It Was a PRANK! Redditor Fools Blogs With Fake Hyatt Changes (But I Still Dissect It)

It’s too easy to do this nowadays, but there were some clues in this post on Reddit before he announced it was a fake.

For one thing, it was a brand new account, although, OK, someone might create a burner account if they were really going to violate their NDA for Reddit upvotes (hard to believe someone would, yet I can see that someone might!).

The main thing to me? As plausible as most of this was, that Hyatt would give Globalist out for a $795 card fee and $30,000 in spend on the card seemed absolutely ludicrous. I suppose that, in and of itself, was what had me apprehensive that any of this was true.

Now, although a slew of blogs posted this rumor, I don’t think any were crazy enough to bank on it as true, leaving it as a rumor or the like – which was wise. (MilesTalk did not post the rumor, although we had some fun debating the changes in the MilesTalk Facebook group).

So this post is first and foremost to let you know it was all a ruse. It’s not happening. (I guess, unless, the OP told the truth, got in trouble, and tried to back off with a ruse about the ruse! But no, I don’t think that is what happened ;-). )

But I still want to post what the Redditor posted with a few comments on the impact I think these changes would have had from a loyalty perspective. 

1) New top-end award categories: Category 9 and Category 10

It would have added two new tiers (plausible!) 

• Category 9 (standard): 50,000 points/night

• Category 10 (standard): 60,000 points/night

The rumor also says there will be meaningful reshuffling across today’s Categories 6–8, and that a bunch of current Category 8 “big city” Park Hyatt properties (think Paris and Tokyo) would shift up to Category 9. (also plausible!!) 

If a property you’ve been mentally budgeting for at Category 8 moves to Category 9, your “one big trip” now costs meaningfully more points per night, and that’s before you even get into peak pricing. Yet, this is exactly the direction I would go if I ran World of Hyatt as property rates outgrow legacy award charts and I want to see Hyatt remain committed to award charts we can all plan around.

2) Category 10 is positioned as “rare” (but we’ve heard that before)

The rumor says Category 10 is intended for a tiny set of ultra–high demand properties, and that it could even roll out with just one hotel at first (specifically: Park Hyatt Kyoto).

Also: it claims Hyatt does not expect non–Park Hyatt properties to land in Category 9/10, because there is an internal push to further elevate Park Hyatt as the true “super premium” flag. Hyatt claimed this when it first launched category 8 which would only be for SLH – and that did not stand the test of time.

3) Free night certificates get more flexible

This part and the next part would have arguably been the best consumer-facing change in the whole rumor set:

• Category 1–4 certificate becomes Category 1–5

• Category 1–7 certificate becomes Category 1–8

4) “Top off” awards becomes a real feature (and expands by status)

Hyatt reportedly formalizes “top off” so you can add points to a certificate and push it into higher categories.

• Explorist: can top off a 1–5 certificate up to a Category 7 hotel

• Globalist: can top off a 1–5 or 1–8 certificate at any property

The “top off” amount is based on standard pricing reference points (Category 5 or Category 8), and the example given is that topping a Category 5 cert up to a Category 7 could run 5,000–15,000 points, depending on the property’s standard band.

This was a pretty genius addition by the Redditor / ChatGPT as so many of us are super frustrated by Cat 1-4 and Cat 1-7 certificates. Once useful, most properties one would want to use each for have climbed beyond that tier. 

And I thought it was kind of genius to give preferential treatment on top-offs to higher status tiers!

Now, here was the credit card part of the rumor:

Fake New World of Hyatt Premium Credit Card

This was framed as a new premium cobranded card (with Park Hyatt branding – which I found a bit odd!!) issued by Chase.

• Annual fee: $795

• Welcome bonus: 100,000 points

• Automatic Explorist status

• Annual Category 1–5 certificate

• 20 qualifying nights deposited at the start of the year

• 10 qualifying nights per $15,000 in spend

• $200 Hyatt statement credit twice per year (so $400 total)

• Earning: 10x at Hyatt, 3x dining, 3x direct airline bookings

• Lounge access: Priority Pass + Chase Sapphire Lounge

OK, let’s look at this from both sides.

People that read about the changes were split, although I thought that a) it delivered WAY too outsized value in terms of giving Globalist for $30,000 in card spend an $795. If I was deepfaking this, I’d have made that more like $50,000 or more. And B) I cannot see how Chase woud cannibalize their flagship proprietary point premium card like that.

The people that thought the card were too expensive would not be the target market of this card, if it existed, and the people that thought this update was going to be the best thing ever, and would get far too much outsized value from it for the card metrics to work.

And FWIW, this card would have never give 10X at Hyatt anyway. If anything, ChatGPT was copying the playbook of some other Chase cards where the earn rate for the tier you have with the card, in this case Explorist, combined with card earnings. Explorists get 6 points per dollar at Hyatt properties, so this would have been a 4X anyway – with some marketing-speak saying 10X.

What I think I enjoyed the most about this overhaul was seeing the added benefits for having status, which makes tons of sense if you think about it. Gary at View from the Wing caught a comment the Redditor made down thread that said “Starting February 2028, confirmed suites could only be combined with points stays for Explorists and higher. Explorists wouldn’t be able to do this on Category 8, 9, or 10 points stays, while Globalists still could.”

This seems messy, but at the same time… genius? It would keep the suite situation at the most premium hotels in check – although I think that limiting points stay upgrades at all could have a pretty negative effect on World of Hyatt and wouldn’t go that route simply because it’s better to limit upgrade instruments than limit their use (in my opinion!).

I do think that this made for a very fun exercise in credit card design, though! While Hyatt in no way would design a card based on blogs and Reddit (and by the way, it takes years to design and launch a card!) I guess they did get some interesting free market research out of this!

And I still want to hear what you thought about this!

Thoughts?

Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of tips on miles, points, credit cards, and travel.

If this post helped you, please consider sharing it!

You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards. 

New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.