As I wrote a few days ago World of Hyatt scheduled their switchover to seasonal award charts for this morning and as expected award prices for March 2022 and beyond were updated just now, much to the dismay of many members.
I checked a few properties that used to be my regulars and well, in many cases the news aren’t great to say the least as my usual visiting dates were pushed into peak season.
The company decided in June to postpone the introduction of seasonal pricing until October of this year for stays March 2022 and beyond.
Due to the pandemic this change has been postponed several times otherwise Hyatt would have implemented this seasonal pricing a long time ago but now it finally happened (unfortunately).
Hyatt has already updated their website in June, reflecting that the award chart changes in respect to seasonality won’t take place until at least March 1, 2022 stay dates (pricing displayed from October 2021 forward):
Postponing award chart changes
Introduction of Off-peak / Peak Point Redemption, UPDATED June 15, 2021: We are further postponing the introduction of Off-peak and Peak point redemption (originally planned for March 2020) until mid-October 2021. Starting mid-October, members will start to see Off-peak and Peak pricing for stays in March 2022 and beyond.
The time has now come and I got some last minute reservations in yesterday evening, better be safe than sorry.
Here is the new chart:
Off-Peak – Standard – Peak Award Chart for Standard Rooms:
The difference will be as little as 1,500 and as much as 5,000 points in either direction depending on the category of the property.
This morning (OCT 27 ) an award calendar was added to the website (Example Park Hyatt Tokyo):
Here are some properties I often go to in comparison:
Park Hyatt Tokyo
- Previously (Standard): 30,000 Points
- Peak: 35,000 Points
- Off Peak: 25,000 Points
Edit: Today I was able to find a a few isolated dates classified as off peak and a few more remain as standard. As expected the popular travel seasons such as Sakura are now PEAK. Thankfully I got two reservations in for April which is entirely Peak.
Hyatt Centric Ginza
- Previously (Standard): 25,000 Points
- Peak: 29,000 Points
- Off Peak: 21,000 Points
Andaz Seoul Gangnam
- Previously (Standard): 20,000 Points
- Peak: 23,000 Points
- Off Peak: 17,000 Points – didn’t find a single date
Hyatt Regency Vancouver
- Previously (Standard): 12,000 Points
- Peak: 15,000 Points
- Off Peak: 9,000 Points
This time I was able to find some rooms at the HR Vancouver for example early April 2022 that were classified as off peak.
Either way you get the picture, most properties have gone up in price and this is pretty much a devaluation of the program especially if you tend to travel during popular periods.
Existing award bookings whose dates change into off-peak range are eligible for a refund on the current amount of points paid which will be processed automatically.
Free Night Certificates that are issued for certain categories of properties through credit card applications, promotions, milestone awards etc will remain valid for that particular category irrespective of season.
Conclusion
Hyatt – until now – postponed the introduction of on/off-season awards until March of 2022 but as I mentioned I don’t think this is a great move in the first place. It’s a massive devaluation because it’s up to the properties when to classify their hotel as being in “Peak Season” and there is no outside control about that. Theoretically nothing is stopping a hotel to designate the entire year as being peak season.
Dynamic pricing has become pretty common in today’s loyalty world and that takes a big part of the value away from members, it’s in some cases even worse than a simple award chart change. The announcements by Marriott today went into the same direction as Bonvoy will now also move to Dynamic pricing from 2023.
