World of Hyatt Tier Status Extensions For Members in Asia-Pacific Now Processed, Others To Follow?

About a month ago World of Hyatt has announced that they will extend the tier status for those members with registered accounts in Asia-Pacific for an additional year due to the Coronavirus situation.

These extensions have now been processed and with the crisis having escalated to a global scale since Hyatt's last announcement there could be a chance this campaign will be extended worldwide soon.

Customers whose status would normally expire on February 28, 2021 will now be extended until the following year: February 28, 2022.

Here is how it looks on my account now:

The current Coronavirus related lockdowns of following the export of the virus from mainland China has first impacted travelers in Asia and will likely continue to do so for the remainder of this year. With many other countries now following, the lockdown principle being adopted and air traffic dropping up to 80% for some carriers this has now escalated to a global scale.

Hyatt was the first hotel chain that has publicly announced it will extend the tier status for those World of Hyatt members residing in Asia (myself included) as well as "global members who travel frequently to the Asia Pacific region" without giving a definition of the latter.

The information has been published on their Coronavirus Status page ( access here).

I n response to the COVID-19 situation, World of Hyatt will be offering members residing in the Asia Pacific region a series of tier status and benefits extensions, including:

t
• Qualifying World of Hyatt Discoverist, Explorist and Globalist members will now have a new tier expiration of February 28, 2022 - rather than February 28, 2021 - to maintain their elite tier status and benefits.
t
• Currently valid Suite Upgrade Awards, Club Access Awards and Free Night Awards that expire in 2020 for qualifying members will be extended through December 31, 2021.

World of Hyatt is also working to evaluate tier and benefit extensions for global members who travel frequently to the Asia Pacific region. More information will be shared with qualifying members as it becomes available.

World of Hyatt expects to have qualifying members' accounts updated to reflect the extension of elite tier status and award validity March 31, 2020. This will be effectuated by the World of Hyatt team - members do not need to take any action. Furthermore, qualifying members will receive information regarding these updates through email, My Hyatt Concierge, WeChat communications and more.

If members still have questions regarding their tier status, they can contact the nearest Hyatt Global Contact Center, reach Hyatt via WeChat (WeChat ID: HyattHotels) or email worldofhyatt@hyatt.com.

It's definitely commendable that Hyatt looks out for their customers this way. At the same time I would imagine that a substantial part of the hotel chains business is slowly going away, both in Asia and worldwide following the collapse of business travel.

I wouldn't be surprised if Hyatt and other chains are going to roll out a blanket status extension for all elite members this year. For now these policies are all limited in terms of members residence and reduced requirements (IHG) but I have a feeling that won't cut it. The situation in terms of impact on the travel industry has escalated in the last few weeks since the chains rolled out their policies with the most severe impact being the U.S. travel restriction on travelers with a travel history to central Europe.

Has your Hyatt status updated yet?