The Real Cost of an Award in a Fully Booked Hotel
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my awesome score of an award room at the Hyatt on Main in Green Bay. This hotel has been sold out for months due to the Packers game, but for some reason a few rooms opened up for a brief moment including one that I could book on points.
The cash rate for the night of my stay was $356.90 including tax, but since the property is a category 1, it only cost me 5,000 points! It is one of my best value Hyatt redemptions for sure, but how much does Hyatt actually pay the hotel for my room?
The Actual Bill
Normally guests don’t ever get to see that information, however I was sent the actual bill by mistake. Here is what it looks like:
I have read various reports over the years that hotels have a fixed compensation schedule (i.e. Hyatt pays them the same for every award stay), except when the hotel is full or close to full. This makes sense since they could actually have sold my room for quite a lot of money. When they are not full, the room is worth a lot less.
In this case the hotel was sold out, so Hyatt ended up paying quite a lot for my stay. The room charge was $210.34 with an additional $31.55 in taxes. Based on what I have been told in the past, that amount is based on the average room rate for the night. It is a nice hotel, but I am not sure it is worth $200-$300 per night. Sorry Hyatt!
Conclusion
I always love to see behind the scenes stuff like this. While I knew that my award redemption was valuable, I wasn’t sure just how valuable it was in terms of real cash outlay. Hyatt doesn’t make a living by paying almost 5 cents per point on redemptions, but that is a side effect of offering all base level rooms for points redemptions. This time I came out ahead, although I am sure there have been other times where I overpaid!
Have you ever seen this information for Hyatt or another loyalty program? Let me know in the comments!
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[…] This Is How Much Hyatt Paid the Hotel for my Recent Sold Out Award Redemption (Hint: It’s A Lot!) […]
I checked out the room rates for the upcoming Sunday, way lower. No home game for the Packers, I’m guessing. IMHO, one factor for those suddenly available room is some fans decided to drive or fly, instead of an overnight stay.
I was curious if/what Hyatt pays the property for Diamond Breakfast and or Regency club access. Has anyone come across that?
what’s the trick to redeem a fully booked hotel using points, by sheer luck?
Shawn,
Really love your blog on most days, but this kind of post really adds very little and mostly gets in the face of loyalty programs (especially the headline). Indirectly, it does contribute to the speed of devaluations as execs are people and respond viscerally to these kinds of headlines. I would suggest that at least you leave the program’s name out of the headline, and say something like ‘Huge value with points when hotels almost sold out’.
Leave the blogger alone. Post is interesting and fine. You’re paranoid and one step below a bully. Go elsewhere if you don’t like it. Ridiculous.
Jig, I found your post very reasonable and just fine. Extremely very far from “one step below a bully,” as Kent C suggested.
I think Jig gives the blogger more credit and power than he actually wields. Not a knock on the blogger because he has great posts but I don’t think he receives the kind of attention that the New York Times or yes, even FT generates. He didn’t disclose the world’s best kept secret either. I guess your comment could be taken as a sincere compliment now that I think about it.
Thanks Kent and I am glad there is a good discussion. I don’t have anything to say about your comments either way other than my name is Shawn. I am not “The blogger”!