This week World of Hyatt has introduced peak and off-peak award pricing, which is no doubt a negative change for those looking to maximize their points. To coincide with this, World of Hyatt has rolled out a points calendar… unfortunately it’s not as useful as I was hoping.
In this post:
World of Hyatt’s new points calendar feature
Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy have long had award search calendars, whereby members can search for points availability across a wide range of dates to find availability and the best pricing. This is something that World of Hyatt hasn’t historically had. That has finally changed… sort of.
World of Hyatt has just rolled out a new points calendar. To access it, just do an award search for the hotel you’re interested in staying at. Once you’re on the search page where you can select a room, click on the “Points Calendar” button, which appears right next to the image of the hotel.
Once you’re on the points calendar, you’ll see points pricing for the several weeks around the dates you searched. However, you can easily scroll to other months as well, and in less than a minute you could identify all the peak, standard, and off-peak award dates over the course of a year.
As you can see, off-peak dates are green colored. Personally I wish there were also differentiation between standard and peak dates based on how they’re displayed, but that doesn’t seem to be the case as of now.
You can even change the room type you’re searching through the calendar, as you can select a standard room, standard suite, premium suite, or suite upgrade award (which has the same inventory as a standard suite).
This calendar makes it easy to search peak, standard, and off-peak award dates. It’s also an interesting way to “audit” how many days Hyatt is categorizing as each award type. For example, in the case of the Park Hyatt Paris, let’s look at availability between March 1 and November 30, 2022, which covers 274 days:
- 130 days have peak pricing
- 121 days have standard pricing
- 23 days have off-peak pricing
Not exactly an equal distribution between peak and off-peak, but then again, we weren’t promised that either…
Why I’m disappointed by the World of Hyatt points calendar
Maybe it was wishful thinking on my part, but when we heard that World of Hyatt would introduce a points calendar, I hoped it would be like those of Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy, where it actually reflects award availability at a hotel.
This would be particularly useful for properties like the Andaz Maui and Alila Ventana Big Sur, where award nights are tough to come by, and searching day-by-day can be ridiculously time consuming. This could have even been useful for determining which dates have standard suites available, if you’re trying to apply a Globalist suite upgrade award.
But that’s not what this is — as you’ll see noted on the calendar search page, “calendar does not reflect actual award availability.” So this isn’t actually useful for searching hard-to-find award availability, but rather it’s only useful for determining which dates are peak and off-peak.
World of Hyatt, this is a great first step, but please roll out an award calendar that actually makes it easier to search award availability, rather than only displaying theoretical pricing when there’s not actually availability.
Bottom line
World of Hyatt has rolled out its highly anticipated points calendar. Unfortunately it’s not quite what I was expecting. The calendar shows which dates are peak, standard, and off-peak, though the calendar doesn’t reflect actual award availability.
So this just makes it easier to identify peak and off-peak dates, but doesn’t make it easier to search for available award rooms. Am I the only one who was hoping for that? Here’s to hoping that Hyatt eventually improves this further, and has the calendar display actual availability.
What do you make of Hyatt’s new points calendar? Anyone notice any interesting trends when it comes to peak and off-peak pricing?
I also find this very disappointing. We have stayed 90 nights and we were not able to use our upgrade suite awards — that’s not fair!!! Also when we hit a milestone 70, 80 or 90 nights I only get 10k points or a suite upgrade - lets make it worth it. I’ve been lots for years, but I am beginning to wonder if the other hotels offer better rewards for their loyalty.
I'm disappointed that the calendar doesn't show award availability.
Especially because Hyatt seems to have more convoluted rules for availability than Hilton/Marriott.
Oftentimes a standard room award only appears if you search for the correct number of nights AND the correct check-in/check-out dates.
For example, Ventana might have standard award availability for Wed-Sat, but not for Wed-Fri or Tues-Fri.
It generally feels like a puzzle or brain teaser, but definitely not the fun kind...
I'm disappointed that the calendar doesn't show award availability.
Especially because Hyatt seems to have more convoluted rules for availability than Hilton/Marriott.
Oftentimes a standard room award only appears if you search for the correct number of nights AND the correct check-in/check-out dates.
For example, Ventana might have standard award availability for Wed-Sat, but not for Wed-Fri or Tues-Fri.
It generally feels like a puzzle or brain teaser, but definitely not the fun kind...
Hyatt's award website search has always had this disappointing feature of showing the number of points needed for a free night when you searched a specific hotel for a specific date but then when you clicked to select the room it indicated no award availability. Hyatt's website award search is unique amongst the big chains in this respect. I don't know why they this, maybe some kind of technical limitation. Very annoying. Maybe the Bonvoy...
Hyatt's award website search has always had this disappointing feature of showing the number of points needed for a free night when you searched a specific hotel for a specific date but then when you clicked to select the room it indicated no award availability. Hyatt's website award search is unique amongst the big chains in this respect. I don't know why they this, maybe some kind of technical limitation. Very annoying. Maybe the Bonvoy IT people can lend them a hand.
Both WoH's move to 'seasonal' awards and its introduction of this 'points calendar' that tells one nothing about awards availability are simply baby steps by self-anointed travel gurus' "best hotel loyalty program" toward emulating or becoming like Hilton Honors, unquestionably, the industry's trendsetter.
The so-called peak/off-peak awards scheme is nothing more than dynamic award pricing hidden behind a fig leaf, soon to be ripped off like BonVoy just did.
I lucked out on a devaluation for the first time. My Malta HR went down in points cost.
Same here, but read the reviews on FT. You may want to consider the Westin. I know I am.
Definitely weird that it doesn't show actual availability.
And strange that peak/off-peak can change day to day with no apparent logic e.g., Zilara Rose Hall next Oct ran 21, 21, 25, 21, 21, 21, 25
I can perhaps understand weekends, but some random weekdays were inserted among a sea of 21k redemption rates
Not strange at all. Such day to day changes are referred to 'dynamic', which means that WoH has surreptitiously but effectively adopted dynamic award pricing, for which its so-called...
Not strange at all. Such day to day changes are referred to 'dynamic', which means that WoH has surreptitiously but effectively adopted dynamic award pricing, for which its so-called peak/off-peak scheme is nothing more than a fig leaf.
Which is a HUGE departure from what Hyatt promised.
Yeah, you're spot on there. Sporadic days of different pricing is definitely not what was promised.
I'd agree at a regular hotel... but this is a pure leisure hotel in the Caribbean a year out on random weekdays i.e. folks don't fly in a for a one day stay in the middle of the week. And it's also inconsistent which day is higher week to week.
One week the Thurs is 25k (which was the prior std rate so almost universally the rates are lower than previously during Oct)
The...
I'd agree at a regular hotel... but this is a pure leisure hotel in the Caribbean a year out on random weekdays i.e. folks don't fly in a for a one day stay in the middle of the week. And it's also inconsistent which day is higher week to week.
One week the Thurs is 25k (which was the prior std rate so almost universally the rates are lower than previously during Oct)
The following week no days are 25k
The week after that the Weds thru Fri are 25k
The week after that it's Weds and Fri at 25k.
And there's only one week that the Sat is 25k, so it's generally not demand leading into a weekend.
I've noticed such inconsistencies too that don't make much sense. Generally speaking, has made life tougher trying to plan something.
What bothers me the most is the unpredictability of when peak, non-peak or off peak are applied, You can't plan. The HR Malta has all three pricing tiers during a 3 day stay in June. How is that possible or logical? I expected something more intuitive where you know December in Vail is peak or July in Dubai is off-peak.
Not promised equity among peak and non-peak...but if a property shows zero non-peak nights for the rest of the calendar (through 2022), should we bring that to someone's attention?