The Frustrating Hyatt Suite Upgrade Award Process

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: February 12, 2022

60 comments

I’m a huge fan of World of Hyatt, and overall am a very happy Globalist member. One of my favorite perks of Globalist status is the ability to earn suite upgrade awards, which are offered through the Milestone Rewards program. However, there’s one aspect of suite upgrade awards that I find frustrating, and I’m curious if I’m the only one who has this issue.

In this post:

Globalist suite upgrade awards can’t be applied online

In order to apply a suite upgrade award you need to reach out to Hyatt reservations. Okay, as someone who is not a big phone person, I don’t love that, but it’s hardly a huge deal. Hyatt’s suite upgrade awards are incredibly valuable, since each can be used to confirm a suite upgrade at the time of booking for a stay of up to seven nights.

I’ll gladly pick up the phone for that — that’s a very small price to pay for such an amazing perk. Marriott Bonvoy suite night awards can be easily redeemed online, but clear at most five days before arrival, and each is only good for one night. Meanwhile Hilton Honors doesn’t offer any sort of confirmed suite upgrade award benefits (though I’m sure a certain someone will be around in the comments section shortly to make something up about how Hilton offers unlimited confirmed suite upgrades for you and your giraffe with every stay — stay tuned!). 😉

Anyway, I digress. I wouldn’t mind all of this, except…

I’ve gotten huge value with Hyatt suite upgrade awards

Hyatt has to get in touch with properties to apply upgrades

Yesterday I tried to apply a suite upgrade award at a foreign Hyatt property (I’ll let y’all guess which one). I confirmed my booking, and saw that there was one standard suite remaining during my stay. So I contacted Hyatt reservations to apply a suite upgrade award.

When you call up Hyatt reservations to apply a suite upgrade award, the representative actually has to contact the property directly in order to have the right room blocked. This can sometimes be a serious issue, especially at foreign properties with big timezone differences, where the night auditor might not be great about picking up the phone.

In yesterday’s case, the friendly representative informed me that no one was picking up at the property, so she recommended I call back later. She pointed out that it was the middle of the night at the property, so maybe I should call back late at night my time, when the morning shift arrives at the hotel.

I decided to call back a couple of hours later. The friendly representative again tried to get in touch with someone at the property, but no one answered. She offered to send an email to the hotel in hopes of them seeing it that way.

While I appreciated the effort, there was one standard suite remaining, and I was largely basing my stay around the ability to confirm a suite (or else I would have changed my dates around), so I agreed, but also decided to call back again later. I called back three hours later, and finally they were able to get in touch with someone at the property.

The thing is, this wasn’t an isolated incident. This has happened to me a couple of times before, where reservations agents couldn’t get in touch with someone on property. It just seems to me like there should be a more efficient system for everyone’s sake?

This seems like a waste of time for customers (who have to potentially call back several times), for Hyatt phone representatives (who are wasting their time contacting the property), and for the property itself (which has yet another task to deal with)
If Hyatt centrally can see the room is available, why isn’t there a system in place for Hyatt to be able to block a certain type of suite without having to get in touch with the property?

If this were the first time it had happened, I wouldn’t have considered it a big deal. But I’ve had this happen several times now, and it just seems odd for a global hotel group to be reliant on someone picking up on-property, especially with timezone differences.

This is hardly the biggest deal on earth, but I do think it should be a priority for World of Hyatt to fix this and make the process less of a headache.

The process of applying suite upgrade awards isn’t easy sometimes

Bottom line

Hyatt suite upgrade awards are one of my favorite perks of Globalist status. They’re incredibly valuable, since they can be used to confirm a standard suite at the time of booking, with no capacity controls.

Unfortunately the process of applying these upgrades sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. Not only do you have to call Hyatt reservations, but they then have to contact the property. Some hotels are better about picking up the phone than others, and this is now an issue I’ve had a few times.

Has anyone else had this issue when trying to apply a Hyatt suite upgrade award?

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Katie Guest

June 20, 2022, 6:17 pm

I have 4 Hyatt Suite Upgrades that I would like to Share / Trade for points or free nights. How do you do that?

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DCS Diamond

February 14, 2022, 2:31 am

Some may have wondered about Hilton's new and innovative global automated upgrades (GAU) I mentioned below, which this forum's host seems to have forgotten about when he stated, recycling his own old posts, that <blockquote>Meanwhile Hilton Honors doesn’t offer any sort of confirmed suite upgrade award benefits.</blockquote> Well, no, Hilton does now offer, automatically, so-called 'confirmed' upgrades that are quite similar to airline upgrades, based on the following statement from Hilton that VFTW, Frequent Miler and others, but not this site, reported back in November. Here's Hilton Honors' statement on their new GAU (emphasis mine): <blockquote>With space-available upgrades being one of our program’s most important perks, we launched this benefit enhancement to celebrate our Gold and Diamond members. Hilton Honors elite members are eligible to receive a complimentary upgrade based on a mix of criteria, including their membership status, room inventory at the hotel and length of stay, to name a few. These factors help us award upgrades to make elite members’ stays more meaningful. Gold, Diamond and Lifetime Diamond members are eligible to receive a guaranteed room upgrade 72 hours prior to their arrival based on hotel availability, and member status/tier is the first criteria considered. Hotels cannot opt out of providing this benefit, which is currently available at the Hilton brands where space-available complimentary upgrades are currently offered as a Hilton Honors member benefit.</blockquote> See? No need to call anyone to 'confirm' these upgrades, they are automated, and hotels cannot opt out - a trifecta that only HH's GAU can claim! That is why one needs to take with a huge grain of salt whatever one reads in the travel blogosphere echo chamber of made-up and self-serving standards. Make fun of 'CDS' (inversion on purpose) all you like, but the non-fake, i.e. real, 'DCS' has gotten it right nearly every time, including rejecting Loyalty Lobby's widely echoed claim that the new HH automated global upgrades would give priority to those booking awards costing 100K+ per night, even if one is not a Gold or Diamond, which never made any kind of sense to me. Hilton's room upgrades are a Golds- and Diamonds-only benefit, and their standard awards are still capped at 95K per night, except at their two most 'aspirational' properties (WA Maldives and Los Cabos) where they costs 120K-150K per night. Therefore, the claim meant that the T&C were going to be amended to make room upgrades a general perk (unlikely!) and that people stupid enough to book 'premium' awards would get upgrades priority...as they should if they can afford such awards! G'day.

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Diego New Member

February 13, 2022, 1:29 pm

I just had one that took about 2 weeks at JDV in Rome. Bit of a headache.

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Peter Guest

February 13, 2022, 11:46 am

My Hyatt Concierge has been phenomenal in arranging upgrades, requests and bookings. Planning at least 3 days in advance has been the key to receiving the majority of my requests. I email and usually get a response with 24 hours- verbally and digitally. I would also suggest sticking to one concierge and working with that associate consistently.

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Michael M Guest

February 12, 2022, 8:58 pm

In situations similar to this, sometimes it's best to book a free cancellation paid stay. Suite upgrade award can be applied to those without the agent needing to contact the property. Then later (when someone is available at the hotel) switch the stay to a standard room free night(s) award stay, asking the agent to leave the award attached. I agree. If Hyatt can do this centrally for paid nights, they should be able to come up with an IT solution to do this for free night stays as well.

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