If Hyatt buys Starwood (Update: Marriott will buy Starwood)

[BarryNTexas]

It will be interesting to see how the rewards programs are handled.  Combined or maintained separate?   

I like both so probably won't affect me and I use the Hyatt Chase and SPG Amex for travel as favorites.

[jsucool76]

It would probably be a slow integration brand by brand. They'd have to pull all of the spg elites in, and with the different elite levels spg has (like 15 tiers of Platinum lol) it would be odd to see everyone lumped in as a diamond. Hyatt might need to make another elite level above diamond.


Hopefully they don't keep both programs separate though, like what ihg and Kempton are doing.

Also curious to see what would happen to the spg airline transfer program, as it is one of the strongest pieces of starwoods rewards program

[CreditCuriosity]

Is there talks of Hyatt buying Starwood out there?

[Anonymous]

---

@jsucool76 wrote:
It would probably be a slow integration brand by brand. They'd have to pull all of the spg elites in, and with the different elite levels spg has (like 15 tiers of Platinum lol) it would be odd to see everyone lumped in as a diamond. Hyatt might need to make another elite level above diamond.


Hopefully they don't keep both programs separate though, like what ihg and Kempton are doing.

Also curious to see what would happen to the spg airline transfer program, as it is one of the strongest pieces of starwoods rewards program

---

Are u sure about this? Someone I know at a kimpton property says they will eventually be merged.

[jsucool76]

Eventually doesn't solve anything currently though. Ihg acquired Kimpton almost a year ago and there hasn't been any news I've heard about.

[Anonymous]

I thought Starwood was thinking about buying IHG.

The footprint of IHG with the reward chart of Hyatt would be very nice...but it's all speculation.

[jsucool76]

It's Hyatt and spg. Not ihg. XD

[Anonymous]

There's some company "ILG" that is buying "Vistana" from Starwood, but it doesn't look like Vistana is a big piece of Starwood.

[mongstradamus]

I haven't really been following this hyatt potential buying of spg, but would that mean that hyatt points would have same value as spg  because that would be quite an big deal since spg are probably worth the most out of any of the miles currencies out there. 

[Imperfectfuture]

From my analyst:

"Shares of Starwood are significantly outperforming the market this morning amid news that the company is in talks to be sold to Hyatt Hotels (H:NYSE)".

Though I don't own HOT, this was the catalyst they were looking for. The deal is not finalized, so any speculation would be extremely premature.