Hyatt and American Airlines Partnership Now Offers Reciprocal Elite Status and Other Benefits

by Anthony Losanno
Hyatt American

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Hyatt and American Airlines have been partners for several years. Members were able to earn bonus points and miles as well as status match challenges. Today, the two companies announced that they are making significant updates to the partnership and offering new benefits such as elite status, free nights, and more to members of both World of Hyatt and American AAdvantage®.

Members who link their accounts will be able to take advantage of new benefits starting in January.

Anmol Bhargava, American’s Vice President of Partnerships, said:

AAdvantage® makes travel even better for our most loyal customers whether it is with priority benefits and preferred seating or booking a Hyatt hotel stay using miles. Through our relationship with World of Hyatt, our members can unlock more meaningful rewards and choose to redeem miles for what’s most valuable to them during their travels.”

Laurie Blair, Vice President of Global Marketing at Hyatt, added:

As our member base continues to grow, we are evolving this strategic airline-hotel relationship to align with what today’s travelers want – more choices, increased redemption abilities and status opportunities. World of Hyatt has been redefining loyalty by adding more choice and ease of use for experiences that are more meaningful for our members. We believe in the transformative power of travel, and the evolution of this relationship gives our members more opportunities to enhance their travel journeys with experiences that matter most to them.”

airplanes on the runway

New American AAdvantage® Benefits:

  • Free Night Awards: Starting January 2nd, AAdvantage® members can redeem miles for World of Hyatt Free Night Awards:
    • Category 1-4 Free Night Award: At 40,000 Loyalty Points or the AAdvantage Gold® level, AAdvantage® members can redeem miles for a World of Hyatt Category 1–4 Free Night Award.
    • Category 1-7 Free Night Award: At 125,000 Loyalty Points or the AAdvantage Platinum® level, AAdvantage® members can redeem miles for a World of Hyatt Category 1–7 Free Night Award.
  • New AAdvantage® Loyalty Point Rewards: Beginning March 1st, World of Hyatt awards will be a choice at different levels of Loyalty Point earning:
    • Discoverist Status: AAdvantage® members unlock World of Hyatt Discoverist status at 100,000 Loyalty Points
    • Explorist Status: AAdvantage® members can choose World of Hyatt Explorist status at the 175,000 and 250,000 Loyalty Points Reward levels
    • Category 1-4 Free Night Award: This can be selected at the 400,000, 550,000 and 750,000 Loyalty Points Reward levels
    • Category 1-7 Free Night Award: This can be selected at the one million, three million, and five million Loyalty Point Reward levels

World of Hyatt

New World of Hyatt Benefits:

  • World of Hyatt Milestone Reward Choices: Beginning January 1st, AAdvantage® rewards will be a choice within the World of Hyatt Milestone Rewards at almost every milestone. These include:
    • Preferred Seat Coupons: At 20 and 30 nights or 35,000 and 50,000 base points respectively, World of Hyatt members can choose two (2) Preferred seat coupons on American Airlines flights.
    • Main Cabin Extra Seat Coupons: At 40 and 50 nights or 65,000 and 80,000 base points respectively, World of Hyatt members can choose two (2) Main Cabin Extra seat coupons on American Airlines flights.
    • Gold Status: At 70, 80, and 90 nights respectively, World of Hyatt members will get the choice of AAdvantage Gold® status, valid for the full status membership year.
    • Platinum Status: Starting at 100 nights, World of Hyatt members will get the choice of AAdvantage Platinum® status, valid for the full status membership year.
  • AAdvantage® Status for a Day: Starting January 1st, World of Hyatt Explorist and Globalist members can unlock the ability to redeem World of Hyatt points for AAdvantage® Status for a Day:
      • AAdvantage Gold® Status for a Day: This costs 5,000 World of Hyatt points
      • AAdvantage Platinum® Status for a Day:This costs 8,000 World of Hyatt points
      • AAdvantage Platinum Pro® Status for a Day:This costs 12,000 World of Hyatt points

With these new benefits comes the elimination of the ability for linked status members to earn AAdvantage® miles and World of Hyatt Bonus Points at the same time. This will end on December 31st. World of Hyatt members will continue to be able to transfer World of Hyatt points to AAdvantage® miles and access exclusive offers.

Anthony’s Take: I liked the ability to earn miles and points from both programs simultaneously. The free nights and status are nice additions. I would not spend World of Hyatt points on status for a day as I would rather redeem them for hotel nights.

(Image Credits: Hyatt and American Airlines.)

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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.

3 comments

Erndog October 9, 2024 - 1:34 pm

Is this just clickbait bullshit or did I miss the part about ‘reciprocal elite status’?

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Frankfurt Airport Lufthansa
Anthony Losanno October 9, 2024 - 1:38 pm

American status can be chosen as a benefit at 70,80, 90, and 100 nights with Hyatt. Hyatt status can be chosen as a benefit at 100,000 and 175,000 Loyalty Points.

Reply
Paul T. October 9, 2024 - 2:13 pm

It’s amazing how much detail is put into these point choice awards and all of it is useless. I can’t believe either company paid to have this garbage generated. The only potential useful items are at night stays levels higher than Hyatt’s globalist status, and vice versa loyalty point levels higher than EP. Anyone at these levels is not going to care about these choices as they will already have them from traveling so much in both programs. Most of these are like thanks for price of candy after I bought a case of Dom. The real news is eliminating the reciprocal earning while “hey look at this garbage we are giving you”.

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