Why suites are now the sweet spot inside World of Hyatt

As we covered here, the World of Hyatt hotel loyalty scheme is undergoing a big shake-up this year.

The good news is that the programme will retain a reward chart, which is very rare these days.

The bad news is that the three pricing bands per category will be increased to five. There will be 40 potential reward price points to choose from (eight categories, five price bands in each).

With a pretty large disparity between the highest and lowest bands – Category 8 hotels, at the top end, will run from 35,000 to 75,000 points per night – it is arguably revenue based pricing by the back door.

Let’s compare the current and new maximum points prices for a night:

• Category 1: 6,500 points to 9,000 points – up 38%
• Category 2: 9,500 points to 15,000 points – up 58%
• Category 3: 15,000 points to 20,000 points – up 33%
• Category 4: 18,000 points to 25,000 points – up 39%
• Category 5: 23,000 points to 35,000 points – up 52%
• Category 6: 29,000 points to 40,000 points – up 38%
• Category 7: 35,000 points to 55,000 points – up 57%
• Category 8: 45,000 points to 75,000 points – up 67%

Hyatt has said that change will be gradual. Few hotels are expected to use the highest price categories this year, which is a good job – if top hotels jumped from 45,000 to 75,000 points overnight, it would not go down well.

Suites are the sweet spot

In our article last week on Hyatt hotel reward category changes, I said that – now we had seen the full new reward chart, including suites – suites were the clear sweet spot.

I wanted to look into this in more detail today.

I should say now that if you don’t believe in staying in hotel suites (unless it is a free upgrade) then you can stop reading now!

For those HfP readers who DO enjoy a suite when travelling, World of Hyatt remains the programme for you.

Suites are now (proportionately) cheaper

Whilst the points cost of standard Hyatt rooms will jump sharply – at least once hotels start using the higher points categories – the pricing of suites is different.

Standards Suites are priced at a fixed points premium over the cost of a standard room. This fixed difference is not changing. This means – proportionately – Standard Suites are now better value when compared to the cost of a standard room.

(It is worth remembering that a standard room is the smallest / cheapest in the hotel. You are jumping from the worst room in the hotel to whatever has been categorised as a ‘Standard Suite’, and for relatively few extra points.)

The change with Premium Suites is even more stark. These used to be priced at double the cost of a standard room, which was still decent value. Now you pay a fixed differential over the cost of a standard room, which is usually far less than the old 100% gap.

Take a look at this chart:

The points gap between a Standard Suite and a Premium Suite is very small at times. Now, arguably a suite is a suite if you are only looking for extra space. However, Premium Suites are some of the most impressive one bedroom suites in a particular hotel.

If you are wondering why Hyatt is so generous with suite pricing, I think it might be linked to Globalist upgrades. If a hotel has a Standard Suite available at check-in, a Globalist member is meant to receive it as a free upgrade. I suspect a hotel is better rewarded for releasing a suite for a full redemption than upgrading a Globalist.

A quick note about availability. Hyatt is very generous with standard room reward nights – if a base level room is available for cash, it is bookable on points. (Admittedly some hotels game this by creating a fake base category with just a handful of rooms, but this is fairly rare.)

There is no requirement for hotels to make suites available for redemption. Some do, some do occasionally, some don’t. All you can do is check the Hyatt website.

Suite upgrade awards remain laughingly good value

This is, I think, hands down the best redemption option of any of the major hotel chains.

We have covered this before on HfP but it is worth banging home again and again.

Hyatt will let you upgrade a standard entry-level cash room to a suite at the time of booking for:

• 6,000 points per night for a Standard Suite
• 9,000 points per night for a Premium Suite

The only snags are a) you pay Best Flexible Rate for your basic room, not any discounted rate and b) hotels are not obliged to make suite upgrades available.

Whilst I didn’t review it, I spent five nights at Hyatt Centric Tokyo Ginza over February half term. I used 45,000 World of Hyatt points to swap a standard room for a 100 sq m suite, which in central Tokyo is a crazy amount of space.

The cost of suite upgrades is not changing. They will remain at 6,000 and 9,000 World of Hyatt points per night.

Some hotels are more enthusiastic than others about releasing upgradable suites. You may need to check multiple hotels for your dates to find one offering this.

(The way to book these is to search for points rooms and select suites. If available you will see an option to pay with 6,000 / 9,000 points per night plus the cost of a standard room.)

How can you earn World of Hyatt points in the UK?

You can’t, unfortunately. At least, not from credit cards or any other easily obtainable third-party source.

You either need to do the stays OR buy points.

Hyatt isn’t crazy and sharply restricts the points you can buy each calendar year. This limits what you can do with them, especially when it comes to redeeming for suites.

The standard purchase limit is just 55,000 points per year.

However:

• there are often bonus promotions running which give you 20%-30% more (a 30% bonus means you can buy 71,500 points)

• once a year, on average, Hyatt doubles the purchase limit as part of a bonus promotion – if this coincided with a 30% bonus, you could buy 143,000 points in a calendar year

• you can transfer points for free from one member to another, meaning that your partner could also buy points and – if necessary – transfer them to you

• the purchase limits reset on 1st January, so if you are buying late in the year you can buy two lots relatively close together

To give you an idea of pricing, the best deal in 2025 (a 25% discount, which is equivalent to a 33% bonus) worked out at 1.37p per Hyatt point. Buy at this price and you’d be paying:

• 6,000 points x 1.37p = £82 per night for an upgrade to a Standard Suite
• 9,000 points x 1.37p = £123 per night for an upgrade to a Premium Suite

…. and you can’t argue with that.

The hyatt.com page with the new reward charts is here.

You can see the latest ‘buy points’ deal (although there is no bonus running today) here.