Most travel advisors have access to a preferred hotel partnership they are not fully using.

It might be Hyatt Privé. It might be a consortia preferred program. Whatever the program, the portal exists, the login works, and the benefits are sitting there unclaimed. Not because the advisor doesn’t want better outcomes for clients, but because nobody explained how the system actually works from the hotel side.

Katie Ferrari, Regional Vice President of Global Sales for Hyatt’s Luxury, Lifestyle and Leisure team in the Americas, has spent two decades on that hotel side, building the partnerships, training the sales teams, and watching what separates advisors who get the most out of these programs from those who book around them without realizing what they left behind.

The gap is almost never effort. It is almost always information.

What a Preferred Partnership Actually Delivers at the Property Level

The word “preferred” suggests a hierarchy, and that makes some advisors nervous. They worry they’ll sound presumptuous, or that reaching out directly to a hotel implies a level of relationship they haven’t earned.

According to Ferrari, the relationship is the point. When a client is booked through Hyatt Privé, the property receives information it cannot get any other way. It knows who is arriving, why they are traveling, what matters to them, and who the advisor is behind the booking. That combination is what allows a general manager, a VIP manager, or a front desk team to build a stay intentionally rather than reactively.

The “why” of the trip is the detail that changes everything. A couple traveling for an anniversary needs different attention than a family navigating logistics with young children. A solo traveler celebrating a milestone is not the same as a corporate road warrior adding a leisure night. Hotels can execute beautifully on any of those trips, but only when they know which one is coming.

Hyatt Privé advisors also gain direct messaging access to a dedicated on-property team, with a guaranteed 24-hour response. When a client’s reservation is booked through the portal, the hotel receives the full reservation details automatically. The advisor does not have to re-send the booking information. The context travels with the booking.

The Booking Channel Decision Is a Strategy, Not a Default

One of the more useful things Ferrari clarified is that no single booking channel is right for every trip. A preferred partnership portal is the right call in certain situations. A DMC or wholesaler is the right call in others. The goal is knowing which situation is which and making that choice intentionally.

When a client is brand-loyal and actively earning World of Hyatt points or qualifying tier nights, booking through a wholesaler or DMC means that status goes unrecognized at check-in. The client does not earn their elite benefits. The upgrade they expected does not apply. The suite they booked was not flagged.

That is a hard conversation. Ferrari has been on those calls. The fix is not complicated: during the intake process, when a client mentions points, status, or a brand preference, that information should route the booking decision. A brand-loyal client staying at a Hyatt property belongs in a direct preferred channel, not a packaged booking.

The reverse is also true. A complex itinerary routed through Southern Crossings or another specialist DMC may be the stronger choice for logistics, relationships, and regional expertise. Ferrari’s team manages relationships with wholesalers, DMCs, tour operators, and preferred partnerships simultaneously. The hotel is not penalizing the advisor for using a DMC. But the advisor using a DMC should still reach out to the property directly, not to flag a VIP, but to give the hotel the context it cannot extract from the wholesale booking.

How Advisors Earn and Grow Through Preferred Programs

The client experience is the visible benefit of a preferred partnership. The business case for the advisor is less visible, and often overlooked.

Within Hyatt Privé, advisors earn qualifying tier nights (QTNs) on every booking. For every booking at $5,000 or more, the advisor earns two QTNs. Thresholds at 20, 30, 40, and 60 total nights unlock credits for suites, club access, Globalist status, and a Guest of Honor designation that the advisor can gift to a client, a family member, or a new team member.

That last use case matters more than it sounds. An advisor building out a team can bring a new associate into the business and gift them a meaningful hotel experience early , not as a perk, but as professional development. Experiencing what a Globalist arrival looks like, what a suite upgrade delivers, what a hotel concierge actually does when properly briefed: these are things that improve how an advisor sells, not just how they spend.

Ferrari described how advisors can also use the Special Offers tab in the Hyatt Privé portal to pull exclusive promotions directly into client newsletters. The advisor does not have to attribute the offer to Hyatt Privé. They can present it as a benefit of their brand relationship, or simply as exclusive access for their clients. The offer is real. The differentiation is real. The presentation is the advisor’s to shape.

The VIP Problem (and How to Fix Your Hotel Outreach)

There is a practice that hotels recognize immediately, and it works against the advisor who does it: marking every client as a VIP without any supporting detail.

Ferrari put it plainly. The word VIP without context tells the hotel nothing useful. When an advisor says this is their VIP client and then provides no information about who the client is, why they are traveling, what they care about, or even when they are arriving, the email communicates the opposite of what the advisor intended.

The fix is not to stop reaching out. It is to send better information.

An email that includes the client’s travel dates, the occasion being celebrated, dietary preferences, a transfer confirmation request, and a note about their history with the brand communicates VIP status without using the word once. The detail is the signal. Hotels read it that way.

Ferrari recommended reaching out roughly two weeks before arrival, not months out and never again, and not the morning of check-in. A booking made a year in advance deserves a six-month touch point and a three-month touch point. Things change. Trips evolve. The client who booked a standard room eight months ago may now want to upgrade. The contact at the hotel who received the original email may have changed roles. Keeping the communication current keeps the stay on track.

For advisors not in a preferred partnership program, the outreach still applies. Contact the general manager’s office. Most hotels have a front office manager, a guest services manager, or a dedicated VIP contact. The GM will not personally reply in most cases, but the email will be forwarded to the right team. The communication opens the channel. Once the channel is open, the hotel can do its job.

The Relationship Is the Leverage

Ferrari has sat across from advisors at roadshows, on Zoom calls, and over coffee in cities from Atlanta to New York to wherever the next sales mission takes her team. The consistent pattern she notices is that the advisors who get the most out of supplier partnerships are not the ones who attend the most events. They are the ones who have one good conversation with the right person and follow up.

The preferred partnership roadshow is not a networking cocktail hour. It gives advisors face time with general managers. An advisor who shakes a GM’s hand in New York at a Hyatt Privé roadshow and books a client at that property six weeks later can say to that client: I know who runs that hotel. I met him in March. He will take care of you.

That is not a small thing to be able to tell a client. That is the difference between a booking and an experience a client talks about for years.

For advisors who find large trade shows overwhelming, and Ferrari, who describes herself as an extroverted introvert, said she does too, the alternative is not to skip the relationship-building. It is to pursue smaller settings deliberately. A one-on-one Zoom with a global sales director. A coffee meeting the next time a hotel rep comes through town. An email that starts a conversation rather than a transaction.

The rep who knows your name will put you on the list for the intimate roadshow. The GM who has met you will make sure your client’s arrival is ready. None of that happens at scale. It happens one conversation at a time.

Build These Skills Inside Niche

Understanding how to use preferred hotel partnerships well is one part of running a travel business that works. The other parts, intake systems that capture the right client information, communication processes that keep hotels informed at the right intervals, supplier relationship-building habits that grow alongside your book of business, live in the same place.

Niche is TIQUE’s membership community for travel advisors at every stage of business. Inside, members get access to business trainings, templates, supplier education, and a community of advisors who are working through the same questions you are. If you have been leaving preferred partnerships on the table because nobody walked you through how to use them, this is where that education lives.

Join the Niche community and get access to the resources, training, and advisor network that will help you put what you learned here into practice.