American and Hyatt Launch Reciprocal Benefits for Elite Loyalty Members
Photo Credit: Hyatt Regency in San Antonio, Texas, on July 9, 2017. Flickr / Phil Roeder
Skift Take
It's been a long time since frequent travelers have seen a promotion as plainly altruistic as the new partnership between American and Hyatt.
Elite members of American's AAdvantage and Hyatt's World of Hyatt loyalty programs will soon be able to earn reciprocal benefits. In a partnership announced last week, elite members of the AAdvantage program will soon be able to earn miles when booking Hyatt hotels while World of Hyatt members will earn points when booking on American.
Challenges, like giving opposing loyalty members a fast track to elite status, are also on the radar. An Executive Platinum member on American, for example, will soon get a shortcut to earning Globalist status on Hyatt.
For a while it seemed that partnerships like this were going the way of the dodo. Crossover Rewards, the reciprocal program famously employed by Delta and Starwood, went pear-shaped in 2018 when the Marriott and Starwood loyalt
