[Unsubstantiated Rumor] New Chase Park Hyatt Card ($795 Annual Fee), Category 9 & 10 Properties And More

File this under unsubstantiated rumors that I can see being true but an anonymous reddit user just made a post on the Hyatt subreddit regarding some major changes to the program. 

Chase Park Hyatt Premium Card

• $795 annual fee
• 100,000 point sign up bonus
• Automatic explorist status
• Annual category 1 to 5 certificate 
• 20 qualifying nights deposited at start of year
• 10 qualifying nights for every $15,000 in spend
• Earn Globalist with an additional 20 qualifying nights (“Important distinction: Globalist earned through the card will function similarly to a corporate status match. Members receive full tier benefits, but Milestone Rewards such as confirmed Suite Upgrade Awards and My Hyatt Concierge will not trigger until 60 qualifying nights are actually earned through stays and spend.”)
• $400 in Hyatt statement credits  ($200 credit twice annually)
• Chase Sapphire and Priority Pass lounge access
• Card earns at the following rates:
  • 10x earn at Hyatt
  • 3x dining
  • 3x direct airline bookings

Category Changes

• Introduction of new category 9 and 10 properties
• Category 9: 50,000 points per night (standard pricing)
• Category 10: 60,000 points per night (standard pricing)
• Very few properties will be 9/10 at launch (possible only category 10 property will be Park Hyatt Kyoto at launch and most category 9 will be Park Hyatt)
• Free night certificates will be upgraded (e.g 1 to 4 becomes 1 to 5)
• Ability to top off certificates will be formalized:
  • Explorists will be able to top off a 1 to 5 certificate up to a Category 7 property.
  • Globalists will be able to top off a 1 to 5 or 1 to 8 certificate at any property.
• Amount charged for topping off a certificate will be based on the standard redemption rate. 
• Introduction of ‘super peak’ for select service properties. Cap of 10 super peak nights per property per calendar year.
  • “Instead of traditional peak award bands, pricing during those windows will be tied to a fixed 1.5 cents per point floor until it reaches the peak pricing of two categories higher than the hotel’s assigned category.”

     

  • “Example: If a Category 3 Hyatt Place is retailing at 450 dollars during a major event, redemption pricing would float to 23,000 points, which reflects Category 5 peak pricing and remains below what a strict 1.5 cents per point calculation would otherwise produce.”

Our Verdict

Chase has sent out a survey regarding a premium Hyatt card before but that was with a much lower annual fee than this. Recently it was announced that Chase & Hyatt would be launching more cards. March is generally when award category changes from Hyatt are made as well.

The timing aligns but obviously anybody that was going to go to the trouble of making something like this up would normally try to make it believable as well. I suspect if this is true the leaks are coming from Hyatt rather than Chase. In any case I really enjoy wildly speculating on things that might not even be real.