the GOH credits yet. As such I called my concierge and she informed me she can’t assign GOH to anyone right now as they never gave Globalists credits on the 1st.

I'm not sure this is in the spirit of GOH, so I'm not surprise hyatt is limiting things like this.

I would not put much value in that considering Categories are central to the free night awards.

"The Ultimate Free Night Award Milestone Rewards perk lets you receive one free night at any participating Category 1-8 property, Category A-F all-inclusive resort, or participating Miraval resort, and you can gift this award to others, and this is earned at 150 elite nights"

Don't forget, you can spend 5 months in a Hyatt, for the privilege of a single night in Hyatt Centric Key West.

As a reminder, we got this benefit for *all* Hyatt hotels (c1-7) with only 60 nights as recently as 2019. The WoH depreciation is wildin.

I have 5 GOH awards in my account, so perhaps it's still rolling out to everyone.

Hi Ben, all. I have a question. it says that I will now receive a 1 night elite credit for each GOH booking (regardless of length). In the case of booking 2 rooms, in the past I could only get 1 night credit. Does this change things? Can I make a booking in my name, and a second booking for my wife in her name? If yes, the only way to do this seems to be that I transfer the GOH award to her account and then book there - which means I can't use my points anymore for that booking. The other option in the app it shows is to "redeem" the GOH award but then I can only book the room in my name which seems pointless (I think the redeem option is only for someone who isn't a Globalist and uses it to gift status to himself). So i am confused here - once I gift the GOH award, it goes to the other person's account which means I can't use my points anymore to book it. So how do I book a stay in someone else name with MY points like the old GOH worked???

Must be a rolling credit. Will watch. Thanks.

How are you "pick[ing]" four suite upgrade awards AND a cat 1-7 award? At 60 nights, you can choose EITHER a cat 1-7 or two suite awards, not both.