The Deal Mommy

Atrium suite, Hyatt Regency Tokyo, our home for a week next summer. Includes full club access. Cost: $75 and 6,000 points a night using a diamond suite upgrade.

Opinions vary widely as to whether it’s worth keeping your loyalty to one hotel group in order to maximize benefits.  I’ve come to the conclusion it does with only one chain: Hyatt. With Hyatt Diamond Status the world essentially opens up for you:

• Unlimited complimentary upgrades. The rules say to the best level room, but at least 1/2 of my stays in the last year have been upgraded to suites gratis.
• Suite Upgrades: For those cases when you NEED a suite, you can get one in advance guaranteed 4 times a year.
• Club Access: Free snacks, drinks (sometimes including wine/beer), and a semi-private “3rd Space”. I find the club to be especially important with kids as just “going to the club” is an adventure in itself.
• Breakfast: This benefit depends on the hotel and can include either a club room breakfast, breakfast in the downstairs restaurant, or even room service. I’ve gotten the entire price of the room back in food using this benefit at least five times.
• Diamond amenity: either 1,000 points or a snack/gift at check-in.  Most people take the points automatically, but I’ve received some lovely diamond amenities including local candies, beers and nachos delivered, and just last week a huge cheese and fruit plate and bottle of wine that came in really handy when I arrived famished after a long flight. (Well, not the WHOLE bottle of wine…)
• Recognition: This varies by property, but I’ve had guest service managers email me prior to a visit just to make sure there wasn’t anything else I needed.
• Mlife Platinum status matching: if you gamble AT ALL or visit Las Vegas, this benefit is a really big deal.  I’ve received at least $1,000 in benefits from Mlife Platinum over 2 trips to Las Vegas.

The downsides to Hyatt Diamond?  Basically, there are 2:

• Hyatt Hotels are not everywhere.
• Diamond status has to be earned.

The requirement for Diamond status is 25 stays or 50 nights a year.  Notice the difference between “stays” and “nights”. It’s the reason you’ll see me spending 3 nights in 3 different hotels in a 3 day trip. However, there are 4 work-arounds I use to achieve the requirement, one for new members and three to help re-qualify more affordably.

Diamond Challenge for New Members: for just 12 nights in a 60 day period, you can earn Diamond status for up to 18 months. You do have to have status somewhere to start, but that can often be achieved with a credit card you already have in your wallet. Angelina at Just Another Points Traveler has a comprehensive review of the challenge, so I won’t re-invent the wheel.

Requalification Hacks:

1. MGM casino stays in Las Vegas count towards your stay requirement.  There are 10 MGM hotels on the Las Vegas strip alone, and rates go as low as $20 in the summer. So while I’m on the Camp Mom Vegas Pool Tour I’ll also be knocking out 20% of my Hyatt Diamond requirement in a week.
2. Weekend rates near airports for full service Hyatts: Being a DC girl, my favorite for this specific hack is the Hyatt Dulles.  Rates often go down to $70 or under on the weekends and include 4 breakfast buffets and 1,000 bonus points.  I break even even if we don’t stay there and just have a nice brekky. Highly recommend the blue crab hollandaise, BTW.  Most times we at least throw the kids in the pool and one of us stays overnight for a break from the chaos.
3. Cash + Points rates count towards stay credit if you want to save some cash.

Listen, I get it.  Almost a month of hotel stays a year seems out of reach for many.  But take a good luck at your work travel, your week at the beach and the endless oblications and your travel patterns may surprise you. With careful planning and a bit of flexibility you may find that Hyatt Diamond works for you.

Before I go, I also want to give a quick shout-out to Kimpton Inner Circle. Kimpton is very small compared to most of the other chains, but I’ve heard folks who use them rave about the program.

How do you feel about hotel status? Please share in the comments.

Atrium suite, Hyatt Regency Tokyo, our home for a week next summer. Includes full club access. Cost: $75 and 6,000 points a night using a diamond suite upgrade.