Can Status Matched Explorists Earn 8 Lounge Certificates This Year?
I saw an interesting data point on lounge access certs over at Middle Aged Miles. If you remember I discussed how status matching from MGM Gold (or higher) to Hyatt Explorist would get you 4 lounge certs. But you had to do it before March 1st because of the World of Hyatt program changes. With these changes it would no longer possible to earn lounge certs via status matching, you would have to put in the nights. Hyatt also said that if you earn the 4 lounge certificates before March you would be ineligible from earning the 4 for reaching 20 and 30 nights (2 at each milestone) during the year. It appears that may not be the case.
Could You End Up With 8 Lounge Certs?
We all know that things don’t always work the way the rules intend them to. I had hoped that would be the case for the IHG 20% points purchase discount but it wasn’t. It seems that it is the case this time around, and it is working in our favor.
Craig recently completed 20 stays with Hyatt and he also did the status match at the beginning of the year. He received 4 lounge certs when completing the status match but he was just awarded 2 more certs for reaching 20 nights on the year. That was not the way it was supposed to work. It does seem likely that he will get 2 more certs at 30 nights too. That would give him a total of 8 lounge certs earned this year. The great thing is that World of Hyatt Lounge certs have generous expiration dates. They last for close to two years. That makes these extra certs pretty valuable.
Conclusion
This doesn’t appear to be the way World of Hyatt intended for the program to work. Will they adjust this or just let it go? That remains to be seen. But if it works out in our favor going forward that could be a nice bonus for many of us. Lounge access can be a huge money saver at places like the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar.
Source: Middle Aged Miles
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I did status match and got 4 plus the 4 for requalifying explorist 🙂 till 2020
Awesome!
Hi Mark – Many thanks for the shout out. I’d add to my DP from the article by saying that I received an email from Hyatt confirming the 2 additional Club access awards earned at 20 nights. I’ll add a screenshot of the email to my article when we get home from Italy in a couple of days. You’re right, the Club access awards can make all the difference at some of the top-end Hyatts.
Saved my wife close to $100 a day when her and her friend were in Nassau. Awesome value and worth chasing if you know you will use them in some expensive places for sure.