Hyatt introducing peak/off peak pricing in March 2020

In 2017, Hyatt launched the World of Hyatt programme, cutting away from the Hyatt Gold Passport identity of the programme created over the years. Since then, there have been a lot of changes to the programme, the least of which is the adoption of more millennial names such as Globalist for the tiers.

Now, come 2020, Hyatt will become one step closer to the Marriott Bonvoy programme. How do you ask? Hyatt is scheduled to launch peak/off-peak pricing in March 2020.

World of Hyatt

Peak/Off-Peak Award Pricing coming in March 2020

Borrowing the leaf from the Marriott Bonvoy book, a major change to the programme will be made in March 2020. Starting in March 2020, World of Hyatt will introduce Off-peak and Peak point redemption for free night awards. Under this new structure, there will be 3 point redemption values for free nights at more than 1,000 hotels worldwide.

Off-peak: Fewer points will be required during Off-peak times – starting at 3,500 points per night
Standard: Points required during standard redemption periods will follow current point requirements – starting at 5,000 points per night
Peak: When hotels are the busiest, more points will be required for a free night – starting at 6,500 points per night and will be no more than 5,000 points above the Standard point requirement.

For context, these are the standard room redemption prices with points which are valid through February 2020.

Here is the updated redemption structure, for standard rooms. Each day will be priced as peak or off peak or standard, and redemption points will be costed accordingly.

This new structure will be true for all types of award nights, including free nights in a standard room, club-access room, standard and premium suites. Points + Cash awards will also offer Off-peak and Peak rates and will still require 50% of the standard cash rate and 50% of the points required for a free night. For context, this is the regular redemption with points & cash right now

Here is the new structure, coming March 2020.

If a member has an existing award booking for a night that changes to Off-peak in March 2020, they will receive an automatic one-time refund on the point difference. Members will not be charged more if their existing award booking changes to Peak.

Hyatt, in the FAQs, states that most days will be set to standard pricing.

On the face of it, how the programme looks different as compared to Marriott Bonvoy is that free night point redemptions will be identified as Peak, Standard or Off-peak as soon as nights are available for reservations (usually 13 months in advance) and will not change once posted. This looks different than the monthly changing peak/off-peak for Marriott. Hyatt has also committed that for the moment, their hotel award categories are not changing and will remain 1-8.

Additionally, starting January 29, 2020, World of Hyatt members can get up to 50% more value when using their points for U.S. Dollar credits toward dining, spa, in-room purchases and more. For example, starting January 29, members can redeem 5,000 points for a $50 USD credit – that’s half the points previously required. Here is the chart for the redemption of points to get $ credit.

Hyatt has summarised all the changes at this page.

Bottomline

Ultimately, this is not about the hotels, but about Hyatt Corporate. Hyatt saw how Marriott Bonvoy was able to get its members to pay more points and hence extinguish more points from their programme in a busy season, where corporate would have to pay more money, closer to or equal to a full price for the room as well towards honouring a redemption for the members.

What do you make of the changes to World of Hyatt?