Hyatt and American Airlines Shake Up Partnership With Unique New Benefits

When was the last time you saw a truly novel innovation in award travel? It’s not often, but World of Hyatt and American Airlines AAdvantage are doing just that with changes to their partnership.

Changes will start to roll out on January 1, 2025, and highlights include the ability to choose Hyatt benefits as loyalty rewards within your American Airlines profile and vice versa.

“From takeoff to turndown,” here’s what is coming, including numerous positives in exchange for 1 negative change.

Updates to American Airlines and World of Hyatt Partnership

World of Hyatt and American Airlines AAdvantage already have a partnership. That isn’t new. With the current partnership, you can link your Hyatt and American Airlines accounts to enjoy reciprocal benefits.

Current partnership benefits include earning 1 World of Hyatt bonus point for every qualifying $1 spent on American Airlines flights if you have any level of Hyatt elite status. On the other side, you can earn 1 AAdvantage bonus mile for every $1 spent on qualifying Hyatt stays and experiences if you’re an AAdvantage elite member. Those come on top of your normal earnings from stays and flights within the respective programs.

“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,” said Laurie Blair, vice president of global marketing at Hyatt.

Sadly, those dual earnings are ending on December 31, 2024. Something much bigger for this partnership will launch on January 1, 2025.

In 2025, the partnership will offer deeper, more personalized benefits. You’ll be able to choose American Airlines benefits within Hyatt’s Milestone Rewards and Hyatt perks within AA’s Loyalty Point Rewards. Let’s take a closer look.

World of Hyatt Updates

Adding AA Choices to Hyatt Milestone Rewards

Right off the bat, we want to make it clear that none of your current Milestone Rewards choices are going away. Instead, you’re gaining more options. Starting at 20 nights, you’ll see options for things like seat upgrades or even AAdvantage elite status.

New Hyatt Milestone Rewards choices include:

Redeem Hyatt Points for AA Status for a Day

Starting on January 1, it will be possible to redeem your Hyatt points for a day’s worth of American Airlines elite status, assuming you have Explorist or Globalist status. If you have multiple upcoming AA flights, you will be able to choose which date and flights you want to apply this benefit to.

Redemptions will require the following numbers of points:

• Gold Status for a Day: 5,000 Hyatt points
• Platinum Status for a Day: 8,000 Hyatt points
• Platinum Pro Status for a Day: 12,000 Hyatt points

This temporary status will come with all of the respective benefits on American Airlines flights, such as complimentary checked bags, upgraded eligibility, priority boarding, priority check-in, and more. When pressed for details about how this will work in practice, Hyatt representatives said those details need to be worked out. For example, will this status show on your boarding pass?

American Airlines AAdvantage Updates

Adding Hyatt Benefits for AAdvantage Members

Starting on January 2, 2025 (yes, a day later than some other benefits), American Airlines members will be able to unlock the ability to redeem AAdvantage miles for Hyatt free night awards:

We value AAdvantage miles at 1.4 cents apiece. That means 25,000 miles are worth $350, and 65,000 miles are worth $910. For these redemptions to be worth it, you’ll need to redeem for hotel stays worth more than those numbers.

AA Loyalty Point Rewards Updates Coming on March 1, 2025

If you aren’t aware, American Airlines AAdvantage runs its membership year from March to February — not the calendar year. Once the new membership year starts on March 1, 2025, you’ll see additional options in the AA Loyalty Point Rewards.

Again, current choices aren’t going away. Instead, you’ll have options for these Hyatt-related benefits:

Notice that top-tier Hyatt Globalist status isn’t an option here. However, American’s ConciergeKey members will continue to receive Globalist status after linking their Hyatt and AA accounts.

What’s Not Changing?

The closer link-up between American and Hyatt won’t spell the end of elevated status promotions, which is good news. Instant Status Pass offers should continue to go out to targeted members.

Moreover, the ability to convert Hyatt points into American Airlines miles isn’t changing. Neither the availability of this feature nor the transfer ratio will be different. That said, the 5:2 transfer ratio typically isn’t worth it for most people.

Final Thoughts

Yes, this is a lot to digest. The partnership between American Airlines and Hyatt is getting closer, offering something truly unique: earning airline perks with your hotel stays and hotel perks with your airline activity. You’ll be able to customize your rewards like never before.

There’s an obvious tradeoff: Choosing these new perks means giving up on other perks you might’ve picked instead, and it signals the loss of dual earnings from your travels. People who don’t intend to make any of these cross-program reward choices will probably mourn the loss of dual earnings, but we imagine many others will love the expanded choices in 2025.