When Hyatt announced their purchase of Mr & Mrs Smith, I was very excited. After all, Mr & Mrs Smith’s collection of independent hotels includes incredible properties and brands like the Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur California; Virgin Limited Edition properties including the luxury safari properties Mahali Mzuri and Ulusaba; Six Senses Resorts; Aman Hotels & Resorts; Belmond Hotels; Rosewood Hotels; and many more. We hoped and expected Hyatt to cram these hotels into its existing award chart and that would have given us the opportunity to get incredible value with our points. Alas, it was not to be. Hyatt is dynamically pricing Mr & Mrs Smith award stays instead of relying on an award chart. Worse, it appears that most awards will get only around 1 to 1.4 cents per point value. That’s terrible compared to getting over 2 cents per point value on average Hyatt hotel stays. Taken together, this means that the highest priced hotels will cost absurd numbers of points.
Details
- Roll out
- Over 700 Mr & Mrs Smith properties expected to be available now (or very soon)
- On May 15th, more than 60 SLH hotels that were previously bookable with Hyatt points will rejoin Hyatt through Mr & Mrs Smith. If you had previously booked one of these hotels through Hyatt for a stay taking place on May 15th or later, Hyatt has confirmed that you will earn elite qualifying nights for your stay.
- Some Mr & Mrs Smith hotels may never become bookable through Hyatt due to brand conflicts. For example, since IHG owns Six Senses, I don’t expect to see those properties available through Hyatt
- Booking with points
- All rooms & room types are expected to be available to book with points (at the time of this writing, though, we only see base rooms available)
- Point price: Varies. Hyatt is dynamically pricing these awards instead of relying on an award chart. We have seen per point values ranging from 0.96 to 1.4 cents per point. That’s awful for Hyatt points which are usually worth much more towards Hyatt stays.
- Waived resort fees when booking with points
- Hyatt members who book Mr & Mrs Smith properties through Hyatt will qualify for the following benefits:
- Earn 5 base points per dollar on paid stays (same as regular Hyatt stays)
- Earn elite bonus points (same as regular Hyatt stays)
- Earn elite qualifying nights
- Mr & Mrs Smith counts as a brand towards Hyatt’s Brand Explorer
- Other stay benefits: None. When Hyatt previously partnered with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), every Hyatt member who booked through Hyatt qualified for free breakfast, a complementary room upgrade (if available), and more. Similar benefits are not promised with Mr & Mrs Smith bookings.
- Elite benefits
- Earn bonus points on paid stays (same as with regular Hyatt stays)
- Room upgrades for Globalists upon check-in (based on availability)
- More info from Hyatt here: www.hyatt.com/mr-and-mrs-smith
Dynamic award pricing: 0.96 to 1.4 cents per point
Unlike the rest of Hyatt’s properties, Mr & Mrs Smith awards are not priced according to an award chart. We looked at a number of properties to see the point price vs. the cash rate and we were careful to compare point rates to after-tax refundable cash rates whenever point rates were refundable (which was usually the case, but not always). Through this process we found a range of 0.96 to 1.4 cents per point value. Fortunately, 1.4 cents per point was the most common result.
For the properties where we explored further, we found that cash rates when booking through Hyatt matched the rates when booking through Mr & Mrs Smith. In some cases, but not all, we found that its possible to get a lower rate by booking direct or through member rates with sites like Expedia.
Does this mean that Hyatt will ditch award charts for all of their hotels in the future?
One of my top fears with Hyatt’s Mr & Mrs Smith solution is that they’ll deem it a success and spread dynamic pricing to all of their properties. Hyatt…
This article was originally published by a frequentmiler.com . Read the Original article here. .