Last night, rumors started swirling about a “greyed-out” Category 8 award option on Hyatt’s award offerings. In August, Hyatt announced that Hyatt & Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) would join in a Loyalty Alliance. At that time, they said that with the new partnership (with Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH),) World of Hyatt members would be able to earn and redeem World of Hyatt points at participating SLH hotels when members book through Hyatt channels.

Hyatt’s Category 8 To Be Potentially Great News!

In response to questioning about the “greyed-out” Category 8 award option on Hyatt’s site, a spokes person said,

As you know, we have been working toward launching an alliance with Small Luxury Hotels of the World that will allow members to earn and redeem World of Hyatt points at participating SLH properties in the future. Given the diversity and caliber of the SLH portfolio, we anticipate that some SLH properties will fall into a new eighth category on our award chart. We look forward to sharing more details when the alliance officially launches.

Why this could potentially be great news

Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) has amazing properties that most Hyatt enthusiasts would love to access with Hyatt points. Initially, with this information, it looks like some of the properties will be available at a Category 8 level using Hyatt points which is exactly what I would have hoped for!

AGALIA LUXURY SUITES Tzamaria, Ios, Greece Photo courtesy SLH

Bottom Line

We also know that World of Hyatt Points + Cash Award Pricing Changes are coming November 1st.

For right now, I take this as good news that Hyatt doesn’t have immediate plans to increase existing properties to Category 8 and that World of Hyatt members will have the opportunity to book the Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) on award chart as category 8.

Stay tuned as more information becomes available.

HT: TPG