Frequent Miler on the Air - Is it time to step off the Hyatt bandwagon? | Ep138 | 2-19-22

Episode Date: February 19, 2022

With many great Hyatt properties moving out of range of free night certificates, is it finally time to step off the bandwagon of Hyatt fandom? This week we discuss what will change, what won't, and where we go from here.  00:32 Giant Mailbag: Confession Time 06:11 What crazy thing did....Barclays do this week? https://frequentmiler.com/caution-wyndham-business-card-reporting-as-a-personal-card-to-credit-bureaus/ 9:39 Mattress running the numbers: Which Sam's Club deal is better? https://frequentmiler.com/40-back-on-sams-club-membership-via-dosh-stack-with-amex-offer/ 16:58 Main Event: Is it time to step off the Hyatt bandwagon? https://frequentmiler.com/hyatt-announces-2022-award-category-changes-its-a-doozy/ https://frequentmiler.com/best-hyatt-category-1-4-hotels-resorts/ 42:43 Post roast 45:24 Question of the Week: Does credit card CDW cover loss of use? Join our email list: https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/ Music credit: Annie Yoder

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did City do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Liler on the air starts now. Today's main event. Is it time to step off the Hyatt bandwagon?

Are we done with Hyatt? I mean, my goodness, maybe we should be, right? Well, we'll talk about why or why not. Yes, we will. First, of course, we've got the giant mailbag, but today I don't have giant mail. What I have instead is confession time. Oh, everybody's favorite. I like it. I thought you were going to say the printer was broken or something, or you didn't have access because you've been traveling, but even better. That's all true. Confession time. All right.

Confession time. Yes. And actually it goes really well with today's topic, today's main event. Here's what happened. So I had a Hyatt category one to four free night expiring early in February. And I could have changed some of my plans when I was traveling in January to use that free night, but I didn't really want to change the plans. And I believed that, especially as a globalist, top tier elite with Hyatt, that after it expires, I could ask for points because I wasn't able to use the certificate. So I waited until the certificate expired and I contacted my concierge. So that's a benefit when you get to 60 nights with Hyatt, you get your own sort of concierge that you can email with. And it's called my concierge.

And she wrote back and said, well, that was a chase credit card free night. And there's nothing we can do about that. well, that was a Chase credit card free night. And there's nothing we can do about that. Had it been a Hyatt, like a brand explorer free night or one of the other ways of getting free nights from Hyatt, like, you know, at 30 nights, I think you get the choice. You know, there's different places where you could get one of these from Hyatt.

In that case, she could have done something, given me points or whatever, but because it was Chase, nothing, nada. Ouch. Yeah. I wish I had known. I could have told you that from data points. Yeah. Cause we've had those data points for a while since the end of last year, because of course there was that time where they were giving points away for the club certificates. And so lots of people were calling in to get those. And then people were also taking points for their Hyatt free night certificates. And a lot of people had success with that, with the ones that were issued by Hyatt. But we did have quite a few people who said that they got no points for Chase certificates. For the certificates, you get either the annual one from the credit card or the one you get from spending on the credit card. That stinks. It really does. And you know what's worse in a way?

I don't think there's any way to tell which is which. That's the bigger problem. That's the bigger problem because there's A, there's no way for you to know. And B, there's then no way for you to know which one has been attached and which one hasn't been attached to something. So I think it's a horrible policy. You know, you got to at least give people the choice then to pick which one they want to use, right? If that's the way you're going to handle it. Right, right. So I guess going forward, I mean, it changes the math. It used to be, of course, I'd always want to use whichever certificate is expiring sooner. But now it's kind of like, well, let's say the Chase one is expiring a month or two later than a Hyatt one. I might prefer to use a Chase one if I, you know, if I just needed one

for a particular stay. So yeah, it's kind of crazy. Did you ask your MyHyatt concierge whether they can decide which one to apply for you? Like if you, so I didn't ask them. I'm assuming they can. I assume they can because I had a situation where I was booking a night at a category four property last fall and I had both a category one to four and a one to seven in my account. And luckily, I think I had seen a data point somewhere from someone who had booked and it took their category one to seven. And they didn't realize until after checkout and Hyatt said, sorry, there's nothing we can do. And who would want to attach the category one to seven when you have a one to four in your account, right? I mean, I guess, unless maybe it's one of those

expiration situations, but at any rate, you don't get an ability to choose. So I reached out proactively to the Hyatt Twitter concierge and said, listen, I want to make sure that it uses my one to four. And they told me, just go ahead and make the reservation and then we can adjust it on our side. Let me know, give me the confirmation number. So I did. And they said, sure enough, the system had taken my one to seven, but they were able to put that back and use my one to four because I did that in advance. But like I said, a reader who contacted them afterwards for that was just told, sorry, nothing they can do to help, which was, yeah, that's awful. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think they can, they can probably figure out which one to use. Now I want to not complain

too, too much because I think the easy solution for Hyatt on the certificates in terms of like the points is just to stop giving points, right? Because then they wouldn't have this issue of whether they were Hyatt issued or Chase issued. If it were me, I'd be like, oh, you know what? Let's just not give any more points for this and we don't have to worry about arguing about it anymore. Done. It's solved, right? It's not a future anyway. So, you know, don't get all bent out of shape and up in arms and complain with Hyatt about how you didn't get points for your chase start. Just know that you need to use those. Yes. Yes. And, and, you know, if I wasn't so lazy, what I really should do also is contact

chase to see if there's anything they can do about the fact that I wasn't able to use their certificate and they might offer something who knows. You should, you should just so you can report back to us. All right. So that was, you know, that's kind of crazy, but it's not the crazy thing for the week. But let's talk about that crazy thing. So what crazy thing did Bar signed up for the Wyndham business card started emailing us, contacting us in various ways to say, hey, wait a minute, this is reporting as a new account on my credit report, which is not something the average consumer would probably care about one way or another. But for those who are worried about wanting to sign up for more credit cards, especially like from Chase, having new credit card accounts on your personal credit report is a problem because it adds to your account and Chase won't approve you for a new card usually if you've opened five or more new cards in the past 24 months and usually business cards, this isn't true from all, um, issuers, but usually from Barclays and, uh, and most others, usually those don't report as new accounts on your credit report,

but people were finding it on their credit report, but that's not the whole crazy thing. Right. Right. So, I mean, that's a big piece of it. And part of what was crazy there is that this card's been out for a while. And so plenty of us have it and it wasn't on personal reports. In fact, one of the first people to reach out to me about this was a friend who said she had applied since the first of this year and suddenly it was showing up on her report, but her husband applied last year and he didn't have it on his report. So this was just affecting people who had newly applied. And apparently not only on the Wyndham card, there were some reports that it also happened on the Hawaiian business card. So that was weird, but then it got weirder because

people started getting back to us and saying, wait a second, they got messages from their credit tracking saying that an account was removed from their credit reports. So Barclays went back and removed it from the personal reports a few days later. Which is great, which is the right thing to do. It's just there was some craziness going on over at Barclays probably in general. And regular listeners know we like the Barclays Wyndham business card for a number of reasons, but it gives you, I forget how many thousands of points each year that you renew. 15,000. 15,000 basically makes it worth just keeping for that alone, for paying the annual fee. It gives

you top tier elite status. It gives you eight points per dollar at gas stations. There's a lot to like about that card. Five points per dollar on utilities. You can match the Wyndham status to Caesars Diamond status. There's a lot of different advantages, like you said. So it's a fantastic card. Yeah. And then you could use those points to book the Casa vacation rentals, which we've talked

about a lot before, how if you get a one bedroom, it, you know, we've talked about a lot before how, if you get a one bedroom, it only costs 15,000 points per night. And sometimes those one bedroom units can be huge and luxurious. Uh, and because you have this card, you would save 10%. So it really only costs you 13,500 per night. So it's a great deal all around if you can use those type of awards. And yeah, so I'm glad to see that it at least appears from the initial removals that they may be fixing whatever craziness they were up to before. Right. All right. Very good. So let's move on into mattress running the numbers. So this week's mattress running the numbers is not about mattresses, but it is about numbers. So this week I wanted to talk about Sam's club. So, you know, Sam's club. You can probably buy mattresses from Sam's club. You probably can.

You can. So there you go. So there you go. So this is about buying mattresses sort of, or membership anyway. The reason I wanted to talk about it was because there's a lot of different ways to stack a deal on a Sam's club membership right now. So if you value it at all, then you can come out nicely ahead. In fact, you can turn a profit even if you don't value the membership, you don't want it. You could just make some money, a pair out of thin air, which is always fun. But what I wanted to figure out was which is the best way to do it according to Greg, the frequent miler. So there's a few different options right now, Greg. And I want you to tell me which one is best, which one should

people be doing? So we wrote about this week how the Dosh app is offering $40 cash back when you buy a new membership in-store. So you have to go physically into the store for this deal. And you get $40 back when you buy a membership. Now membership costs 45 bucks. And by the way, I should mention it's $40 back right now. And when we initially publish this, that'll be valid for another day or two. So this is going to publish on February 19th. And I think this deal runs through February 20th. So if you're listening to the podcast late, this one might be gone, check the DASH app and see what's in there. But right now, anyway, they're offering 40 bucks. Membership costs 45. So that'd be a net five, except there's also an Amex offer for 25 back on a $45 membership. So if you take your Amex card that has that offer,

you sync up the offer, then you link that Amex card to your Dosh app so that they'll recognize when you use it in the store, you're going to pay $45 for a membership and get 40 back from Dosh and 25 back from Amex. So in the end, you're going to be $20 ahead, turn a $20 profit on buying a membership, right? So that's one option that you could go after. Second option is there's a deal that keeps getting extended to buy a membership online. So this is different. You buy it online and get a monthly $10 Uber Eats credit. So in this case, you pay the full $45 for the membership, but then you get a monthly $10 Uber Eats gift card for a year. So you get, and I shouldn't say gift card, it's a $10 Uber Eats voucher. And I believe the voucher can only be used for delivery.

So only for Uber Eats delivery. So 10 bucks a month, that's $120 over the course of a year, if you're able to use all of them for your $45 membership. So my question is, is that a better deal? Now I should have checked before we started this, but I'm 96.7% sure that it did indeed trigger the Amex offer still. I'm going to try and check that while you're talking. So I believe that I paid a net on that of $20 for the membership and then 15% back from DOSH because online memberships earn a different percentage back. But you're still getting something. Wow. Okay. So yeah. So, so, um, even without the DOSH part, you're talking about, um, how, how much out of

pocket, $20 out of pocket, and you get up to $120 off basically Uber Eats deliveries, I guess, is a way to think about it. Yeah. Do you know, does that come in the form of like codes that you have to apply to your thing? Or does it just go into your wallet automatically? You get a monthly email with a code in it that you have to apply to your account and then you have the voucher in your account. Okay. So one issue with those codes is that it seems like, I don't have experience with this particular code,

but often you go to try to apply a code and there's something about your order that doesn't quite match the requirements of a particular discount code. So it probably has a requirement that the total order be more than $25 or some kind of thing like that. Double check, but go ahead. So anyway, so the point is that there's no way you'd want to value that at the full $120 possible, because it probably also means not using other codes that you might've got. There might be other discount codes out. You probably can't stack them on the same order. So that sort of thing could be an issue. Anyway.

Well, it's a voucher code. So you apply it in your gift card in your wallet. So it's like, it's, it, it, it, it's not, it's not with the order. It lives in the, it lives in the wallet. It's like, it's different. It's separate from the wallet. Well, that's different. It's like it's separate from the balance. Like, so if you've got Amex bottom and Amex gold cards, that's a separate wallet balance from the voucher section. A voucher section, if you've ever like attended a meeting where, you know, whoever the company is that's hosting it, gives you a voucher that, you know,

is temporary use for a day or something. It's like a separate voucher balance in your account. So it's a separate voucher reward. But yeah, so I would assume you could still stack that with any kind of promo codes because it's just an additional payment method. Yeah. Yeah. Well, boy, in that case, I actually like this version of the offer much better than the first one you mentioned. Not only does it have more potential upside, it means I don't have to go into a Sam's Club to make it all happen. So I love the pajama points version where you could do it all from home, including get food delivered to your home. So I like that. I'm already ordering from Uber Eats every month, thanks to Amex credits.

That's my thing too. Having $10 more to add on, I usually go over anyway. So it's all good. I like that one. Right. Absolutely. I feel the same way. So I actually just double-checked and it doesn't look like I did get the Amex offer. So maybe it was $45. It looks like I didn't get credited for it. So it's only been a couple of weeks, but I didn't actually get credited. So now does that change things? If it doesn't trigger the $25 Amex offer,

now you're paying $45. So let's say there's no Amex offer component at all. You go into the store, you pay a net five in the store for a year membership or online pay 45 for a year's worth of $10 Uber credits. Now what? Yeah. I mean, I personally still would prefer the year of $10 credits. If you're not, and if you don't regularly order from Uber Eats, then I think the in-store one would be better. Yeah. You'd have to value the credits pretty low

for the in-store offer because even at $5, then at cost, you'd have to value the 120 in credits pretty low to not think that that's a comparatively better deal. Anyway, I felt the same way as Greg. I'm using all those platinum and gold card monthly Uber credits. I never used to use Uber much because it's not available where I live, but now I'm seeking out an opportunity every month to do it. And like Greg said, I'm always going over what I have in credits anyway by a little bit. So another 10 bucks, easy, easy money. So I much preferred that too. All right. So I think that brings us to the main event. Main event time is a time to step off the Hyatt bandwagon? So we've been big fans of Hyatt for years.

But now they've hit us with a big devaluation of sorts. So not only did we get the expected peak and off-peak pricing, which we've talked about before. But now they've done their category changes. And a lot of our favorite Category 4 hotels have moved up to Category 5. And that's important because of all the free nights that are limited to Category one through four. And worse, they've moved a bunch of Hyatt hotels into category eight, which people may remember category eight was originally introduced just as a special exception when they partnered with SLH, Small Luxury Hotels of the World. So they categorized some of those properties as category eight. And it seemed reasonable because there was a bunch of things like these uber expensive

resorts in the Greek Isles, for example. And so they categorized those as category. But I will say, at the very beginning, I said, what I didn't like about that was how long is Hyatt going to allow these other properties to be a higher category than the Park Eye of New York and the Park Eye of Sydney and all these other places that are now moving up to category eight. That wasn't a hard prediction. We have an answer to that. That's how long that would be. So just to complete the story though, so they crept in a little bit of Hyatt-ness when they incorporated destination... Residences.

Residences. Thank you. So these are sort of like rental properties, almost like the Vacasa type thing, but... But a lot more points. almost like the Vacasa type thing, but you can through Hyatt, you can book these. Sometimes it's a whole house, sometimes it's a condo. And so they crept some of those into that category eight. And again, seem reasonable because you're talking about a whole house. But now is the first time that they've opened the floodgates for any Hyatt participating property could be categorized as category eight. And that means paying more points. It also means when things are peak priced, because we didn't have peak and off-peak before, the pain is worse. So if it just went from, so category seven was 30,000 points standard per night. Category eight was 40,000 points standard. Now we're talking about, boy, I don't remember off the top of my head what peak is for a category eight, but I think it's like- I think it's 45. I think, but I could be wrong. I'll

double check that. That's what I was going off of. That sounds right to me. So you're talking about properties that were 30,000 before now being 45,000. That's a 50% increase. It also means any of us who have these category one through seven certificates that you get by, you know, 60 nights, staying 60 nights at Hyatt, you can't use them at a bunch of places that we traditionally would have been, you know, targeting to use these certificates for. And these are some of our favorite properties, the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris, the Park Hyatt Sydney, the Alila Ventana Big Sur, the Alila Marea, I think is one. No, no, that one isn't one. The new Alila in Napa is another. And so a lot of the places we wanted to use these certificates, not so much.

Not only that, so there's definitely, I look at it and I say, wow, from 30,000 to 45,000 points, that 50% increase is huge. But what hurts even more than that is if you're someone who wanted to book suites or premium suites, like, hello, that just got way more expensive, right? It sure does. So premium suites are, at least at standard rates are double the, you know, the regular rates. So yeah. So you're talking about standard, what was 60,000 is now 80,000. So 20,000 point bump. And I think it's the same at peak. I think it's also double at peak. So you're talking, I think double is 90. So, I mean, what would have cost you 60,000 for a premium suite at the park high in New York years ago is now going to cost you 90,000. Now that might be a great deal compared to the cash costs, but I mean, an extra 30,000 points per

night, that was an extra full night. I think a thousand dollar night, free night at the park. I had New York before this. And not everybody has, you know, 90,000 points sitting around or, you know, ready to burn per night. Per night. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And it really hurts at places like Alila Ventana, Big Sur, where, I mean, it's hard enough to get award availability at all, but

the base rooms are almost never available. I mean, it's really, really hard to find those, but you can sometimes find suites and premium suites available for awards. And so, yeah, now the price is so much higher. So these things, oh, one other thing I wanted to complain about, I guess, with this devaluation is that it, in a way, brings Hyatt's award prices nearly on par with Marriott's award prices before March, meaning before Marriott gives up their award charts, their top tier peak pricing was 100K per night. So now Hyatt's... Sorry, I have to step back a bit. So Hyatt credit cards, you earn one point per dollar. Marriott, you earn two points per dollar.

So when comparing Hyatt prices to Marriott prices, one easy way to do that is say, you know, that Hyatt should be less than half of Marriott. And so now with the new pricing, it's very close to the same pricing at the top end. And that point carries over also to paid nights at the hotels, right? Because I mean, your earnings from paid nights, if you're a business traveler. Exact same deal. Same deal. Yeah. I mean, in fact, Marriott points, you earn a lot more Marriott points per dollar spent. Well, the base earnings is double, right? So Marriott base earns 10X and Hyatt earns 5X. But you're right. When you're in the elite program with Marriott, you're going to earn a lot more than Hy than Hyatt and not just, not just double.

Right. So, um, yeah, so you're right from that type of viewpoint. Um, Hyatt should be even cheaper, right? It should be even cheaper, right? Even cheaper than it was, it was, and it was before. And, and, and now, now it's not, I mean, do caveat that though, with saying, well, Marriott's about to get rid of their award chart. So true, the things are going to change there too. But yeah, I mean, and also a caveat that with the fact that if you're somebody who tends to stay at lower category properties, you're going to spend a lot fewer points on Hyatt

properties than Marriott properties. Because even at the low end, Marriott just doesn't have very many category ones at all in the United States, whereas Hyatt does have quite a few category one and two options. So you're probably going to be much better off at that end of the spectrum with Hyatt anyway. So that's a great point. That's true. So let's talk a minute about, if we're asking this question, is it time to jump off the Hyatt bandwagon? Let's talk about some of the reasons why we have been on the Hyatt bandwagon? Let's talk about some of the reasons why we have been on the Hyatt bandwagon before and say, have those things changed?

Right. That's a good idea. I mean, so the first thing to get out of the way because it really hasn't changed is the elite program. I mean, elite status, Hyatt elite status is why we're here, right? Globalist status is the best, clearly hands down the best hotel elite status out there. I mean,

one of the best elite statuses of any sort, really. I mean, it's incredibly valuable. So it really is. So just as an example, I am recording this from the Hyatt Regency, Huntington Beach. And last night when I checked in, I drove up to the valet. They took my car away. How much is valet parking here? I have no idea. And I don't care because a benefit of globalist status, which is Hyatt's top tier, is free parking. And it's great not to have to worry about... Last time I stayed here years ago, I found a nearby lot that was way cheaper than the Hyatt Regency and parked over there. Just great not to even have to worry about that. I don't think about it.

No, totally. Totally. And it is true because next month I was looking at a meeting in New York and I was trying to figure out where I would stay. And so I was looking at it and I thought, I'm going to have to stay at a Hyatt because otherwise it's going to cost me. I'm going to drive. I live like three hours away from New York City. I'm not going and I thought I'm going to have to stay at a Hyatt because otherwise it's going to cost because I'm going to drive. I live like three hours away from New York city. I'm not going to fly. I'm going to drive. And it's going to cost me like, you know, 60, 70 bucks a night to park the car or more at a lot of places. I mean, maybe I could find a place that's cheaper if I'm willing to drive around or, you know, book on parkways and walk a few blocks

to the hotel or whatever, but much more convenient to be able to just park there, especially if my wife and kids come with me. And so Hyatt's like my only choice really, because I know that it'll be free if I book an award stay at a Hyatt property. So that's definitely awesome. And so is, I mean, I don't know if you've had breakfast yet. You probably had breakfast already, right? The breakfast was fantastic. Yeah. It was a really nice one. And there's no games with figuring out, do I get breakfast at this property or that one, or there's a lounge, but is it only for special people or can anybody get along? There's none of

that stuff with Hyatt. You get breakfast, you get lounge access. If there's a lounge, you get late checkout. If it's not a resort anyway, at a Hyatt. You don't have to fight for it usually. So all of those things are nice. And the suite upgrades work much better. You can confirm them at booking if you've earned those suite upgrade awards rather than Marriott, where you have to, first of all, figure out which properties you can even use the suite upgrades at and hope that it clears a few days before you arrive. So, I mean, Hyatt's definitely head and shoulders above when it comes to the elite program. Absolutely. 100%. And that hasn't changed. So that hasn't changed. Another thing that hasn't changed is the ability to book suites

in advance. So, you know, you mentioned that as an elite, you might have suite upgrades, and that's actually what I'm using for the stay at the Hyatt-go, or you can book a standard room rate and pay either 6,000 points per night to upgrade to a standard suite or 9,000 to a premium suite, or you can book a points and cash day. And it varies which is the best deal, depending on where you are and what the rates are and all kinds of things. But they have a lot of ways of booking directly in the suites. And that's really terrific. Yeah, that's super convenient. I value that a lot as somebody who travels with young kids now, because a suite is really

helpful. I mean, the prospect of all of us being locked in one room for the night and everybody sleeping through it is daunting. So the ability to confirm a suite at booking and do it so many ways that there's going to be until you click through on the booking page and see, but there are some situations where you can, but it's usually like one option and either you want to do it or you don't. And there's no other ways to figure out, okay, can I make this a slightly better deal? The high gives you like, I don't know what it is. You just rattled off like four different ways to book a suite, right? So you got a whole bunch of different ways. So you can find the one that's a good deal. And it makes sense. So like I have those suite upgrade awards in my account

and I need probably a one night Hyatt stay next month. I don't really want to use one of the suite upgrade awards on a one night stay because those can be used on a stay of up to seven nights, but I don't have to because there are other ways to book the suite and still get it. So yeah, that's awesome.

I think that that's a really valuable program feature for anybody who values the space of a suite. Right, so yeah, that's awesome. I think that that's a really valuable program feature for anybody who values the space of a suite. Right, right. And, you know, another thing that we highly value is the value of the points and, and the fact that they can be transferred, you can transfer from Chase Ultimate Awards to Hyatt one-to-one. So you can earn points in great numbers by signing up for chase cards that are in ultimate awards and getting the, you know, earning the signup bonus or by taking advantage of their three X and five X, uh, earning rates. Like, so, you know, freedom cards are in three X for dining and drugstores and, um,, 3X for travel and dining.

And you can earn 5X rotating categories or with the chasing cash, 5X at office supply stores and buy gift cards there. There's so many ways to earn at a high rate and then transfer to Hyatt to use those points. And Hyatt points are valuable. When I last published my research showing the value of Hyatt points, they were, if I remember right, around 1.8 cents per point on average, just looking at a random selection of properties in the US and at various states. More recently, I redid the analysis, but I didn't actually complete it, so I didn't publish it, but it was closer to two cents per point value. And at that time, I remember mentioning on the show

after doing that, saying, oh boy, what I'm worried about is Hyatt's going to have to make massive category changes because I'm seeing the value of points go up. And that's because the price of properties is going up. Because of the whole COVID situation led to a lot more people traveling domestically, you know, instead of working from home, working from hotels like I'm doing right now. And so it's really driven up the cost of hotels in the US anyway, especially in leisure destinations. And, you know, I saw it as like, oh my God, they're going to have to do

something big with their category changes and to bring that value back down. So now we've seen what they're doing with their category changes, right? They're, they're, they're we talked about how, you know, unfortunately we're losing some valuable category four properties because they're becoming category five. A lot of category sevens are moving to category eight. But overall, what I'm seeing is there's about 70 properties that went up in price. This is worldwide now. 76, I think I wrote. Coming down in price, the average price increase,

if you just look at those increasing on average, just under 5,000 points. So that is significant. That's per night. But the average decrease is just over 4,000 points. So it's pretty well offset. I haven't run the numbers yet, but I don't think that's enough properties going up to actually make much difference in my analysis of the value of Hyatt points on average. So obviously, they'll be less valuable at those that went up, but I don't think on average, we're going to see a difference. Yeah. I think with room rates the way they are right now in the United States, I think probably many of the properties that went up are still going to be a good deal at the next category. The bummer really is for people with free night certificates. That's like the biggest

hit for the people that are going to lose category or properties that were in a category they could book with a free night certificate. That really stinks. And, you know, a bunch of the ones that went down, I was like, I wasn't really impressed. I mean, they, they probably needed to go down because they were in places either that a are difficult to travel to right now, or B perhaps less desirable to travel to right now. And, or where C hotel markets are pretty cheap in general. So like, I don't know, a property in Thailand going from category six to category five is like, I mean, really for $200 a night, you can basically rent a palace anywhere in Thailand. I have rented a beautiful apartment in Bangkok for 30 bucks a night. So that type, category decrease doesn't mean as much to me as some of these

increases doing a negative side. So I don't like the category increases, but I mean, nobody likes to spend more on anything, but the cost of everything has gone up, right? Is there anything that you're buying today that doesn't cost more than it did two years ago? Like there's very little in my life that doesn't cost more than that. Maybe a Sam's Club membership. Sam's Club membership. That's about it. That's about it, guys. That's the thing you can do.

So hop on it while you can. So prices increasing doesn't necessarily seem unreasonable in terms of value. I think a lot of those, like you look at the Park Hyatt New York, I use as an example, because that's one close to me, going from 30 to 45, maybe, or 40 standard and 45 peak. I mean, that's still, standard rooms are always north of 875 there, I think, and typically north of $1,000 a night. So you're still going to get very good value in terms of how much your points are buying, kind of if you value $1,000 a night at 1, thousand bucks, which I don't, but you can run the numbers there and make it look good. What I still like about Hyatt though, is at the low end, you still get that much value, you know, like at a category one or a category two,

it's, there are a lot of situations where a category one for 5,000 points per night is going to yield 2 cents in value or more. And the same can be said for category two, or there's lots of places that it's going to yield two cents per point or more still, even with these category changes. And so I'm disappointed. And that's my point. So what we liked before, Hyatt points are very valuable. That hasn't changed. The certificates got a hit. Some individual properties have become massively more expensive, but the overall thing that we like about Hyatt, that aspect hasn't changed. The fact that they kept award charts at all in this day when all the other major chains have eliminated them is another thing that we like for this reason. So the Hyatt Ventana Big Sur, even with the category eight prices, even peak price, I think you're still going to be looking at compared to their cash rates because their cash rates are so high.

You'd still be looking at more than four cents per point value compared to the cash rates. And, you know, we only get that because they haven't eliminated award charts. And, you know, if they did, they'd be charging something like 200,000 points per night. Right. And so that's a positive. Of course, you got to be careful not to overvalue your points if you're not going to actually spend that much, but we play the game in order to get those luxurious experiences. And so the point is that you'll still get them. I think I make the point about the low category places also, because in a lot of chains, I think you can look at like the St. Regis Bora Bora or, you know, the Maldives or whatever and say, oh, you can get X amount of cents per point in Marriott value,

except, you know, sure, if you were going to spend that much on those places and at the places that people are more likely to stay more often, you're not going to get anywhere near as much value, right? It's easier to cherry pick the places that are super expensive and say, oh, you can still get four or five cents, but with Hyatt, it's consistent. You know, you can still get very good value two or more at, at basically any category with a lot of places. So, and the certificates, you know, are disappointing, but I'm not someone who ever like collected a lot of certificates. And the nice thing is that there are quite a few places in Europe that look good that are coming from category five to four.

So if you like to travel to Europe, then I think the category changes might be a net positive for you. So that's good. Including a castle you've stayed at. That's right. That's right. The Schloss Hotel Kronberg outside of Frankfurt. It's like 20 minutes from the airport.

You rent a car and drive and stay in a castle. I mean, that was a pretty cool place. The golf course there was designed by Dwight Eisenhower because that became an officer's club during World War II. So it's got some history and it's a castle. It's kind of fun. So, I mean, that's great. In your review, I remember reading that you were kind of hesitant to book it

because the point value wasn't that great. It wasn't that expensive to stay there if you just paid, and so you weren't getting the best value. But now that it's come down to category four, not only is that improved, assuming cash rates are around the same, improved the point value, it means you can use those category one to four certs at a place like this where, you know, in general, I'm going to speak for both of us here. We're happy to get lower point value just to get a solid redemption at all with these certificates because you want to make sure you stay somewhere that you've enjoyed and, you know, use those certificates before they expire, especially if they're from Chase. Right, right, right, right. Yeah. And I mean, at that property was, I think that at the time I stayed, it was like 220 euros a night. So it's

like, I don't know, 230, 250, something like that, which wasn't a great value at 20,000 points, but for a category one to four free night certificate that you got by paying the $75 annual fee, that's a great deal, right? You know? Or even one that you got from 15K spend on the card, that's still a great deal. So that's nice. And we didn't mention in the things that haven't changed with Hyatt is also the ability to book guest of honor stays for other people and to gift things to other people because you can gift those free night certificates we discovered. So that could be something where like my wife has, for instance, the World of Hyatt card. And so I think she should be able to gift a certificate. We haven't tried this yet, but gift a certificate

to me and book. So we could put together multiple certificates is what I'm saying to book a place. I've done that in my household. And that way, you have the person who doesn't have top tier elite status gifted to someone who does, and that person books the stay and you get all elite benefits. If you're using points, you sort of can go the other way. So if, you know, let's say you have a friend who has top tier Hyatt Elite status and you don't, you can send that person your points. There's no cost to do that. There is a limit to how much can be done. But that person then can book that awards day for you as a guest of honor and you'll get all the elite benefits, including free parking and free breakfast and so on. And potentially it'll be upgraded to a suite at check-in. You're not

going to be able to confirm it in advance, but you get upgraded at check-in, which happens in some places still. My sister at this moment is enjoying a guest of honor stay that I booked for her as a present. So yes, it's a fantastic feature. So I think we over-answered this question, didn't we? Right. No, it's not time to jump ship. The time to jump ship is going to be two years from now when they get rid of the award chart. Right now is the time to stay on board while they still have an award chart and enjoy it while it lasts because I can't imagine it will stay forever. So enjoy it now. Oh, boy. I hope I'm wrong.

I suspect you're right, but I sure hope you're wrong. Me too. Me too. So enjoy it while it lasts, folks. All right. So then I think that brings us to the post-roast. Post-roast time. I'm ready this week the post roast. Post roast time. I'm ready this week.

All right. I'm ready. What do you have? So you published a post with the best places in the United States to use your category one to four free night certificates. We just been talking about this, the Hyatt category one to four free night certificates. My roast is that in that list, you included the Hotel Nyack, which is in New York State, just north of New York City.

But my roast is because it's a category two, Greg, it's only 8,000 points per night. Why is that in a list of the best places to use your category one to four free night certificate? That's a waste of a one to four, isn't it? You're only getting 8,000 points in value. Would you sell your category one to four certificate for 8,000 points? I don't think so. It doesn't belong in the list. True. It doesn't, but. Oh, I thought you'd argue with me. I thought you'd argue back. No, no, no. Um, but, but, uh, you know, it, it, the, the post serves,

serves multiple purposes. And, and so it also serves as a, as a good way to document like the, the gems that are the sort of low cost Hyatt gems out there. And that's one of them. The Hyatt place, I think it is Moab was another one that was category two that was also listed in that post before I updated it because it's now slated to hop two categories to category four when the changes roll out on March 22nd. But luckily, it's going to become a perfect candidate for the post that it was already in. All right. Because it's not leaving category four.

So I suspect that the same will happen with Hotel Nyack, whatever it's called. But I'm going to give the answer that you should have given to that the response you should have given and that is oh okay it's category two so yes it's 8 000 points per night standard but peak it's 9 500 you were hoping to cash in your certificate for 10 000 points so it's basically the same thing right i mean it's like that's a good point so if you're booking it at a peak time anyway the nice thing about those one to fours is they can be used at peak time. So it's not a terrible use.

It's a better use than letting it expire and having Hyatt tell you you can't get anything for the certificate. Right. It's a way better use. And that property is frequently expensive enough that that's a good, a solid value for you. Right. Right. I mean, shoot, I'd rather use it at an off peak category one. Let it go unused at all.

I mean, you'd at least earn an elite night. Right. Right. Right. Right. So I got nothing. Yeah.

Yeah. Ouch. Ouch. Yeah. All right. So we're done with the poster. I don't have a, I don't have a poster.

That's what I like to hear. You're safe. Question of the week. Great question came in via email this week. So this came in from a friend of mine who was asking about a car rental CDW coverage. And so he had forwarded me a message from someone else. And I'm going to condense a little bit. This person said three weeks ago, they were renting a car. No, I take that back. This is they were not renting a car yet. Three weeks ago, his wife clipped a mailbox and broke her passenger side outside mirror. I went to the dealer's body shop and learned that I cannot even get a repair estimate until March 23rd.

And they might not be able to replace the mirror until sometime in June if they can get the part because of employee absences, labor shortage, shortage of auto parts, et cetera. Last week, went to Florida and rented a car while flying. I recalled horror stories about rental car companies charging loss of use if a car is damaged during your rental. So the question went on to eventually say that they paid for a CDW at the counter because they contacted credit card issuers, including Amex and Visa, and both verified that they would not cover the loss of use charges. Now, I don't know which cards this person had. Let's add that in there. Based on my experience trying to get a mirror replaced before I die, I could see how I might end up paying for six

months of a car rental company's lost income if the car sustained significant damage. And you know, the rental car companies are earning a lot right now. So if they're out the car for months at a time, that could be really expensive. So question of the week is which cards, if any, will cover loss of use if your car rental gets damaged? So I don't even understand that. What does that mean? Loss of use, they can't rent the car out. So if you damage it, so, and this certainly does happen.

This is not just a thing that somebody made up. So yeah, if you damage the car, right? Obviously you're gonna have to pay for the repair to the car. But if the repair takes a while, the rental car company also charges you for loss of use because they can't rent that out to somebody else. Now I understand. Okay. So, so that's, so, so the relation, I was getting confused because you had that whole story about the, the mirror. Yes. I realized, which is just

an example, right. Of why it could take a long time for a car to get fixed. I read it quickly the first time. And I was thinking it was a loss of use. And that's why I, I didn't realize until I was reading it the second time around that I was like, Oh, actually, this was a personal one. That was an example. I realized that as I was reading it. So yeah. Can I go back and roast your question? Oh, yeah. Too late. So the point is it takes forever right now to get a car fixed. And I mean, I can vouch for that because I've had a few repairs that had to get done recently too. And, you know, waiting for parts and everything else, finding parts has been more difficult than in years past. So, all right. So, so you better be prepared with the answer. Cause I don't think you expect me to know off the top of my head, which I didn't think you, I didn't know off the top of my head. I was

like, Oh, that's a good question. I, I assume that it covers everything that the rental car company is going to charge you, but I didn't know. So I had to look into it. And sure enough, I found that the chase cards with primary CDW coverage, at least the ones I checked and I checked the Sapphire reserve, the Ritz card and the Sapphire preferred. And all of those included loss of use charged by the rental car company. And I also checked the VentureX card, the Capital One VentureX and also that included loss of use. So now I kind of want to go through it because when I Googled it,

I actually had a hard time finding good information about it. I found some articles that mentioned that your credit card might cover loss of use or might not. And so it wasn't very clear to me. And obviously this person had contacted two credit card issuers, Amex and Chase.

Now, again, I don't know which cards they had. So it's very possible that they have a card that doesn't cover a primary CDW. But anyway, I'm curious now to go through the airline co-brand cards that have primary CDW and other issuers and see, do they cover this? Because that really is a true concern. Because that person who asked the question went on to say, unless someone has better information, my advice is to avoid renting a car at all, if possible. But if not possible, grit your teeth and pay for the supplemental coverage at the counter. And when I read that, I cringed a little bit. I was like, no, no, don't pay for the coverage at the counter.

But then I was like, well, I don't know. Do they cover it? Well, apparently they do. So make sure you're using a card that covers primary CDW and check your guide to benefits. And that's what I did. I Googled for the guide to benefits for the various cards and started taking a look and found the loss of use provisions. So you are covered there.

So this is something we should probably add to, you know, we have that ultra premium car or not car ultra premium travel protections post where we compare all the ultra premium cards. That's where I first found that the Sapphire reserve and the Ritz card, which have the same coverage for travel protections, um, were like head and shoulders above every other one. And, and, and that's, and I said that in response to the email, I said, I, we always book rental cars on either my wife's Sapphire Reserve or my Ritz card. That's like those are the only two cards we use for rentals.

But luckily, like as you mentioned, Capital One and Amex has improved their automatic coverages. So they're still not on par with Chase's top ones, but they're still, they're pretty good. And so if we add to that post, um, this loss of use aspect, that, that could be a good, a good addition, but I do want to mention that at the top of that post are links to the guides to benefits for each of the cards that are covered in posts. So you can check yourself there. Makes sense too. Very good. All right. Well, that brings us to the end. I want to thank everybody out there for listening today. If you enjoyed this and you'd like to get our posts in your inbox each day, you want to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe. Again, that's frequentmiler.com

slash subscribe to get on our email list. You can follow us on social media and join our frequent miler insiders, Facebook group. If you've got a question that you want to ask or some feedback, because you want to be featured on the giant mailbag segment or on the question of the week, you can send that to mailbag at frequentmiler.com. Again, that's mailbag at frequent miler.com. Thank you guys very much. Wherever you're listening to this, by the way, I always mentioned this, please subscribe, like, leave us a comment, leave us a review. We appreciate all of those things because it helps other people discover this show as well. Thank you. And we will see you guys again next week. Thanks everybody. Bye-bye.