Travel News

Great News! Hyatt Is Delaying Peak Awards and Award Changes Until 2021

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Written by Charlie

In a great move, Hyatt is delaying the introduction of peak/off-peak awards and award category changes for hotels until 2021!

In a wonderful customer-friendly move, Hyatt just revealed they will be delaying the following award changes until 2021. Here are the details and the 5 hotels that will still change award categories on March 22, 2020.

Hyatt Delaying Award Changes Until 2021

The full award changes that had been announced to go into effect March 22, 2020 (can be found here) will now be delayed until 2021. This is a great move by Hyatt to reduce the headache of dealing with getting hotel bookings in before the changes go into effect.

There are 5 hotels that will still change award category on March 22, 2020. They are:

  • Parky Hyatt Mallorca – From Category 6 to Category 5
  • Hyatt Centric Park City – From Category 6 to Category 7
  • Park Hyatt Shenzhen – From Category 4 to Category 5
  • Alila Yanshuo – From Category 4 to Category 5
  • Park Hyatt Ningbo – From Category 3 to Category 4
Delayed Changes

Off-Peak and Peak Point Redemption

This was announced before (read the post here) and it will kick in 2021. Here is what Hyatt has re-iterated about these changes:

  • We will introduce three point redemption values for free nights: Off-peak, Standard and Peak. 
  • This new structure will offer members more flexibility when redeeming points for free nights.
  • Plus, free night point redemption will be identified as Peak, Standard or Off-Peak as soon as nights are available for reservations (usually 13 months in advance)
  • They will not change once posted

While I prefer the current structure of one set rate per category, any one that travels during non-peak times may end up saving some points. We will have to see. I like that they will not be changing the structure once the date becomes available and that these changes will not be handled by the hotels themselves.

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About the author

Charlie

Charlie has been an avid traveler and runner for many years. He has run in marathons around the world for less than it would cost to travel to the next town - all as a result of collecting and using miles and points. Over the years, he has flown hundreds of thousands of miles and collected millions of miles and points.
Now he uses this experience and knowledge to help others through Running with Miles.

11 Comments

  • This isn’t “great news.” One of the Hyatts in Kuala Lumpur was set to drop from a category 2 to a category 1. Now that’s not happening??

    • It will happen next year. Except for things like that, it is great news because the off-peak/peak pricing was something that most were not looking forward to and the award changes were trending the majority of the hotels up in awards.

  • This is not good news, they realize just about everything would be very off peak for the next six months as travel drops, so if anything they are preserving existing prices

    • No, that’s not how it works. The hotels are in regional buckets that are adjusted independent of costs. In fact, those calendars were ready to go so this is good news for anyone that didn’t want to deal with peak pricing before the summer season.

      • I am not understanding, the peak and off-peak is determined by demand so if the man suddenly drops everything goes off peak What are you doing is now locking in effectively higher redemption prices for just about everything

        • Check this post for how they will handle it. Officially, “Hotels are grouped by geographic market (called market tracts) and properties in the same market will adhere to the same calendar of Peak, Standard and Off-peak periods.” Once the market tract dates for peak/off-peak are set, they are not adjusted at all for the 13 months of the calendar. So, it will certainly not be based on demand (other than historical data for the demand in the various market tracts).

  • Where does it say on Hyatt’s official site that the category changes (except those 5 you mentioned of course) won’t happen this year? The email I got from them only mentioned delaying peak/off-peak.