This is a step-by-step guide on booking Hyatt hotels for free, while maximizing the value of Hyatt points. You might think, “Free is free, so what does it mean to maximize value beyond free?” You’re right that free is free, but would you rather pay $0 for something worth $200 or for something worth $1,000? Read on.
Update: In early December 2019, Hyatt updated its program – and “updates” are usually negative. Not surprisingly, this represents a devaluation. HOWEVER, I believe this devaluation isn’t too bad. This guide has been updated to reflect the devaluation. The Points Guy did a good summary of the changes too.
Steps in a nutshell:
- Get the Hyatt credit card and link it to your account. You can also get a card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and set it up to link to your Hyatt account.
- Hit the minimum spend required for whatever card you chose:
- $3K spend on the Hyatt credit card in the first 3 months gives you 25,000 Hyatt points; AND
- $6K total spend in 6 months (so an additional $3K) gives you another 25,000 Hyatt points;
- $4K for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card gives you 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
- Wait for your bonus points to hit your Hyatt account, and/or your Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning card accounts.
- Search the Hyatt website or app for award availability. Consider whether you want to upgrade to another type of Hyatt room.
- Stack your free night awards with your Hyatt points, and/or transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to your Hyatt account, then book your award stay.
Step 1: Get a credit card.
There are several credit cards that will help you maximize value with the Hyatt brand of hotels. One of them is a Hyatt card, and the others are Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning cards that can transfer points at a 1:1 ratio to Hyatt.
I actually recommend getting both the World of Hyatt card AND a Chase UR-earning card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, with a $95 annual fee and a 60,000 point bonus, or a Chase Ink Business Preferred, with a $95 annual fee and an 80,000 point bonus.
The Hyatt credit card gives you automatic Discoverist status in Hyatt’s program. This isn’t as beneficial as Hilton’s top-tier Diamond status from the Hilton Amex Aspire card, but I’ve gotten a lot of value out of late checkout and room upgrades!
If you don’t already have a Chase UR-earning card, you should get one for a variety of reasons! This post focuses on why Chase UR points are helpful with the Hyatt brand, but these are great points in their own right. I like them for Hyatt because they transfer at a 1:1 ratio almost instantaneously, and it’s a great way to top off your Hyatt account when you see a Hyatt award that’s a good redemption.
IMHO, I really like combining Discoverist status from the Hyatt card with the Chase UR points transfers. The Hyatt card also makes it reasonably easy to “graduate” up to Explorist status. You need 30 qualifying nights for Explorist status, which you can get as follows:
- Use your 50,000 bonus points from the Hyatt credit card bonus to spend 10 nights at a Tier 1 Hyatt property on Standard Nights (10 nights)
- The card automatically gives you 5 elite night credits simply for having the card (5 nights)
- Every $5,000 in spend on the card gives you 2 elite night credits; spend $40,000 and receive 16 nights
- In addition, any of your usual paid stay nights count too!
Many travel hackers, including Gary Leff at View from the Wing, love spending on the Hyatt card toward top-tier Hyatt Globalist status. But I just don’t spend enough on my Hyatt card or stay in hotels enough nights to get there yet. If you do, more power to you, since the Hyatt Globalist status is supposedly amazing.
Step 2: Hit the minimum spend for your chosen card(s).
If you got the Hyatt card, you needed to spend $3K in the first 3 months for 25,000 points, plus another $3K in 6 months, for a total of $6K in 6 months, to receive an additional 25,000 points. My advice is to set up multiple calendar reminders to accomplish these tasks and follow through. Most credit card bonuses require a certain level of spend in 3 months, but this one is a bit harder to remember because it has a 6-month requirement. Make sure you don’t miss out on receiving the full 50,000 points.
If you got a Chase UR-earning card, make sure you meet the spend requirements there too. And if you’re having trouble meeting your minimum spend requirements, check out The Points Guy’s article for some tips. The idea here is not to spend extra cash to get your bonuses, but to spend cash you would’ve spent anyway and get extra rewards for it.
Step 3: Wait for your bonus points to hit your account(s).
Keep a close watch on your account(s) to ensure you more than hit the minimum spend requirements. If you’re unsure, call in and ask Chase where you stand! They’ll usually give you your bonus points within a few days of hitting your spend requirements, so there’s no need to wait 3-6 months if you’re able to hit the spend early. In my experience, it never hurts to call and ask them when you’ll be receiving those points.
While you’re waiting to hit your spend, you might as well get a head start on Step 4….
Step 4: Search Hyatt for award availability.
Spend some time getting familiar with Hyatt’s website and app. Both the app and site are pretty easy to use and operate much the same, so I’ll illustrate with screenshots from the website.
Start by thinking of a country or state you really want to see.
Hyatt isn’t nearly as large a chain as, say, Hilton, so even though they’re expanding their footprint by adding brands such as Thompson Hotels and Small Luxury Hotels of the World, you’re still not going to find a Hyatt in every major city. That’s why I advise you to start your search broadly on the Hyatt site, with a country, say
Get a sense for how many Hyatt hotels are in Germany and their relative costs. My partner and I decided we wanted to spend the winter holidays in Germany touring their Christmas markets and drinking German beer. I picked a handful of days near that time frame, entered “Germany,” and came up with 10 results that I can scroll through:
Couple tips to point out:
Make sure you’re looking for “Points” rates, which you can see along the top ribbon of the screen. Just select the “Edit” button on the top right to change your mind. Second, look at how much a room costs in Euro and in points. The Park Hyatt Hamburg is “from” 20,000 points/night and 167Euro. Unlike Hilton, which has extremely varying points values, Hyatt’s points rates follow a more static category system. You can pay more points for Club rooms and/or upgraded suites, but if a standard award night is available at those properties above, it’ll cost exactly 20,000 points.
Update December 2019: Now that Hyatt has created Peak, Off-Peak, and Standard pricing, their award chart has become a little more complicated than before. However, the majority of their nights for each property will still be Standard. And, your Category 1-4 Free Night Certificates will apply regardless of whether you’re on a Peak pricing night. Here is the new chart:
You can also access the information here on Hyatt’s site directly.
Your annual Free Night can be for hotels up to Category 4, or 15,000 points per Standard night. There are many great Hyatt hotels, including the Hyatt Regency Austin that I reviewed, that are bookable at this threshold.
How you should think about “value” for each night: The property I’m looking at costs 20,000 points per night. How good of a value is that? Well, you should compare the cost in points to what you would pay in cash – but make sure you consider ALL of the costs. 167Euros is the base price and doesn’t include any taxes or fees. Hyatt’s 20,000 point rate is all-inclusive, however, and won’t tack on any extra fees.
Click through to the Park Hyatt Hamburg property and see what happens:
Notice the ribbon along the top directs us to a 27,000-point room
Notice that there are a few different available types of rates here. How should I compare them? I actually want to see what the cash rates are for different room types before making a decision, so I’m going to click “View Rates” instead of “View Points”:
I have a King bed at home and don’t particularly like downgrading to a Queen when I travel, which is why it’s helpful to see that King beds cost extra.
Click the “Book Now” button to see what the total cost would be for that room in cash:
This represents the full cost including taxes and fees, and translates to about $645 in USD as of the time of this writing, for 3 nights. That’s not a great redemption rate, since each Hyatt point is worth roughly 1.7 cents according to The Points Guy, and $645/60,000 points equals a redemption rate of only 1.08 cents per point.
Also, I want to make sure my 20,000 points would get me a King bed, so I’m going to go back to “View Points”:
Now I’m even less interested, because 60,000 points would only get me a Queen. I’d need to pay an extra 21,000 points to get a King, albeit with Club Access.
Secret: If you can be flexible, you can get a much better value for your points!
I’ve learned that the Park Hyatt Hamburg isn’t going to give me a good value for my Hyatt points. At this
Let’s go back to the initial “Germany” search results and go for another property or two instead:
These are a much better value. I can repeat this process and calculate that the Hyatt House Dusseldorf / Andreas Quarter will only cost me 12,000 points per night while yielding a value of 2.47 cents per Hyatt point.
I don’t mean to imply that you should base your choice of vacation city on which hotels will give you the highest value per point. I’m just illustrating how variable the hotel-award game can be. If you can be a little flexible, you can really increase the value of your points redemptions. Maybe you still want to visit Hamburg, but now you know that those dates are relatively cheap, so you can save your Hyatt points for a different property when they’d be more valuable.
Once you’ve picked out a hotel that you’re happy with, consider whether you want to try to use points to upgrade to a Club Room or a Suite.
Not all properties HAVE Club Rooms or Suites available. And, just because they’re bookable, doesn’t mean they’re 1) worth it, or 2) bookable with points. I recommend Googling the property name and “Club lounge” to see if it might be worth it. Then, follow the process above to see what’s bookable with points. If you know there’s a Club Lounge or Suite, but you can’t book it with points on the site, call Hyatt and ask if it’s possible. Hyatt representatives are great! And another secret I always mention: It never hurts to ask nicely.
Step 5: Stack your free nights with your points and book your stay.
You can book your free nights and points nights directly in the app or website without needing to call Hyatt. However, if you’re booking with a combination of both free nights AND points nights, you’ll have to make two separate reservations. I recommend calling Hyatt to ask them to string the two reservations together in that case.
Hyatt’s program does not offer a 5th night free (like I describe in my Hilton guide). It doesn’t give you a 4th night free like IHG does, as I describe in my guide, either. While that’s a bummer, I’ve been able to recognize LOTS of value from the Hyatt program. Check out some of my reviews of the Park Hyatt Tokyo, the Hyatt Regency Austin, and the Grand Hyatt San Francisco, for some inspiration.
That’s it! I hope you have a great time realizing value from Hyatt.
