Hyatt Waives Fees and Delays Category Changes and Peak Pricing

Hyatt is making some customer friendly changes to its change and cancellation policy and also delaying changes for hotel categories and peak and off-peak pricing. This is all due to coronavirus fears and a big drop in bookings not only for Hyatt, but for the whole hotel industry in general. You can see a full list of fee waivers and policies from hotels here.

Cancellation and Change Fee Waivers

All existing reservations made before March 13, 2020 that are for arrivals between March 14 and April 30, 2020 can be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival. This includes Advance Purchase Rate reservations.
Any reservation you make between March 13, 2020, and April 30, 2020 – for any future arrival date – can be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival. This includes Advance Purchase Rate reservations.
Special exceptions are in place for all Advance Purchase Rate non-refundable reservations made directly with Hyatt on or before March 8, 2020 for arrivals before June 30, 2020. Guests holding these fully prepaid reservations who have decided not to travel may still opt at least 24 hours before their stay to receive 10,000 World of Hyatt Bonus Points compensation in lieu of both their stay and the offer above (if eligible). World of Hyatt points may be used toward future travel at any of our 900+ hotels across 17 brands globally.

Suspending Points Forfeiture

We will be suspending the forfeiture of points through May 31, 2020. As a reminder, our general policy is that points do not expire, but they will be forfeited if a member’s account is inactive for 24 consecutive months.

Award Chart Changes Delayed

We are postponing the introduction of Off-peak and Peak point redemption (originally planned for March 22, 2020) until 2021. This means that free-night redemptions will continue to be at standard rates for the rest of this year. Before we launch Off-peak and Peak point redemptions for stay dates in 2021 and beyond, we’ll give you and our members advance notice as we always do.

Additionally, we are postponing our annual hotel award category changes (originally planned for March 22, 2020) until 2021, with the exception of five hotels still shifting award categories on March 22, 2020. Those hotels and their new category assignments include:

Parky Hyatt Mallorca – From Category 6 to Category 5
Hyatt Centric Park City – From Category 6 to Category 7
Park Hyatt Shenzhen – From Category 4 to Category 5
Alila Yanshuo – From Category 4 to Category 5
Park Hyatt Ningbo – From Category 3 to Category 4

Any free night award and Points + Cash redemptions booked at these hotels on or after Sunday, March 22 at 8:00 am CDT will follow the new Award Chart. Members who have existing award bookings for a night after Sunday, March 22 that moves to a lower award category will receive an automatic one-time refund on the point difference. Points will be refunded in members’ accounts starting on Monday, March 23. Once changes go into effect on Sunday, March 22 at 8:00 am CDT, any adjustments made to existing reservations will follow the terms of the new Award Chart.

Elite Status

World of Hyatt elite members (Discoverist, Explorist, Globalist) who fall into one of the three audiences below with a 28 February 2021 expiration will be automatically extended to 28 February 2022.

Members with addresses in the defined Asia Pacific territories (see below list) as of 18 February 2020.
Members without a mailing address on file who have a Simplified Chinese/Traditional Chinese/Japanese/Korean language preference on file as of 18 February 2020.
Members without a mailing address on file who enrolled through WeChat Mini App.

See more here.

HT: Loyalty Traveler