Hyatt launches ‘The Unbound Collection’, a new brand for independent hotels
Links on Head for Points may support the site by paying a commission. See here for all partner links.
A hotel executive with a major UK group told me recently that she isn’t primarily bothered about other chains these days. What keeps her up at night is the behaviour of the major online travel groups, primarily Expedia and Priceline / booking.com, who between them pose a far bigger threat to her profitability.
If it is bad for the chains, think about what life is like as an independent hotel, even a successful one. This is why we have seen the rise of Marriott’s Autograph Collection, the Starwood Tribute Collection and Hilton’s Curio Collection.
These groups – of which only Autograph has critical mass – allow independent hotels to be bookable via the website of a major chain and gain some ‘protection’ in rate negotations with the online travel groups.
In return, they pay a fee on every stay to the chain (to fund marketing, loyalty points etc), must honour – usually in a watered down form – elite benefits and must make rooms available for points redemption.
What the hotels do NOT have to do is meet any service standards. As Hyatt website says, it ‘works closely with our owners and operators to encourage a Hyatt standard of excellence’ – with the key word being ‘encourage’, not ‘mandate’.
Hyatt’s entry into this space is called the The Unbound Collection. It launched last week with three hotels – The Driskill in Austin, the Carmelo Resort & Spa in Uruguay (which used to be a Four Seasons I think) and the Hotel du Louvre in Paris (photo above).
The latter is, of course, the most likely to be of interest to Head for Points readers. That said, Hyatt is already well represented in Paris via a Park Hyatt, a Hyatt and a Hyatt Regency at Charles du Gualle.
A quick look for a random night in May turned up a rack rate of Euro 490 or 20,000 Hyatt Gold Passport so the Hotel du Louvre could be an interesting redemption option. Hyatt will need to start bulking up the property numbers soon, however, if this is not to turn into a damp squib.
If you wanted to visit the Hotel du Louvre for cash, Hyatt Gold Passport members can stay three nights for the price of two between 1st April and 30th June. This requires rate code FREE3 on hyatt.com. The same deal works for the other two Unbound hotels as well.
World of Hyatt update – April 2024:
Get bonus points: World of Hyatt is not currently running a global promotion
New to World of Hyatt? Read our overview of World of Hyatt here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on what we think World of Hyatt points are worth is here.
Buy points: If you need additional World of Hyatt points, you can buy them here.
Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Hyatt and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.
Richard 
James67 
InsideFlyer Tom 
Rob 
Matthew 
Dave 
Tariq 
ankomonkey 
xcalx 
Boi 
rams1981 
Alan 
Lambs 
Sandgrounder 
Genghis 
Luc 
Ian 
Brian 
Comments (26)