Last evening, some major changes were announced to the World of Hyatt program. Some are good and some not so bad. Let’s go around the changes and see what sense we can make out of them.

Globalist Requalification Criteria to go up

World of Hyatt, which was launched in 2017, has been forever an evolutionary programme, rather than a revolutionary one. World of Hyatt took over from Hyatt Gold Passport, where the top tier was Diamond which could be earned with 25 stays or 50 nights. With the new World of Hyatt program, the requirements to achieve top-tier status (Globalist) went up to 60 nights, and 55 nights to requalify for it.

From 2020 onwards, however, Hyatt will require 60 nights to requalify for Globalist status going forward as well. Essentially, no more reduced number of nights required when you want to requalify for the status. Now, for people not living in the USA, this is a big move, given we don’t have the World of Hyatt Credit Card at the moment in our neck of the wood. However, let’s remember now that award nights qualify towards status and you will be able to now use the Small Leading Hotels of the World as well to accumulate nights with the World of Hyatt.

Milestone Rewards coming in World of Hyatt

As per World of Hyatt, members wanted “more rewards, more often”. And hence, they are going to introduce the new Milestone Rewards program as of March 1, 2019.

At a summary level, it means that you will mean rewards every ten elite qualifying nights, starting from ten nights to a hundred nights. Nothing is being taken away from Globalist status, but more are being added. On the other hand, non-Explorist members will be able to earn club lounge awards without being an Explorist and earn suite night awards without being a Globalist.

Here is how you currently earn status on World of Hyatt:

• Discoverist: 10 qualifying nights/ 25,000 base points (~$5,000 spend)
• Explorist: 30 qualifying nights/ 50,000 base points (~$10,000 spend)
• Globalist: 60 qualifying nights/ 100,000 base points (~$20,000 spend)

Here is the summary of all the new changes for World of Hyatt earnings.

• Discoverist Members: Here on, Discoverist members, on earning 20 qualifying nights, will now get two club lounge awards, which will allow the members to confirm club access at properties which had a lounge. Earlier, only Explorist members would get club lounge awards.
• Explorist Members: Explorist members used to receive four club lounge awards. Now, this is slightly changed. Members would get the first two of these at twenty nights and the next two at 30 nights when they qualify for Explorist. From here on, you will be able to earn more rewards as well on the way to Globalist.
  • At 40 elite nights, you get a choice of 5,000 bonus points, a 100$ Hyatt Gift Card or the savings of 10,000 points on a FIND experience.
  • At 50 elite nights, you get two suite upgrade awards, previously only attainable by Globalist members.
• Globalist Members: Similar to Explorist members’ club lounge awards, the suite awards are changing too. Now, Globalist members will earn the first two suite upgrade awards at 50 nights, and then the next two at 60 nights. Only in 2019, if you are requalifying, you receive the suite upgrades at 55 nights.

Globalists already have the choice of 10,000 bonus points or a suite upgrade award at the 70,80,90 and 100 elite nights mark.

My Take

Hyatt has an overall fabulous program and an interesting mix of properties, however, not enough to match the reach of Hilton or Marriott. What they have done is to spread out the benefits in a more even manner without going much out of pocket than earlier, hence making the programme more compelling to mid-tier status members. For instance, if you spend 50 nights, you could now still earn suite awards without bein Globalist.