As much as I love Hyatt properties and the service I receive there (regardless of my status), I am consistently finding myself searching for a property near my destination. With fewer than 700 properties in the entire Hyatt family, worldwide, this isn’t surprising. Comparatively, Hilton and Marriott have over 4,000 at their disposal, each.
The changes to the Hyatt program have been making some serious waves in the blogosphere. In addition to going from a 3 tier (base, Platinum, and Diamond) system to a 4 tier system (base, Discoverist, Explorist, Globalist), the qualifying number of nights required for each tier is changing. Furthermore, instead of receiving Platinum status with the co-branded Chase card, you now receive Discoverist with the option of “buying” your way to Explorist by spending $50,000 in a calendar year on your credit card.
There are some very interesting perks that come at the upper tier, but I will be taking a hard look at where I will be staying this coming year. Tentatively, given the very limited footprint I will be largely focusing on other hotels.
Are you looking forward to the changes?