Hyatt announces award price changes (book now to save) and adds new SLH partners

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Late last year, Hyatt let us know it would be adding peak and off-peak prices to its award chart beginning in March of this year. It’s now announced that the new pricing will go in effect on March 22, 2020, at 8 a.m. Central Time. One nice feature of Hyatt’s peak and off-peak dates is that they will be set as soon as award nights are available for bookings and won’t change.

With this change, Hyatt is also adjusting the award categories of 217 locations with roughly an equal number increasing and decreasing in price. Also, the way Points + Cash stays are priced will be changing, which will make some bookings cheaper. On top of all that, dozens of new partner Small Luxury Hotels of the World will be available to book with Hyatt points.

That’s a lot of information, so let’s take a look at what it all means.

Hyatt category changes

If you have any Hyatt award bookings you want to make for the future you should book them now. If the price of your stay is increasing you can lock in the lower the price and if the price of your stay drops, Hyatt will automatically refund you the difference. Just be sure to review the individual hotel’s cancellation policy and know that any changes made to your award reservations after March 22 at 8 a.m. will be subject to the new award chart.

We don’t know what dates will have peak and off-peak pricing, but Hyatt has released a list of the hotels that are changing award categories. There are 117 hotels increasing by one category and 100 hotels decreasing by one category. You can see the full list here.

There are some notable properties dropping in price, including Park Hyatt properties in Chicago, Melbourne, Seoul, Hamburg, Moscow and Mallorca. And other locations jumping up in price are the Andaz Costa Rica Resort at Peninsula Papagayo (also went up a category last year), Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Grand Hotel du Palais Royal, Hyatt Centric Park City and Andaz 5th Avenue.

There are 21 hotels increasing from category four to five and 14 decreasing from category 5 to 4. This is important if you want to use a category 1-4 free night award you can earn with the World of Hyatt Credit Card or a few other ways.

To use your category 1-4 free night certificate at these locations, book no later than March 22, 2020, at 8 a.m. central:

And after March 22, you will be able to use your free night award at these locations:

There are also eight new SLH partner hotels where you can use your free night certificates, you can see them in the SLH list below.

Points + Cash changes

Currently, the way Points + Cash bookings work is you pay 50% of the points price plus 50% of the cash price on the day you want to book. But starting March 22, you will receive 50%-70% off the standard cash rate. Again, we don’t know which days will be featured the increased discount on the cash portion, but overall it’s an improvement.

New SLH partner hotels

The most exciting move Hyatt has made in recent memory was partnering with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH), which has added 350+ new locations where you can use Hyatt points and earn Hyatt points. Plus, when you book SLH properties through Hyatt you’ll get perks like free Wi-Fi, free continental breakfast (daily), one category room upgrade (if available) and early check in/late check out (when available).

Below is the list of the new partner hotels and each location’s award category. With these additions, there are now three new countries where you can redeem Hyatt points: Mongolia, Israel and Montenegro.

Hyatt has also added four new Destination branded hotels, however only one of these new locations will allows points bookings — the Suncadia Resort in Cle Elum, Washington. The resort will be a category five hotel and available for award bookings from February 15, 2020. You can see a full list of Destination hotels and whether or not they are available for award bookings here.