Hyatt Is Altering Its Loyalty Program to Battle Abuse

As travel loyalty programs have evolved over the last half dozen years, the option to book award rooms or flights with a combination of points and miles has become increasingly common. The upside: Adding more flexibility to a loyalty program makes it easier for anyone to use the service. As Hyatt learned late last month, however, the downside is that "cash + points" transactions can also be difficult to manage. Until last week, the World of Hyatt loyalty program had a feature that allowed members to book award rooms with cash and points by simply billing members half the typical number of award points for the room and then charging a tiered fee for the rest of the rate, depending on the hotel's category. What many found out, however, was that many of those combinations created amazingly good deals for many rooms in the hotel's portfolio, especially when rates were high from events like conferen