Guide to the World of Hyatt (2021)
Hotel Strategies, Hotel Loyalty Program Reference Guide
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Quick Guide
- Hyatt points are worth about 1.7-1.8 cents each. There are many very nice Hyatt hotels, available for only 10-15,000 points. How Much are Hotel Points Worth?
- Like most other hotel programs, you can earn enough points for several free nights from the signup bonus on the Hyatt Credit Card. Unfortunately, it is subject to the Chase 5/24 rule.
- Each year you have the personal version of the Hyatt credit card, you’ll get a certificate good for a free night at a Category 1-4 (out of 8) hotel. You can earn a 2nd certificate if you use the card for $15,000 in spending during the year.
- If you collect Chase Ultimate Rewards points, one of your best redemption options is to transfer them to Hyatt. Conversely, the easiest way to earn points for Hyatt hotels is by earning Ultimate Rewards points instead.
- Hyatt’s high-level elite status, called Globalist, has great benefits, but is hard to earn without lots of real stays at Hyatt hotels. Things are a little easier in 2021, as Hyatt has halved the required nights and also run several promotions that can help.
- You can get incredible value by booking Specialty Suites (and other premium rooms). Many of Hyatt's fancier hotels have amazing specialty suites that can often be booked for relatively small amounts of extra points./li>
- All members automatically get a free night certificate (cat 1-4) after they stay at 5 different Hyatt brands (over the course of their lifetime). You can earn a 2nd certificate after your 10th brand.
- Hyatt is one of the few programs (along with Hilton) that doesn't charge resort fees on award reservations.
Hyatt Brands
Hyatt is a much smaller program that Marriott, Hilton, and IHG, although it has grown through the recent acquisition of a number of smaller brands. It primarily focuses on higher-end hotels. Hyatt Place and Hyatt House are their main moderately priced hotel brands. Destination Hotels only partially participates with the program. Directory of Hotels
You can earn and use Hyatt points at many many members of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World group, just as if they were full fledged members of the Hyatt program.
In addition, all Hyatt members get complimentary continental breakfast, free Wi-Fi, a one category room upgrade (based on availability), Noon check-in, and 2pm check-out (also subject to availability).
They launched with about 50 participating hotels and have been slowly adding additional hotels to the partnership. List of participating SLH hotels.
When searching on Hyatt, their Small Luxury Hotel partners are always located at the bottom of the result list. If you don't scroll down past the more distant Hyatt-branded hotels, you'll miss them.
Free Night Certificates
For more information about Hyatt Free Night Certificates see our detailed guide.
Credit card anniversary certificates
Every year, on your cardholder anniversary date, non-business cardholders receive a certificate good for a free night at a Category 1-4 hotel (out of 8). Certificates can be used regardless of whether the hotel is showing peak, regular, or off-peak award rates. This corresponds to hotels that cost up to 15,000 Hyatt points per night per night on a regular date and 18,000 points per night on a peak date.
The regular Hyatt Card costs $95 a year and the certificate should easily be worth more than that. The potential downside of the Hyatt certificate is that Hyatt has fewer than 1,000 hotels around the world. Depending on what trips you are taking, you might have difficulty finding a good opportunity to use it before it expires. Nevertheless, we recommend that most people hold onto the card to take advantage of the certificate every year.
You can earn a second certificate if you use the card for $15,000 in spending during the calendar year. The opportunity cost of this much spending using your Hyatt card, instead of your general-purpose reward card, is around $100-150. If you know that you can make use of the extra certificate, it is typically more valuable than that. And earning two certificates per year gives you an opportunity for a longer free stay. For existing cardholders, the spending requirement is based on your cardholder year until your 2021 anniversary date. You'll then have an opportunity to earn an additional certificate by spending $15,000 between your anniversary date and the end of 2021. In 2022 and beyond, spending for the certificate is based on the calendar year.
Free night certificates for staying at several different brands
When you finish a stay at your 5th different Hyatt brand, you’ll automatically earn a certificate good for a free night at a Category 1-4 hotel. For example, if at some point you stay in a Hyatt, a Hyatt Regency, a Grand Hyatt, a Hyatt Place, and an Andaz, you’ll earn a free night.
There is no time limit for earning this award. If you stayed in 1 brand in 2017, 2 additional brands in 2018, another brand in 2019, and a fifth brand in 2021, you’ll qualify.
It is possible to earn an additional certificate when you stay in your 10th brand, but that is a more difficult prospect.
Free night certificates from reaching "milestones"
You can also earn free night certificates from stays and credit card spending. When you earn your 30th elite night credit during a year, you'll receive a Category 1-4 certificate. When you earn your 60th elite night credit, you'll earn a certificate that can be used all the way up to Category 7. The certificates normally expire in just six months. Although, as a result of a Covid, certificates issued in 2020 and 2021 will last till then end of the year.
Award Chart
- If there are “standard” rooms available, you can always book them with your points. As with Hilton program and the old Starwood brands in the Marriott program, this is the official policy of the program.
- Hyatt requires different amounts of points for peak, off-peak and standard hotel nights. Seasons are consistent for all the hotels in the same area and defined ahead of time. During peak periods, when you are more likely to want to use your points instead of paying cash rates, the cost of an award night is likely to be 15-30% more expensive.
- Hyatt has separate award charts for Club rooms, Suites, Premium Suites, and all-inclusive properties.. These will also be adjusted for peak and off-peak times.
- Award rates for directly booking club and standard suites are not usually a very good deal. A Club room costs the equivalent of $72 EXTRA per night at a lowly Category 2 hotel and $162 EXTRA per night at their most expensive hotels. A standard suite is even more expensive but might sometimes be worth a splurge. Using our standard point values, they cost $144 extra in points for a Category 3 hotel and up to $324 extra for a Category 7 hotel during regular season ($367 during peak season).
- On the other hand, depending on the hotel, directly booking premium suites can be a great use of your points. At some hotels, these suites just give you an extra living room. But at other hotels, they can be massive, with private terraces, amazing views, or other unique features. If you are interested in some of the best options for suite awards, check out [1].
- Rates for larger Destination Resort vacation rentals are charged at the club, standard, or suite levels. For example, you may pay club-level pricing for a two bedroom unit and premium-suite-level pricing for a four bedroom. The ability to book these resorts is being rolled out slowly—not all properties are available yet.
- Using points to upgrade a paid stay to a club or suite (as opposed to booking the whole thing as an award stay) can often provide great value. You can upgrade a paid reservation to a Regency / Grand Club room for only 3,000 points ($54) per night, to a Suite at only 6,000 points ($108) per night, and to a potentially amazing Premium Suite for only 9,000 points ($162) per night. Upgrading is especially valuable at fancy hotels with relatively low rates for standard rooms.
- One nice thing about Hyatt award nights is that they waive any resort fees, making award nights relatively more valuable at hotels that add expensive resort fees to the bill.
- Hyatt does NOT have a 5th night free benefit.
- You can use "Pay My Way" bookings to get around minimum stay requirements. Some hotels require that some award stays span a minimum number of nights. But Hyatt has a little known feature that allows you to book a single reservation where you use points for some nights and cash for other nights. Million Mile Secrets discovered that you can extend your award reservation by making a cash payment for any extra required nights and then cancel just the cash portion at a later date.
| Category | Off-peak | Standard | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,500 | 5,000 | 6,500 |
| 2 | 6,500 | 8,000 | 9,500 |
| 3 | 9,000 | 12,000 | 15,000 |
| 4 | 12,000 | 15,000 | 18,000 |
| 5 | 17,000 | 20,000 | 23,000 |
| 6 | 21,000 | 25,000 | 29,000 |
| 7 | 25,000 | 30,000 | 35,000 |
| 8 | 35,000 | 40,000 | 45,000 |
For example, standard suites cost:
| Category | Off-peak | Standard | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6,500 | 8,000 | 9,500 |
| 2 | 11,500 | 13,000 | 14,500 |
| 3 | 17,000 | 20,000 | 23,000 |
| 4 | 21,000 | 24,000 | 27,000 |
| 5 | 29,000 | 32,000 | 35,000 |
| 6 | 36,000 | 40,000 | 44,000 |
| 7 | 43,000 | 48,000 | 53,000 |
| 8 | 56,000 | 61,000 | 66,000 |
Specialty suites are exactly double the regular room prices. And Club rooms are priced between the rates for regular rooms and standard suites. article].
Premium suites cost double the rate of a regular award bookings, but often the best way to book them is by paying the lowest cash rate you can for a regular room and then upgrading for only 9,000 points per night.
Points + Cash Awards
You can also pay half the number of points to get 50% (to 70%) off the price of the room. For example, rather than spending 15,000 points to get a free night at a Category 4 hotel, you can spend 7,500 plus 50% of the room rate. When calculating the cash cost, Hyatt uses the standard "best available rate". Since you can probably get a better rate (such as Hyatt's own members rate), the cash portion usually winds up being more than half of what you would actually pay for a non-award reservation.
- Hyatt's Points + Cash redemptions are almost never a good deal at the normal 50% off. If the room rate is high enough that it would make sense to use points, you'll want to make a regular award reservation, rather than needing to pay half the high room rate. If the room rates are low enough to save your points, it doesn't make sense to use half the points to save half the rate.
- The only time you would normally use these awards is when you don't have enough points to pay the full amount of an award reservation. And only if the award reservation represented a good value.
- Hyatt doesn't waive resort fees on Points + Cash awards, making them an even worse value for many hotels.
- In rare cases, you can get up to 70% off. In 2020, Hyatt modified the program to give you 50-70% off, instead of 50% off the cash portion of the room. Despite this change, almost every hotel still offers the standard 50% off. If you can get a larger discount, a Points + Cash redemption could possibly be a better deal than a standard redemption, but it is unlikely.
Acquiring Points
Acquiring last minute points
If you see a great redemption deal on Hyatt hotels, there are several ways that you can acquire additional points.
| Purchasing points |
You can also purchase up to 55,000 points per year, in 1,000-point increments, for 2.4 cents per point and receive another 55,000 points purchased by another member. Sometimes promotions are available, which allow you purchase points for less money per point and enable you to purchase more points per year. Get a Discounted Room Rate by Buying the Points for an Award Night. |
| Transferring between accounts |
You can transfer points between members at no charge, once every 30 days. You'll need to send in a paper transfer form. |
| Transferring credit card points |
You can transfer Ultimate Reward points (1000:1000) to Hyatt. This is the only transfer between any type of credit card point and any type of hotel point that is often worthwhile. You can also transfer Diners Club points (1250:750) to Hyatt. |
Earning points from your stays
Members earn 5 points for every dollar spent at Hyatt and also at MGM Resorts and Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Discoverist, Explorist, and Globalist members earn bonuses of 10%, 20%, and 30%. You won’t earn points for stays booked through online travel agents or other third-party channels. You need to book directly with Hyatt. You can earn points on up to 3 rooms per night, as long as you pay for all three rooms. However, you can only earn elite credit for a single room.
You can earn airline miles instead of points. Unlike most other programs, you receive a fixed number of miles (usually 500) per stay. On a very inexpensive stay, this can be more valuable than earning Hyatt points. For example, if the cost for your stay was $75, you could get 500 airline miles instead of 375 Hyatt points. But usually you are better off earning Hyatt points.
If you use your Hyatt credit card, you’ll earn an additional 3 points per dollar . This is a better return than you’ll get from a general-purpose reward card and all but the best cards that earn bonus rewards on travel spending. You are obviously better off using a Sapphire Reserve Card to earn 3x Ultimate Rewards points, which can be converted into 3 Hyatt points (as well as used in other ways). Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending.
American Airlines elites can earn 1 mile for every dollar on top of any other rewards you'd earn. This starts from the AA's Gold level.
You get a 500 point bonus when you stay at a recently opened hotel. You don't need to do anything special, just stay at one of qualifying hotels.
Other ways to earn points
The best way to quickly earn a bunch of points is by signing up for the Hyatt credit card. The normal bonus on the Hyatt credit card is 40,000 points. Credit Card Signup Bonuses: The Easiest Path to Free Airplane Tickets and Hotel Nights.
Keeping your Points from Expiring
If you go two years without any account activity, you can lose your points. You can easily keep your account alive by making any charge on the Hyatt gift card, buying 1,000 points (for $24), crediting a car rental to Hyatt, or buying a $10 gift card with 2,000 points. You can also keep your account alive by transferring points, for free, between members. Our Keep Your Points from Expiring article provides more details about strategies for keeping track of upcoming expiration dates and keeping your points alive.
Member Benefits
Hyatt handles status benefits a little differently than the other programs. Every 10 nights you stay, you will reach a new "Milestone" and receive some sort of benefit. You can also reach a Milestone by reaching a certain level of "base" points, rather than by staying a specific number of nights. In other words, if your stays are more expensive than average, you can reach Milestones in fewer than the normal number of nights.
At some of these milestones (10, 30, and 60), you'll receive an actual status level, along with other milestone benefits. For example, if you stay 30 nights or spend enough to get to the third milestone, you'll receive Hyatt's mid-level Explorist status, a Cat 1-4 free night certificate and a 2 club access certificates. But if you receive Explorist status in some other way, such as a status match, you'd only get the status benefits, not the extra milestone benefits. In other words, the only way to get the guaranteed suite upgrade certificates, club access certificates, and extra free night certificates is to earn elite night credits through stays or spending.
Hyatt also uses unusual names for their elite status levels. Their low-level status is called “Discoverist”, their mid-level status is called “Explorist”, and their high-level status is called “Globalist”. We can never keep them straight, although they are at least arranged alphabetically. Award nights count towards elite status.
The basic milestone structure is:
| Nights | Base Pts | Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 25K | Discoverist Status |
| 20 | 35K | 2 club lounge certificates |
| 30 | 50K | Explorist Status 2 club lounge certificates Cat 1-4 free night certificate (expires in only 180 days) |
| 40 | 65K | $100 Hyatt gift card or 5,000 points or 10,000 point savings on a FIND experience. |
| 50 | 80K | 2 confirmed suite upgrade certificates (reservable ahead of time) |
| 60 | 100K | Globalist Status 2 confirmed suite upgrade certificates Cat 1-7 free night certificate (expires in only 180 days) |
Then for every 10 nights beyond 60, you receive your choice of another guaranteed suite upgrade certificate or 10,000 points.
The benefits you get for qualifying for a status benefit, regardless of whether you do it by hitting a milestone, through a status match, or via some partnership are:
Member (entry level)
|
| Discoverist 10% bonus points on stays and adds the following benefits:
Access to Aadvantage status challenges. |
| Explorist 20% bonus points on stays and adds the following benefits:
|
| Globalist 30% bonus points on stays and adds the following benefits:
|
Shortcuts to Hyatt Elite Status
Hyatt is currently offering a very nice shortcut to their high-level Globalist status. When you register, you'll automatically be given their mid-level (but not that valuable) Explorist status until the end of the year. If you stay just 10 nights, you'll keep your status until February 2023. Even better, if you stay 20 nights, you'll earn Hyatt's very valuable high-level Globalist status. Globalist status normally requires 60 nights, but the requirements were reduced to 30 nights for this year. 20 nights is even lower. However, only the nights from the time you register onwards will count for the challenge. According to View From the Wing, you'll need to call a Hyatt hotel's sales department to register.
Hyatt has made it much easier to earn their valuable high-level Globalist status. While the special opportunities that were available earlier this year (such as earning two elite night credit for every night you stayed) are over, they have continuously offered new opportunities.
- First of all, Hyatt has cut the required number of nights for each of their status levels in half. For example, you only need 30 nights, rather than 60, to reach their extremely valuable Globalist status. And since the Hyatt credit card comes with at least 5 free nights, cardholders only need 25 or fewer nights, rather than 55.
- However, keep in mind that some of the benefits associated with Hyatt elite status, such as Suite Upgrade Certificates, Free Night Certificates, and Club Upgrade Certificates, are benefits of hitting specific "Elite Night Milestones" and not from the status itself, and these requirements require the same number of nights in 2021 as any other year. That said, there are plenty of valuable benefits from Globalist status itself, like free breakfast, potential suite upgrades at check-in, and free parking on award stays.
- If you are eligible to signup for the Hyatt credit card, you can earn Globalist status with only 10 nights. Just getting the card gives you 5 free night credits. If you spend $15,000 on the card this year, you'll earn an extra 30,000 Hyatt points (valued at $510) and an extra free night certificate (on top of the initial signup bonus). In addition, you'll receive another 6 elite night credits for the spend, bringing your total up to 11. Then, one of the current signup offers adds 2-for-1 elite status credits for the rest of the year on top of the bonus points. Just 10 stays (plus the $15,000 spend), will get you to 31 elite night credits and Globalist status and yet another free night certificate.
- Otherwise, you can try to take advantage of another nice shortcut. When you register for Hyatt's new status challenge, you'll automatically be given their mid-level (but not that valuable) Explorist status until the end of the year. If you stay just 10 nights, you'll keep your status until February 2023. Even better, if you stay 20 nights, you'll earn Hyatt's very valuable high-level Globalist status. Only the nights from the time you register onwards will count for the challenge. According to View From the Wing, you'll need to call a Hyatt hotel's sales department to register.
- While mid-level Explorist status isn't very valuable, the current promotions make it easier to earn "Explorist for Life". In 2021, you only need 15 nights to qualify for Explorist status (instead of 30). If you get and spend $15,000 on the Hyatt credit card, you'll only need to stay 2 nights to meet that level. With the status challenge, you'll only need 10. Once you earn Explorist status, you can keep it indefinitely by automatically matching it every year to MGM status and then matching back.
- The personal version of the Hyatt credit cards provides a small status boost. Along with the annual fee night certificate (and the opportunity to spend $15,000 for a second certificate), cardholders get 5 elite night credits each year and automatic low-level Discoverist status. But this only entitles you to a 10% bonus on points from stays, a free bottle of water, 2 PM late checkout, and the possibility of a minor room upgrade when available.
- You can earn additional free nights by spending on the Hyatt credit cards, but it would take a lot of spending to get all the way to Globalist status. For every $5,000 you spend on the personal version, you'll receive an additional 2 elite night credits. If you decide to spend $15,000 with the card to earn the second free night certificate, you'd earn an extra 6 elite night credits, bringing you up to 11 credits (without counting your actual stays). For every $10,000 you spend with the business version, you'll receive an additional 5 elite nights.
- Hyatt doesn't usually match status from other hotel companies, except for a special partnership they have with the M life (MGM family) casino loyalty program. If you have Gold status (or better) with M life, you can automatically match it to mid-level Hyatt Explorist status. Unfortunately, no level of M life status is good enough to match to Globalist status.
- High-level American Airlines elites can periodically earn Hyatt status through a "fast track" challenge program. Platinum and higher elites can stay just 10 nights in 90 days to earn Explorist status and Executive Platinum elites also have an opportunity to stay 20 nights in 90 days to earn Globalist status (elite nights earned from the credit card don't count). For many people, this isn't a realistic path to status.
- If you ever qualify for mid-tier Explorist status, you can hold onto it indefinitely. Hyatt's status year extends past the end of the calendar year. As a result, you can match your Hyatt status over to M life before it expires. Then you can match back from M life. Explorist status does entitle you to better room upgrades and early check-in (both upon availability), 72-hour guaranteed room availability, and a total of 20% bonus points on stays.
If you wanted to get all the way to Globalist, without relying on any actual stays, you'd need to spend $140,000 on the personal version or $120,000 on the business version over the course of the the year. Even mid-level Explorist status, which doesn't come with fantastic benefits, requires 25 extra nights or up to $65,000 in credit card spending.
A challenge with identical terms is sometimes available to employees of some large companies.
The Hyatt Credit Cards
- The personal version of the Hyatt Credit Card has a typical signup bonus of 40-60,000 points. You can earn usually earn an additional 5,000 points if you add an authorized user in the first three months. Every year you renew the card, you receive a free night certificate you can use at Category 1-4 hotels. 4x points on Hyatt purchases. Provides automatic Discoverist status, but that doesn't entitle you to very much. $95 annual fee.
- Many people will want to hold onto the regular version of the card to receive the free night certificate every year. While the relatively small size of the Hyatt program can make it harder to use than the Marriott and IHG certificates, most people will be able to take advantage of it for a room that costs significantly more than the $95 annual fee.
- If you spend $15,000 during a calendar year, you'll receive a second free night certificate. This can be handy for making a two-night stay and is usually worth the opportunity cost of using the card for this amount of spending.
- The business version of the card has a higher signup bonus (typically 75,000 points) and a higher annual fee ($199). It doesn't give you free night certificates but does give you up to $100 in rebates for Hyatt spending. And if you spend $50,000 per year, you'll receive a 10% rebate of any points you redeem for the rest of the year (up to 20,000 rebated points).
- The Hyatt Credit Cards earn the most valuable reward rate on Hyatt purchases. 4x Hyatt points are worth about 6.8 cents per dollar. If you highly value premium cabin award tickets and/or want to earn more flexible points, you might prefer to use an alternative card that earns transferable points. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending.
- The Hyatt cards are some of the only cards that earns bonus rewards on gym and fitness club fees. You'll earn 2x Hyatt points, valued at around 3.4.
- It usually isn’t worthwhile to use for other purchases. The personal version of the Hyatt card earn 2x points on restaurants, airline tickets, and commuter expenses, which is lower than the best travel and restaurant reward rates. However, using the card makes sense if you are spending for the second certificate, highly value earning extra elite status nights, or don’t have a card that earns higher reward rates. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending, Best Credit Cards for Restaurant Spending.
The business version earns 2x points on your top 3 categories (top 2 after 2022) you spend in each quarter out of restaurants, airline tickets, car rentals, local transit and commuting, social media & search engine advertising, shipping, gas, and internet, cable & phone services. This isn't bad, but you should be earning better rewards on most or all these categories.
M-Life (MGM) Rewards partnership
Hyatt is partners with M-Life rewards, the loyalty program for the MGM Resorts group.
- Your elite status will be matched. Discoverist is matched with Pearl and Explorist is matched with Gold. Hyatt Globalists still only get Gold status, and M-Life Platinums still only get Explorist status.
- You can earn Hyatt points and elite night credits on your M-Life hotel stays and spending. You also earn M-life elite credits for spending at Hyatt.
- You can redeem Hyatt points for stays at M-Life properties.
American Airlines partnership
- American Airlines elites earn 1 Aadvantage mile for every dollar spent at Hyatt. This kicks in at the Gold elite level.
- Hyatt elites earn 1 Hyatt point for every dollar spent at American Airlines. This kicks in at the Discoverist level (which you can receive from the Hyatt credit card).
- Top tier American Airlines Concierge key members get automatic Hyatt Globalist status. The rich get richer...
- Lower level elites have the periodic opportunity to take special status challenges. Unfortunately, you'll need to wait until you are targeted.
