If you ask the average traveler to name a hotel company, they’ll probably say Marriott or Hilton. However, when it comes to travel hacking, Hyatt is probably the most popular. This course will give an overview of just some of the reasons why it is so popular. While you’re obviously free to book with whatever hotel program you’d like, you should at least understand that Hyatt is very easy to work with. If you’re trying to keep things simple, it doesn’t get any simpler than Hyatt.
Good value
Like Chase UR’s, most people value World of Hyatt points (WoH) at 2cpp. So if you transfer points to Hyatt, you don’t have to do any extra math or wait for a transfer bonus. The reason why WoH points are worth 2cpp is because it is fairly easy to find a redemption where you can get at least 2cpp. Does that mean that you can always find good award space? No, but that you should find good value more often than not.
By the way, WoH points expire after 24 months of inactivity. You can keep your account active by earning points (through stays, spending, etc.), redeeming points, or holding a World of Hyatt credit card.
Award chart
Related to the above, you can find good award space because Hyatt still uses an award chart. Most other companies have moved to dynamic pricing. As a result, you never know what to expect. A $200 a night hotel could require more points than a $400 a night hotel. Why? Who knows? It can be very random which is frustrating as it requires a lot of searching. With Hyatt’s award chart, you’ll know what to expect. Here’s the current award chart:
Let’s assume you are considering a category 6 hotel. The points will be anywhere from 21,000 to 29,000 points. If the cash rate is $100 a night or $1000 a night, the points will still be within that range. While most redemptions are between 1.8 and 2.3, you’ll sometimes see really high cash rates due to an event in the area. With an award chart like this, you’ll never pay more than 29,000 points per night no matter how high the cash rates get. Some people traveling for sporting events and concerts have been able to get redemption rates in the 4 to 6 range as a result.
Note that there’s a separate award chart for all inclusive hotels. The current version is:
Easy to search
I find Hyatt’s website very easy to use. It’s also easy to search for hotels anywhere in the world and you can even filter by brand, amenities, and award categories. To do this, go to Hyatt.com, click on explore and then hotels and resorts. From there, click Filters on the top right to select which hotels narrow down your search. It’ll look like this:
The only thing I don’t like about this is that you want to exclude MMS hotels, you have to select every other hotel brand which is annoying since there are over 30 brands. Thankfully, we have a link for you so that you can just click on this and it’ll have every brand checked off except MMS. This is very helpful since MMS hotels make it difficult to search for good award space.
Promos
Hyatt runs a lot of promos such as 2x points on a cash stay. So if your base points for a cash stay is 5,000, you’ll get 10,000 points. You can find all of the current Hyatt promos here. I suggest checking this page before you book as you have to opt in to these promos.
Easy to reach status
Hyatt has three status tiers but the first two don’t do a ton. Once you get to Globalist, you’ll unlock a ton of great benefits. While Globalist requires 60 nights (or 100,000 base points) Hyatt makes it easy (IMO) to reach that Globalist. The Hyatt credit card will give you a head start without any spending but you could literally spend your way to Globalist. There are also other challenges that may get you there faster. These come and go and not everyone may be eligible. You can learn more about all three tiers here.
Milestone Rewards
Starting at 20 nights and then every 10 nights thereafter, you’ll get some time of reward from free points, free night awards and other benefits. These rewards really start to add up. If you get to Globalist, you’ll easily get $1,000 in value from everything you’ve earned from 20 nights through 60 nights. Favorites are the free night awards and the guest of honor awards. The only issue here is that you have to select your reward by a certain date after you earn them.
Brand Explorer
Not enough people seem to know that this is a thing. For every 5 Hyatt brands that you stay at, you’ll get a Free Night Award. Note that this is once per lifetime but Hyatt is constantly adding new brands so there’s currently 6 FNAs that you can get. This is such a cool little feature. While most people won’t get all 6, it should be easy for the average person to get at least 2, if not 3.
Speaking of brands, you can learn about all of the different Hyatt brands by checking out this course.
Free Night Awards
In addition to the ways mentioned above, there’s a few other ways to earn free night awards. You can learn more by checking out this course.
Room for improvement
Of course, nothing is perfect. Hyatt is a small brand compared to Hilton and Marriott. There’s a lot of blank spaces on the map where you cannot find any Hyatts. This makes it difficult for Hyatt to be your go-to hotel everywhere you go. However, Hyatt is probably the fastest growing hotel at the moment. They have a ton of catching up to do and they know it.
Hyatt used to partner with SLH hotels which was a really great use of points. They lost that to Hilton and they then bought Mr. and Mrs. Smith hotels which is more of an association of small upscale hotels than it is a hotel brand. As a result, MMS hotels are run differently and not in a good way. While that’s outside the scope of this course, MMS hotels are not usually booked by most travel hackers. In fact, some find them to be a nuisance as they clog up the search map on the Hyatt website.
Also, their credit card products are not that great. While they allow you to spend your way to Globalist, they lack the wow factor that you might find with other hotel cards. Of course, one can argue that those other hotel credit cards are better because its harder to get good value from their rewards program.
Conclusion
While Hyatt might not be perfect, it’s easy to use and easy to understand. There’s no complicated math and the award chart provides some certainty when you are running searches. Add in all of the awards and bonuses, and you can easily get max value for your points. It’s the perfect program for beginners but its also a favorite among those that are more advanced.
If you’d like to discuss Hyatt or other hotel programs, join our Facebook group where no question is a bad question.