The partnership between the Ocean Casino Resort and the Hyatt Hotels Corp. in Atlantic City is over.
This was made known in a message that was posted on the website of Ocean Casino Resort which said that World of Hyatt loyalty members would no longer be receiving program benefits after December 31, 2019, even if they have already booked a stay. However, the reservations themselves would not be affected.
It remains unclear whether another hotel company would be taking over or if Ocean would just be the one to do it. What Ocean made clear though, is the reason for the termination of the agreement. In its communication about the partnership termination, the resort explained:
“Due to our continued success, our hotel volumes no longer permit preferential booking for Hyatt Loyalty guests.”
Published figures by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement’s indicates that Ocean has the second-highest occupancy rate of the nine casinos in Atlantic City through September. The property also boasts the highest average rate per occupied room. In the third quarter of this year, Ocean Casino Resort had an occupancy rate of 99.6 percent. The average room rate was $219.01 per night.
Ocean Casino Resort is actually the former Revel, a $2.4 billion glass luxury property that launched way back on April 2, 2012. Established to be a rival to Borgata, it leaked money and was shut down less than two-and-a-half years later.
The property was put up for bids and got a single one when the deadline came on September 23, 2014. This was a $90 million offer from Polo North Country Club’s Glen Straub. The auction was then prolonged for another week. After an upset Straub raised his bid, Brookfield US Holdings offered $110 million in the middle of the final night to win the auction.
Brookfield backed out of the deal a couple of months later and a bankruptcy court awarded the Revel to Straub. That then got reversed after Straub had a contractual dispute with the property’s tenants. Eventually, in April 2015, Straub bought the Revel for a mere $82 million. He actually had grand plans for the Revel, even renaming it TEN, but he never reopened it.
In January of 2018, Bruce Deifik purchased it for $200 million, renamed it as Ocean, and launched the property in June of that year. In 2019, Luxor Capital Group took over ownership of Ocean.
Ocean was a part of Hyatt’s luxury brand, The Unbound Collection, from the very start. Despite the lofty company that label put it in, Hyatt rarely made much of an effort to endorse the casino resort on its website.
