Hyatt acquires Mr & Mrs Smith, and remember to claim the free Gold membership

Hyatt made a surprising move yesterday by announcing the acquisition of Mr and Mrs Smith, a hotel booking platform based in London.

I don’t want to get into the very details of the news, and there are already numerous reports on many blogs covering it. Basically more than 1,500 hotels from Mr & Mrs Smith’s global portfolio are to be added to World of Hyatt in Q2, and similar to the SLH hotels they will fit into the existing redemption categories.

It is bad news to IHG and its members though, as once the acquisition is complete the existing tie between IHG and Smith is going to be cut, without a question. That’s a big loss in terms of spending IHG points.

For now however, there is one thing you need to do – we covered a fast track route to claim free GoldSmith membership (usually £400) a couple of years ago, and it still works as of today. GoldSmith isn’t hugely useful, but there’s a chance that Hyatt will offer status match or trial at least to Smith members soon, and it costs nothing to be ready!