Update: It appears that they have reconfigured the system such that you DO now need a standard room available in order to apply the Suite Night Award. So please ignore the bit below about not needing a standard room. It was accurate at the time this article was posted.
Earlier today, it was discovered that Hyatt will now let you use both Club Access awards and Suite Night Awards online during the booking process.
Now, there are two limitations despite my title – but I’ll get there.
- Sadly, it appears you still cannot apply them to an existing reservation.
- You also can only apply them to a cash booking on the website. The app will only l you apply to a points booking at the moment (at east in my attempts)l.
That aside, it’s remarkably easy to do.
You just navigate to the property you want, select your Suite Night Awards above the rooms, select the one you want to use, and it will offer you the option to book the suite.
On the website, you can toggle awards off or on to apply to a cash rate or award rate. See below.
That room type being shown is the upgraded suite,.
Ok, so why I am SO excited?
You may recall (or you may not) that there was some discussion months ago about being able to book into a Standard Suite when there was no Standard Room Award available. I forget which blog talked about it because it was absolutely impossible to do with any phone agents I tried. My own concierge said no and 3 other concierges I tried all said no in one way or another – most recently with a very definitive “we used to be able to.”
Well. Check this out.
I only tried on the app but I found a night at the Hyatt Zilara in Punta Cana that was sold out of standard rooms but had standard suites. Quite possibly because the 58,000 point standard room is essentially the exact same room as the 90,000 point standard suite (view is the only difference). But it allowed me to test.
As you can see below, ONLY a suite at 90k is available.
Then I clicked the circle next to one of my available SNAs.
Magically, I can spend 58,000 points (the standard room rate) and apply my SUA – all online!
This will be hugely useful for hotels that often have standard suites available but not standard rooms (and you want to use points).
So THAT is huge. Even if a handful of people were able to get a handful of agents to somehow pull this off (again, I NEVER could), now you can – and all by yourself.
Thoughts?
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