If you ever do the points vs. cash calculations and figure out that the stay you want to book makes more sense to book with cash rather than with points, remember the Hyatt Privé program! (It’s like “Remember the Alamo,” but with free breakfast instead of a bloody battle and lots of death. . . . and I’m already on a tangent and it’s just the first paragraph. Sorry!)

What is the Hyatt Privé program?

Hyatt Privé is a program that travel advisors (or travel agents) can enroll in so they can reserve paid Hyatt bookings for their clients that get their clients extra benefits during their stays. In most cases, the travel advisors don’t charge the client anything because the travel advisors make a commission from Hyatt. So the benefit to the client is that they can book a paid Hyatt stay and get some extras included that wouldn’t normally be included in their paid rate.

What are the benefits?

The benefits that come with a Privé booking have some overlap with Hyatt Globalist benefits, but they don’t mirror each other exactly. The following chart outlines Privé benefits:

• The property credit varies by property. We’re staying at the Hyatt Regency Kyoto on a Privé booking and will receive a $100 property credit per room, but I was told that other properties could give credits from $50 to $150, depending on their individual policies.
• The breakfast benefit from a Privé booking is for two guests per bedroom, but the Globalist breakfast benefit is for up to two adults and two children, so if someone is traveling with kids and they’re all staying in one room, the Globalist benefit would cover everyone’s breakfast and the Privé benefit alone would not. (But from what I’ve read, it sounds like a Globalist booking through the Privé program would get whatever the best benefit they were entitled to is, so it wouldn’t hurt.) Because the rules say it’s two guests “per bedroom,” that also makes me think that four people staying in a two-bedroom suite would all get breakfast included.
• Sometimes there are also promotions where a Hyatt Privé booking for three nights will include a fourth night for free; this is something your Privé advisor will tell you if they see it available in their system when they start your booking.
• One significant point to note is that Hyatt Globalists get free parking on award stays and booking through the Privé program does not include free parking because it’s a paid stay. So if you’re a Globalist, you will be forfeiting free parking by booking any paid stay, whether it’s through the Privé program or not.

What else do I need to know?

The basic rules of making a Hyatt Privé booking through a travel advisor are these:

• The nightly rate you pay for your room is the standard rate. So if there’s a cheaper rate available to World of Hyatt members, or people who pay in advance, or both, you wouldn’t get that rate. But sometimes those rates are pretty similar, so it might not be a big deal compared to what benefits you get. For example, for our Hyatt Regency Kyoto stay, these were the prices we could have paid out of pocket for two rooms per night:

• The standard rate was about $18 more per night than the Members Advance Purchase rate, which would break down to $9 per person extra. For that $9 per person, we’d be getting breakfast, a room upgrade, a property credit, a welcome amenity—the whole Privé shebang. When I looked up the hotel’s breakfast buffet price, it was about $30 per person. That math made it clear that booking through Privé was worth it to us, so we can have the convenience of having breakfast at the hotel before we go out for the day, a bigger hotel room, and all the other benefits this booking will get us.

• You can only make a Hyatt Privé booking for a stay you are paying for out of pocket. Award stays can’t be booked this way.
• Not all Hyatt properties allow Hyatt Privé bookings. The brands that do are:

• Some properties have a minimum number of nights you have to stay when making a Privé booking.

• You’ll still earn points and earn qualifying nights with Hyatt Privé bookings. Because you’re booking through a Hyatt-affiliated travel advisor and not a third-party travel portal, you still get all your normal Hyatt benefits and earnings.

Okay, so how do I make a Hyatt Privé booking?

I found a Hyatt Privé expert at Travelmore Con in 2023—Connie Wang, who presented a conference session all about it. Connie was able to get our Kyoto hotel booking set up in no time and I’d recommend her if you’re interested in a Privé booking.

If you find yourself looking to make an out-of-pocket Hyatt booking at one of the properties that participates in the Hyatt Privé program, check out this option to see if you can get some great benefits for not much extra cost. If the math makes sense, then you’re in for an even better trip than you might have thought!