TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
Unlike some hoteliers, Hyatt allows customers to book suites with its loyalty currency at reasonable rates but, up until now, suite availability checks and suite award night bookings have had to be done over the phone. However, at some point over the past 48 – 72 hours that has changed as suites can now be booked with World of Hyatt points on Hyatt.com and via the Hyatt mobile app.
A couple of days ago I wrote about how it’s possible to save points on Hyatt award bookings if you hold the Chase Sapphire Reserve card and in that post, I used this screenshot to show the cost of an award night booking at the Great Scotland Yard Hotel in London:
Based on how Hyatt.com has worked in the past, that’s a very common screen to see when searching for award availability and it’s not in any way out of the ordinary. Now, however, if you search for award availability at the same property for the same dates there’s a subtle difference to what you’re presented with – there’s an added option:
This isn’t an outlier. Here’s an award search at the Andaz 5th Avenue in New York…
…and here is the result of an award search at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco:
Also, if you drill down a little further, you’ll see that there can be more than one suite option available:
If you’re using the Hyatt app on a smartphone things may look a little unusual, and I have to confess that I can’t work out why Hyatt has chosen to display the search results as it has.
When I first saw this I thought that, perhaps, the functionality to book suite awards on the app hadn’t yet been fully rolled out and that this was Hyatt’s way of getting customers to call…but that’s not the case at all.
If you touch the screen over the “standard suite free night” you’re presented with a “book” option…
…and if you touch the “book” button, the cost of the award night is revealed and you can proceed with the booking:
There’s nothing “confidential” about this at all!
Still, regardless of the strange way in which Hyatt is currently displaying award bookings for suites on its smartphone app, this is very good news for Hyatt fans as it takes out a good deal of the hassle involved in booking a suite with World of Hyatt points.
Not only is it now possible to book suite awards online and on the Hyatt app but, as importantly, this improved functionality makes it a lot easier for people to check for suite award availability ahead of a potential transfer of points from Chase Ultimate Rewards or ahead of a booking in which a guest wishes to apply a suite upgrade certificate. Where once a phone call to Hyatt was required to confirm that a suite was available for an upgrade or for an award booking, now a quick online award search is all that’s needed. That’s fantastic.
Bottom Line
This is yet another great positive step from Hyatt and one that’s going to make booking suites and knowing which stays can be upgraded considerably easier and less frustrating. In addition, the introduction of this functionality is nice and timely as it was only nine days ago that Hyatt announced that rebates of up to 25% are available on Hyatt points bookings for stays through 8 October – If you’re looking to get away and it’s safe to do so, Hyatt keeps making it easier and more tempting to make its website your first port of call.
Related: Save 20% & Get Free Breakfasts At Hyatt Properties Worldwide
