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  Hotel Strategies, Hotel Loyalty Program Reference Guide

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Covid Impacts

Due to the drop in travel, Hyatt has made some temporary adjustments to their loyalty program.

• Peak and off-peak award pricing has been delayed until 2021.
• Any free night certificates that would have expired between March 1st and the end of the year will be good until the end of 2021. Suite upgrade and club lounge awards are treated the same.
• Your 2020 elite status will be automatically extended for 2021 (February 28th, 2022).
• You'll earn 3x Hyatt points (5.1%) on up to $1,500 per month of grocery store purchases in May and June.
• You get extra elite status nights for all your spending in May and June. With the World of Hyatt card, you get 3 elite status nights for every $5,000. With the older card, you'll receive 2.

Jump to

• Quick Guide
• Hyatt Brands
• Free Night Certificates
• Award Chart
• Points + Cash Awards
• Acquiring Points
• Points Expiration
• Member Benefits
• Shortcuts to Hhyatt Elite Status
• Credit Card
• Small Luxury Hotels of the World partnership
• M-Life (MGM) Rewards partnership

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 Hyatt credit card, you’ll get a certificate good for a free night at a Category 1-4 (out of 7) hotel. You can earn a 2^nd certificate if you use the card for $15,000 in spending during the year.
• If you collect Ultimate Rewards points, one of your best redemption options is to transfer them to Hyatt. The easiest way to earn points for Hyatt hotels is by earning Ultimate Rewards points instead.
• Hyatt’s mid and high-level elite status, called Explorist and Globalist, have nice benefits, but they are hard to earn without real stays at Hyatt hotels.
• Cash and point awards provide more value than standard awards, at Category 2-6 hotels.
• Hyatt offers good value when using points to upgrade rooms booked with regular paid reservations.
• 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).
• Hyatt 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

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, you’ll 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 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 5^th 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 30^th elite night credit during a year, you'll receive a Category 1-4 certificate. When you earn your 60^th 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.
• Starting in July 2021, Hyatt will require different amounts of points for peak, off-peak and standard hotel nights. Seasons will be 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 will be 15-30% more expensive.

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

• 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.

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.

• Award rates for booking premium rooms 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).
• Using points to upgrade paid stays provides great value. You can upgrade a paid reservation to a Regency / Grand Club room for only 3,000 points ($54) per night, and to a Suite at only 6,000 points ($108) per night. Upgrading is especially valuable at their more expensive hotels.
• 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 doesn’t have a 5^th night free benefit.

Points + Cash Awards

You can also pay half the number of points to get 50% 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. 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 having 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.

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

You can earn 5 points for every dollar spent at Hyatt. 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 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.

You’ll earn an additional 3 points per dollar, if you use your Hyatt credit card. 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 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. This starts from the Gold level and is on top of any other rewards you'd earn.

You get a 500 point bonus when you stay at a new 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 Cards 101.

Keeping your Points from Expiring

You can lose your points, if you go two years without any account activity. 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 benefits. So, for example, if you stay 30 nights or spend enough to meet the third milestone, you'll receive Hyatt's mid-level status. However, if you receive status in some other way, such as a status match, you get the status benefits, but you don't get the milestone benefits. The only way to get the guaranteed suite upgrade certificates and the club access certificates is to earn status 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 access certificates, and a Cat 1-4 free night certificate (expires in only 180 days)
40	65K	$100 Hyatt gift card or 5,000 points
50	80K	2 confirmed suite upgrade certificates (reservable ahead of time)
60	100K	Globalist Status, 2 confirmed suite upgrade certificates, and a 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) Discounted “member” rates. Free breakfast at Hyatt Place hotels. For up to 4 people per room. Free Wi-Fi. Resort fee waived on award nights. Partnership with Exhale Spas. You'll earn 10x Hyatt points per dollar spent and can use Hyatt points to pay for spa services.

Discoverist 10% bonus points on stays, and adds the following benefits: Upgrade to preferred room when available. 2pm late checkout. At most hotels. Enhanced Internet service. Free bottle of water. Ability to earn 1 Hyatt point per dollar on American Airlines flights. On top of the other rewards you'd earn. Access to Aadvantage status challenges.

Explorist 20% bonus points on stays, and adds the following benefits: Upgrade to the best non-club, non-suite room available. Early check-in, based on market and occupancy. 9am or noon check-in can often be reserved 7 days ahead of time. 72-hour guaranteed room availability. Except under unusual circumstances. Week of Wellbeing at Exhale spas. Unlimited classes (in certain categories) for a week, plus a 25% discount on therapies, and 15% discount on boutique purchases.

Globalist 30% bonus points on stays, and adds the following benefits: Upgrade to the best available room, including standard suites. For stays where you aren't using your upgrade certificates. Club lounge access on every stay. If a club lounge is not available, you get full breakfast, for up to 2 adults and 2 children in the hotel restaurant. Free parking on award nights. At most properties. Waived resort fees on paid stays. These are normally waived for award nights. 4pm late checkout. At most hotels: can even be reserved 7 days before arrival. Two United Club passes per year. If you book an award stay for others, they get your status benefits. Complimentary classes at Exhale spas. On the same days you are staying at a Hyatt hotel.

Shortcuts to Hyatt Elite Status

• The Hyatt credit card automatically gives you Hyatt Discoverist status.
• The Hyatt credit card gives you 5 qualifying nights, plus an additional 2 elite qualifying nights for every $5,000 you spend on the card. If you spend $15,000 to earn the second free night certificate, you'd earn a total of 11 free nights. It is possible to qualify for Globalist status solely through credit card spending, but you would have to spend a huge amount of money ($140,000).

The older version of the card doesn't provide qualifying nights, but will give you Explorist status, if you spend $50,000 a year on the card.

• Spending on the Hyatt credit card can be a great way to earn the extra nights to qualify for the milestone. While you'd have to spend a lot of money to qualify for high-level status strictly through credit card spending, if you are already spending a bunch of nights at Hyatt hotels, you may not have to spend that much to earn the extra nights you'd need to qualify for the next milestone and possibly the next status level.. The more paid and award night you are spending, the less you have to spend, and the more valuable the elite night benefits are.
• Hyatt doesn’t usually match status with other hotel programs. But they have in the past, you might want to check StatusMatcher. Boost Your Hotel Status.
• American Airlines elites get special access to Hyatt status. Top tier American Airlines "Concierge Key" elites get automatic Globalist status. Executive Platinum members are typically targeted with a challenge to earn Hyatt Explorist status (and 4 Club Lounge certificates) with 10 stays over 90 days, and Hyatt Globalist status with an additional 10 stays during the same period. American Platinum elites are typically only targeted for the Explorist portion of the challenge. All targeted elites receive Explorist status during the duration of the challenge. Wait to register until you know you'll have an opportunity to make multiple Hyatt stays during the 90-day window, either to have a better chance of completing the challenge or to take advantage of your temporary Discoverist status over as many nights as possible.

The Hyatt Credit Card

Hyatt Credit Cards Guide

• The Hyatt Credit Card has a normal signup bonus of 40,000 points ($2,000 initial spending requirement). You can earn an additional 5,000 points if you add an authorized user in the first three months. Every year you keep the card, you get a free night certificate you can use at Category 1-4 hotels. It earns 4 points per dollar on purchases spent at Hyatt. The cad also gives you automatic Discoverist status, but the Discoverist benefits aren’t reason enough to bother getting this card. $95 annual fee.
• Many people will want to hold onto the card to get a free night certificate every year. While it is not quite as valuable as the IHG free night certificate, most people will be able to take advantage of it for a room that costs far more than the $95 annual fee ($75 annual fee with the discontinued version of the card).
• Many of these people will want to spend $15,000 per year on the card to earn a second free night certificate.
• The Hyatt Credit Card earns the most valuable reward rate on Hyatt purchases. 4 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, like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending.
• The Hyatt card is one 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 Hyatt card earn 2x points on restaurants, airline tickets, and communter expneses, which is lower than best travel and restaurant reward rates. However, using the Hyatt card makes sense if you highly value earning elite status nights, or don’t have a card like the Sapphire Reserve or Citi Prestige that earns higher reward rates. Best Credit Cards for Travel Spending, Best Credit Cards for Restaurant Spending.

Small Luxury Hotels of the World partnership

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. Map and Discussion.

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. Hotel Loyalty Program Reference Guide.

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 will earn 1 Aadvantage mile for every dollar spent at Hyatt. This kicks in at the Gold elite level.
• Hyatt elites will earn 1 Hyatt point for every dollar spent at American Airlines. This kicks in at the Discoverist level (that 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 will have the opportunity to take special status challenges. Unfortunately, you'll need to wait until you are targeted.

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