How To Get Upgraded At Hyatt Hotels

Hyatt boasts one of the most generous loyalty programs in World of Hyatt. Every year travelers rave about the personalization and benefits they receive, especially if they are Globalist status.

While Hyatt doesn’t have the largest property portfolio, especially compared to Hilton and Marriott Bonvoy, they do treat their travelers well and that keeps people coming back.

Hyatt has many different properties under their umbrella, from the ultra luxury Park Hyatt to the more modest Hyatt Regency.

Hyatt Discoverist and above are offered room upgrades with Hyatt Globalist members becoming eligible for select suites, available at the time of checking in for the duration of their stay.

Have you ever wondered how often this happens? In our experience it can vary greatly and also how you ask for an upgrade will have a huge impact.

Hyatt Elite Tiers

As a reminder, Hyatt has 5 elite tiers with Explorist being the most common breakthrough tier that starts to get you the room upgrades. Often time tiers such as Discoverist can be offered complementary with premium travel credit cards and a faster path to Globalist.

The eligibility for room upgrades vary greatly with Explorist being the first real tier to start receiving quality benefits.

Of course the higher tier you are on Hyatt the more likely you are to get upgraded. If you are traveling to a business city and a prime hotel they will most likely have many elite memberships checking in on any given night, making upgrades awarded in priority order.

How Members Can Get Upgrades

Hyatt has an official policy on upgrades and maintain the following statement regarding offering a better room.

We’ll do our best to upgrade your room based on availability at check-in. Upgrades are subject to availability identified by each hotel and limited to your personal guest room.

The good news is upgrades to rooms is available to all members Explorist and above. The downside is it is totally up to the hotel’s discretion on whether to offer an upgrade.

Here are the official ways you can be upgraded at a Hyatt property.

Complimentary Upgrades

Complimentary upgrades are entirely at a hotels discretion and a lot of factors play into whether they grant it or not. This includes but not limited to your status level, hotel capacity, and how many higher tier members are checking in. In fact some hotels also consider their house keeping capacity since a larger room will require more cleaning time upon check out.

A complimentary upgrade is what most people bank on when traveling to a property to keep their upgrade certificates and points save for a future trip.

Here are some tips to consider to give you the best chance at getting an upgrade upon check in.

• Check the hotel capacity about a day or so from arrival to determine if higher rooms are available. This will help you understand if the hotel is full or if there are even rooms available to be upgraded into.
• Do not use the mobile check in feature on Hyatt App. In our experience once you check in this will assign you a room in the hotels system making it much more difficult to change your room upon checkin.
• Consider asking the hotel in advance via the Hyatt App chat feature and remember to be nice. Mention you noticed the space available and would like to be considered for an upgrade.
• Don’t forget to ask politely upon check in. Consider asking your check in agent if there is any chance for an upgrade and they will surely check the system.
• The last tip and by far the most important, be nice! Many times an upgrade is at the discretion of the check in agent and being nice goes a long way.

Lastly, consider the number of days you are planning to stay at a particular hotel. If it is a short stay you are much more likely to get an upgrade so you are not occupying a better room for a long period of time.

Suite Upgrade Certificates

An upgrade certificate is a one-night confirmable upgrade to a standard suite or select premium room, depending on the hotel’s availability of those rooms.

As for suite upgrade certificates, you earn two certificates after staying 40 elite-qualifying nights or earning 65,000 base points and another two certificates after staying 60 nights or earning 100,000 base points. This is typically the point where you would qualify for Globalist status, but Hyatt offers additional incentives for surpassing this threshold. You can select either an additional suite upgrade award or 10,000 bonus points for every 10 additional nights, up to 100 nights per calendar year.

These upgrades can only book you into a regular club-level room or standard suite, as designated by the property. So, you can’t use a suite upgrade award to snag a specialty suite.

Unlike Marriott Bonvoy, Hyatt makes it much easier and actually confirms your suite night well in advance.

You will have to call so do a search in advance to confirm availability. Once you have confirmed availability and determined your preferred room type, contact Hyatt’s customer service at 800-544-9288

Points Upgrade

You can also use your Hyatt points to upgrade a paid or award stay rather than paying cash. Here is the standard chart for upgrades:

These are note often easy to come by but you will want to look for “Lp Suite Pts Upgr” rate to determine how much it will cost to upgrade into a standard suite using points. Look for the “Upgrade Premium Suite” rate if you want to upgrade to a premium suite using points.

In our experience we haven’t seen this offered much in advance and will usually be at the time of check in.

Summary & Takeaways

So exactly how often do Hyatt Elite Members get upgraded? Frankly, it depends. But if you follow the steps above you can increase your chance of scoring a complimentary upgrade on your next visit.

If you have found a strategy that works feel free to share with us in the comments and we will add it to the list.