Award Redemptions: 14 Hyatt Hotels You Will be Able to Use Cat 1-4 Certs at (and the 21 You Won’t Be Able to Use)

Effective March 22, 2020 217 World of Hyatt hotels will change categories

As you know by now, World of Hyatt has announced today that, effective March 22, 2020, 217 hotels will change categories.

In this post, the focus is on the World of Hyatt properties which will be going from Category 5 down to Category 4 and vice versa.

This category change is important because so many of the free night certificates earned are for a category 1-4 hotel. Some of the ways of earning a category 1-4 certificate are: (1) staying at 5 different World of Hyatt brand hotels, (2) staying 30 nights within a year, and (3) from the Chase World of Hyatt Visa card (annual free night or free night after $15,000 spend).

So the category of a hotel is very important for the question of award redemptions.

(photo: Hyatt.com) The Park Hyatt Melbourne will be changing from a Category 5 to a Category 4 hotel

The 14 hotels listed below that will go from a Category 5 to a Category 4 are therefore important because you will be able to redeem a free night cert at these properties. People will be especially happy to see the Park Hyatt Melbourne, the HR Amsterdam, two Seattle hotels and the HR Sydney will become Category 4 hotels.

The Park Hyatt Saigon will be changing from a Category 4 to a Category 5 World of Hyatt hotel

Conversely, after March 22nd, you will no longer be able to use a Category 1-4 free night cert at the 21 hotels listed below that are moving from Category 4 to a Category 5. I’m always surprised to see Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotels at such high categories. People will be unhappy with all of these, but especially Park Hyatt Saigon and HR Chesapeake Bay.

Hotels going down from Category 5 to Category 4

1 – ALEENTA RESORT & SPA HUA HIN SLH (Pranburi, Thailand)

2 – Hyatt Regency Amsterdam (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

3 – Park Hyatt Changbaishan (Changbaishan, China)

4 – Park Hyatt Hamburg (Hamburg, Germany)

5- Hyatt Centric Brickell (Miami, FL) 

6 – HOTEL BERGS SLH (Riga, Latvia)

7 – Hyatt at Olive 8 (Seattle, WA)

8 – Park Hyatt Melbourne (Melbourne, Australia)

9 – KIEN GIANG NAM NGHI PHU QUOC (Vietnam)

10 – Grand Hyatt Seattle Seattle, WA

11 – Hyatt Regency Sochi (Sochi, Russia)

12 – Hyatt Regency Sydney (Sydney, Australia)

13 – THE GRAND HOTEL SLH (Eastbourne, UK)

14 – The Sukhothai Shanghai SLH (Shanghai, China)

Hotels going up from Category 4 to Category 5

1- Hyatt Place Augusta (Augusta, GA)

2 – Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Resort (Cambridge, MD)

3 – Grand Hyatt Doha Grand Hyatt Doha QATAR

4 – Hyatt Regency Dusseldorf (Dusseldorf, Germany)

5 – Grand Hyatt Fukuoka (Fukuoka, Japan)

6 – Gaya Island Resort SLH (Borneo, Malaysia)

7 – Hyatt Regency Louisville (Louisville, KY)

8 – Hyatt House Nashville Downtown (Nashville, TN)

9 – Hyatt Place Ocean City Oceanfront (Ocean City, MD)

10 – Hyatt Place Portland – Old Port (Portland, ME)

11 – Park Hyatt Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam)

12 – HYATT House San Jose/Silicon Valley (San Jose, CA)

13 – HYATT house Santa Clara (Santa Clara, CA)

14 – Hyatt Regency Santa Clara (Santa Clara, CA)

15 – Hyatt Regency Seragaki Island, Okinawa (Kunigami-gun, Japan)

16 – Park Hyatt Shenzhen Futian (Shenzhen, China)

17 – Hyatt Place State College (State College, PA)

18 – The Fish Hotel SLH (Broadway, UK)

19 – BOUTIQUE HOTEL VILLA AM RUHRUFER SLH (Mulheim an der Ruhr, Germany)

20 – Alila Yangshuo (Guilin, China)

21 – Park Hyatt Zanzibar (Zanzibar, Tanzania)

If you were considering staying at any of the hotels which will be changing categories, particularly those which are moving up categories, I would suggest that you make your reservations ASAP to lock in the current rate.