American Airlines And Hyatt Are Breaking Up—Members Will Lose Free Night, Elite Status And Extra Legroom Perks

American Airlines and Hyatt are ending their loyalty partnership. Remaining opportunities to get airline status from hotel stays, Hyatt free night certificates using American miles, and extra legroom seat coupons through Hyatt are winding down. American tells me they won’t renew the agreement when the contract ends in November. However, members will still be able to earn partner rewards through the end of each program’s current program year. There’s a November 15 deadline to have your accounts linked if they aren’t already. This comes less than two years after American and Hyatt announced the end of reciprocal points-earning and replaced it with a more complicated collection of benefits that was less rewarding. As a result, I don’t find the breakup especially surprising. Timeline For Ending Benefits Members need to have their AAdvantage and World of Hyatt accounts linked by November 15 to participate in the remaining earning opportunities (if they aren’t already). November 15, 2026, at 11:59:59 p.m. Central Have your American and Hyatt accounts linked. December 31, 2026 Last day to earn AAdvantage rewards through Hyatt’s Milestone Rewards. February 28, 2027 Last day to earn Hyatt awards through American’s Loyalty Point Rewards. American’s ConciergeKey members who have their accounts linked retain Hyatt Globalist status through February 2028. If you’ve already linked your accounts, you don’t need to do it again. Otherwise, you can link them here. The companies are preserving the normal time to select an award after earning it. Hyatt gives you 90 days after reaching a milestone to make your choice. American’s current reward rules allow 2026 Loyalty Point Rewards selections through March 31, 2027. What Members Are Losing The current partnership dates to the changes announced in October 2024, with new benefits introduced in early 2025. The old double dip ended December 31, 2024. On the American side, these are the Hyatt rewards being phased out: AAdvantage Loyalty Points Hyatt benefit 100,000 Discoverist status, without giving up another reward choice. 175,000 or 250,000 Explorist status as a reward choice. 400,000, 550,000 or 750,000 A Category 1–4 free night award as a reward choice. 1 million, 3 million or 5 million A Category 1–7 free night award as a reward choice. Separately, eligible American members can currently spend 25,000 miles for a Hyatt Category 1–4 certificate after reaching 40,000 Loyalty Points or Gold status, and 65,000 miles for a Category 1–7 certificate after reaching 125,000 Loyalty Points or Platinum Pro status. For Hyatt members, the American Milestone Reward choices are: Hyatt qualifying nights American reward choice 20 or 30 Two Preferred Seat coupons. These are ordinary coach seats in preferred locations, without extra legroom. 40 or 50 Two Main Cabin Extra seat coupons, for extra legroom seating. 70, 80 or 90 AAdvantage Gold status. 100, then every 10 nights through 150 AAdvantage Platinum status. The first four milestones can also be reached with 35,000, 50,000, 65,000 and 80,000 Hyatt base points, respectively. Hyatt Explorists and Globalists also have the option to redeem 5,000 Hyatt points for American Gold status for a day or 8,000 for Platinum. Globalists can spend 12,000 points for Platinum Pro. There’s a limit of two awards of each eligible status level per Hyatt status period. That was a useful option for some occasional American flyers. As I wrote in November 2024, you could concentrate your loyalty with Hyatt and redeem for American benefits when you actually needed them, instead of working all year to earn airline status. And the status challenges were useful. In August 2025 I covered the last round offering American elites a path to Hyatt Globalist with 20 qualifying nights in 90 days, along with targeted American Instant Status Pass offers for Hyatt elites. Park Hyatt Dubai They Cut The Cost, And Also The Reason To Care The original 2019 partnership was awesome. American elites earned an extra AAdvantage mile per dollar at Hyatt, and eligible Hyatt elites earned an extra Hyatt point per dollar on American flights. The American miles from Hyatt spending also counted as Loyalty Points once that qualification system was introduced. In October 2024 I explained the business logic for cutting that back. Buying points for every linked elite’s flights and stays is expensive. Some of that spending went to people like me who were already American Executive Platinum and Hyatt Globalist. They wanted to spend less rewarding business they were already getting, and more attracting the other company’s customers. The replacement shifted much of the cost onto members. We redeemed our own points or gave up another benefit to get something from the partner. At 175,000 Loyalty Points, for instance, choosing Hyatt Explorist means passing up two systemwide upgrades or 20,000 American miles (25,000 for an eligible AAdvantage cardholder). At Hyatt’s 50-night milestone, two extra legroom seat coupons competed with two confirmed suite upgrade awards. Presumably the cheaper, more complicated partnership wasn’t generating enough incremental business to warrant the investment. The cost-cutting logic made sense, but that reduced the incentive that might change anyone’s behavior. American says they want partnerships that are “mutually beneficial to both our customers and financial outlook.” Hyatt Already Has A New Air Canada Partnership Hyatt and Air Canada launched their expanded relationship July 15. The two airline arrangements have coexisted since then. The most useful piece for many readers is the Hyatt status challenge. Linked Aeroplan elites, including 25K members, and eligible premium Aeroplan cardholders can register for a 90-day challenge. Four qualifying nights earns Discoverist, 10 earns Explorist, and 20 earns Globalist. They also provide trial Explorist status during the challenge. Aeroplan elites get one attempt annually while premium cardholders get two. Award stays count, but credit card night credits don’t. Earning Globalist this way doesn’t give you the separate Milestone Rewards that are based on qualifying nights. The other benefits include: Canadian Aeroplan cardholders earn one or two bonus Hyatt points per eligible Canadian dollar spent at participating Hyatt properties, alongside their card’s Aeroplan earnings and on top of normal Hyatt earning on eligible stays. Those Aeroplan rates range from 1.5 to 2.5 points depending on the card. Eligible premium cardholders also get Hyatt Discoverist status and five qualifying night credits annually. Aeroplan members can redeem 25,000 points for a Hyatt Category 1–4 certificate or 75,000 for Category 1–7. There isn’t an elite-status hurdle to access these redemptions. Hyatt members can spend 50,000 points for a flight reward certificate worth 30,000 Aeroplan points. Hyatt points convert to Aeroplan at 2:1. Linked Aeroplan elites can convert in the other direction, also at 2:1. I’d generally keep each currency for its own program’s awards. Hyatt elites get an annual C$20 Air Canada flight credit. Air Canada status challenges for Hyatt Explorists and Globalists are coming later in the fall. The extra card earnings are a Canadian cobrand benefit. The Hyatt challenge is available through Aeroplan elite status, so U.S.-based Aeroplan elites (including those who earn it from the U.S. Chase card) have a path to status too. What American Says Will Remain You can still earn 500 AAdvantage miles per stay at Hyatt (in lieu of Hyatt points) after this partnership ends. That’s the ordinary airline-earning option. And you can still transfer Hyatt points to American miles albeit for poor value. American’s announcement emphasizes “global scale” so perhaps they want a larger hotel partner. Hyatt has a smaller footprint than the biggest chains, but a strong concentration of premium properties and customers worth competing for. Topics on this page