As of January 8, 2014, Hyatt will be discontinuing their stay, spa, and weekend certificates. This comes during the same time as their award chart devaluation, so overall Hyatt is significantly changing their program, for the worse. Overall, I do not think Hyatt Stay Certificates have been very popular as many do not know about them. For those that do, however, they can provide some amazing value.
I personally have used them a few times. Just recently I used a stay certificate for two nights in Newport, Rhode Island which cost $202/night (which includes tax). The lowest rate I could get through the hotel was well over $300/night + tax. Not all hotels provided the best value, but there are definitely some gems where using a stay certificate was way cheaper.
Even though these awards are being discontinued you still have until January 7, 2014 to purchase any certificates through the expiration date on the certificate. Just remember that these are capacity controlled so a hotel is not required to have the award option available when you make your reservation. Moving forward, these stay certificates will be replaced with Hyatt Night Certificates which will not be available to the general public and only available for corporate bulk purchases.
It will be interesting to see how these Hyatt Night Certificates ultimately are used. The one benefit of these certificates, if you are able to get one, is that they offer last room availability and are not capacity controlled.
I am sad to see another negative change on Hyatt’s part, but I guess that is life. If you have any intentions of purchasing these certificates for future use, make sure to do so by January 7, 2014. You can purchase them here.
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