World of Hyatt is a travel hacker’s best friend for many reasons. Just one of those reasons is the free night certificate. This allows you to book one night at a category 1 -4 hotel for free although there are a few you can earn that will allow you to book up to a category 7. Since that’s more advanced, if we are talking about a free night certificate or FNC, assume it’s the category 1-4 variety. Although you can use the FNC for any of those categories, it really doesn’t make any sense to use it on 1 or 2 and only a handful of times will it make sense to us it on a 3. So, also assume we’ll be using it on a 4 to get maximum value. This is important because we will be taking advantage of this arbitrage between a 1 and a 4. As a reminder, category 1 hotels with Hyatt start at 3,500 points and a category 4 hotel starts at 12,000 points.
Keep in mind that Hyatt is not the only hotel brand to offer a free night certificate like this but because Hyatt has so many great ways to earn them for little cost, we are focusing on Hyatt. Somewhat similar situations may apply to other hotels but you’d have to do your research. You should also know that you can also do mattress runs with Hyatt to reach certain status but that’s a topic for another day.
What’s a mattress run?
If you’re new to the world of travel hacking, a mattress run may be a foreign concept to you but it’s pretty easy to understand. Basically, you are booking a hotel for the sole purpose of completing a travel hacking related goal. For purposes of this article, it’s to earn a FNC. In most cases, you will have to physically check in to the hotel but that doesn’t mean you have to actually stay there. In fact, I’ve read reports about people that paid a discounted rate once they told the hotel that they weren’t actually going to stay there. Since this freed up the room to be rented out to someone else, it makes sense. Not suggesting you do that or not, just something to be aware of. One of the great things about Hyatt is that it doesn’t matter if you use cash or points; you’ll still get credit for the night. For purposes of this article, we’ll be talking about using points.
Suggested scenarios
To put this into perspective, I’m going to give you a few scenarios as to when you could to a mattress run. This list is not meant to be complete. In general, you are going to be targeting two hotels: a category 1 hotel (Cat 1) or a hotel brand that you haven’t stayed at before. The purposes for this will be discussed later.
- You have a long layover and there is a hotel in a short distance from the airport. You check in and leave.
- You’re on a road trip that will take you near a hotel. You check in and leave.
- You are within driving distance to a hotel. You check in and leave or you treat it as a staycation.
- You are staying somewhere else such as an Airbnb, a friend’s house or another hotel that is near a Hyatt. You check in and leave.
- You are actually staying in a Cat 1 (this doesn’t work with Brand Explorer). Instead of just staying the nights that you actually need, you tack on an extra night or two. You leave as you normally would but the hotel thinks you are still there. While housekeeping may mind their own business, it helps to put up the do not disturb sign and check out remotely via the app.
How to earn a FNC
There are several ways to earn a FNC as we discussed in this article, but for purposes of this one, we are focusing on earning a FNC with stays. There three ways to do that. One of the ways that I don’t see enough people talking about is using the Brand Explorer award. Simply put, you get a FNC every time you stay at 5 different brands. So if you’ve stayed at a Hyatt, a Grand Hyatt, a Hyatt House and a Hyatt Regency, you’ll earn a FNC when you stay at another brand such as Hyatt Place. This FNC expires after a year and it’s a once in a lifetime award. Luckily, there’s a bunch of Hyatt brands and they keep coming out with new ones so you can earn some more as this happens. In other works, you can expect a FNC when you have stayed at 5 brands, 10, 15, 20, etc. You can find our strategy for how to make sure you earn as many FNCs as possible using Brand Explorer in the article we previously referenced.
You can also earn FNCs with Milestone Rewards (in addition to the the WoH credit card and Lifetime Globalist status). This doesn’t really require an entire article since you get a FNC at 30 nights and 60 nights so obviously if you think you need to do a mattress run to meet either of these milestones, be sure to do it.
I’d say the only thing to really note about doing this is to try to plan things out as much as possible if you don’t live near a Category 1. This way you can take advantage of a Category 1 while you’re traveling. For example, you know you’ll get to at least 26 nights this year. You’ll be near a Category 1 during another trip and you think it’s possible that you can squeeze in another trip at some point.
Mattress Runs with Category 1 hotels
You can do a mattress run with any category hotel but it makes the most sense to do this with a Category 1 Hyatt hotel in order to take advantage of the difference between the Category 1 and 4. In other words, the goal here is to spend 3,500 points to earn a FNC worth at least 12,000 points, which equals a net gain of 8,500 points. It’s also worth noting here that 3,500 is “off peak” so not every Category 1 hotel will be 3,500 all the time. Depending on your circumstances, it may still make sense to do a mattress run if you cannot find an off-peak rate.
Which hotels are Category 1?
Hyatt makes most things (but not everything) pretty easy and this includes finding Category 1 hotels. You can use this link for an up to date list. As you can see, these hotels are all over the world with most of them being in the US, India and Canada but you’ll find them in almost 3 dozen countries. Most of them are a Hyatt Place but you’ll also find Hyatt House, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Centric, JDV, Hyatt, Alila, Grand Hyatt and UrCove. This list is accurate at the time I wrote this article but Hyatt may change the categories of hotels so some that are 1 may move to a 2 and vice versa. This happened in 2023 so hopefully it doesn’t happen again for a while. You should also know that Hyatt is rapidly expanding so there may be some additional hotel brands that get added to this list at some point.
If you haven’t already read our articles on the different Hyatt brands, we have two: one on the regular hotels and one on the all inclusive hotels. Feel free to check them out if you want to learn about these different brands.
Mattress runs with all-inclusive hotels don’t really work
There are over two dozen Category A all-inclusive hotels with most of them being in Spain. However, they start at 12,000 points a night so it wouldn’t make sense to do this. I also question the logistics of being able to do this due to their locations. Instead, you should actually try to stay at a Sunscape and an Alua to get a cheap vacation while also crossing off this brand.
The Strategy with Brand Explorer
The strategy here is pretty simple. Pick a brand that you probably won’t be staying at anytime in the near future (or ever) and do a mattress run there while you’re in the area. But I would only do this when you know that you’ll be able to earn a Brand Explorer FNC. If you’re under 10 brands, I think it’s a good idea to rack up another brand even if it’s just your sixth. Chances are you’ll get to 10 at some point in your life. But if you’re not the type to hit up the all inclusive hotels and you’re at 15, do you really think you’ll be able to earn 4 more after you do a mattress run to get to 16? That could be difficult without the all inclusive hotels but it’ll depend on your travel habits.
Consider this example. You are flying through Europe and you have a long layover in Frankfurt. You’ve never stayed at a JdV hotel and you don’t really plan to stay at one anytime soon. You notice that there’s a JdV hotel downtown (the Linder Hotel Frankfurt Main Plaza) which is a Category 1 hotel. You book it with points (3500) for one night. You take the train over to the city center and you check in to the hotel. Whether you decide to tell them you’re not actually going to the room is up to you. You then leave the hotel, check out the city and then head back to the airport to get your next flight.
A few days later, you’ll notice that Hyatt sees that you stayed a JdV and this will check off that brand in your account. If this is your 5th (or next 5th) brand, you can expect a FNC in your account. So for just a few minutes worth of work, you’ve traded 3,500 points for one free night at a better hotel. Cool stuff huh? Of course, this scenario is just an example. You could be driving through on a road trip, staying at a nearby hotel or something else like that. Either way, you’re not spending a lot of time or money going out of your way to do this or else it would diminish your returns.
I should also mention that going on a mattress run doesn’t require you to not actually use the room for it to be considered a mattress run. For travel hacking purposes, I think a mattress run is where the reason for booking a hotel is to achieve a goal and not to go on vacation. If you can book a Category 1 hotel and enjoy a few hours in a new city at the same time, that works. Who cares what other people call it.
The Strategy for each brand
The different Category 1 brands all have a different strategy due to location.
Alila – there are only a few of these hotels and I think a lot will depend on whether you are planning to eventually go to Ventana, Big Sur. If you are, no sense in bothering with a mattress run while you’re in Indonesia or Malaysia. If that resort is not your thing or you just don’t want to spend the large amount of points that it will take to stay there, I would consider staying at an Alila if you ever make it to Indonesia or Malaysia. If you go to those counties but would rather stay somewhere else, then make sure you use your one chance to check this brand off your list regardless of where you’re at with Brand Explorer since you may never get another chance to do it.
Hyatt – there are just not a lot of plain old Hyatt’s out there so if you haven’t stayed at one of the handful in the US and you don’t really have plans to, there are several in India. If you happen to be staying anywhere near one of these Hyatt’s, I would definitely do a mattress run there.
Hyatt Centric – I don’t think these hotels make sense for a mattress run because they are often located in great areas of a city you’d probably like to explore (hence the name Centric). I would only do this if you really want/need a FNC and you are one brand short of your next FNC. Otherwise, I’d just assume you’ll be staying at one of them at some points especially if you like to explore cities in the US or Europe.
Hyatt Place and Hyatt House – I’m lumping these two together because they have the same issue. There are a bunch of them so it’s pretty easy to stay at one unless you’re on the west coast. Regardless, if you’re at all into travel hacking, I assume you’re into traveling so I have to imagine at some point you’re going to stay at one of these hotels. They provide a great value. But if you’re the type to only stay at huge, fancy resorts, then it would make sense to do a mattress run to check this off your list.
Hyatt Regency and Grand Hyatt – this is pretty much the same as Hyatt Place and Hyatt House. You should be able to find these hotels available throughout your travels that you won’t really need to do a mattress run. But if you do, there’s not a ton of these listed as Category 1 hotels so take advantage of the ones that you do find.
JdV – there are currently 49 JdV hotels with a majority of them being in Europe. The Category 1 hotels fall under the Story chain and the Linder chain. You don’t need to stay at both since they will code under JdV. There are two Story hotels in Sweeden. The Linder hotels are currently located in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia with a bunch in Germany. I would actually consider staying at one of these hotels especially if you’re on a budget. Whether you pay cash or use points, you’ll get a pretty good deal not to mention checking off a Hyatt brand. If you travel to Europe a lot, it may make sense to wait to see if you stay at one of them.
There are also several JdV hotels in the US including some three in New York City that get good reviews like Hotel 50 Bowery. While there may not be a ton of these, I think there’s enough of them that don’t really warrant a mattress. They’re worth actually staying in at some point.
Hyatt Stuidos
As of October 2024, there’s only one in Mobile, Alabama. As time goes on, more will come on board. As a result, I wouldn’t go out of your way to stay at this hotel but if you are one away from a FNC and you’re gonna be in the area, go for it. Otherwise, give it time and there will be more of these out there.
UrCove – this one is pretty simple. There’s a bunch of them but they are only in China. Personally, if I was going all the way to China, this is not where I would stay so I would definitely set up a mattress run if you can get to one. China is a big country but since there’s a bunch of them, you might be close enough regardless of where you’re staying. Maybe this brand will eventually come out of China but for now, that’s your only option.
Milestone Rewards
Milestone Rewards start at 20 nights and then continue for every 10 nights thereafter. You’ll earn a FNC at 30 nights, 60 nights, 100 night and 150 nights. For purposes of this course, we’ll focus on 30 nights since that’s a Cat 1-4 FNC. If you can get to 30 nights, you’ll see this:
This is where you need to do some advance planning. I see so many people freaking out in December about reaching their status for next year. Don’t be one of those people. As previously discussed, finding Cat 1 hotels can be tough which is why planning months ahead of time is the best way to do it. I start thinking about my status in September. Even if you’re just shooting for a 30 night Milestone Reward, it helps if you can plan out the rest of the year. Let’s say at some point during the year you realize that you are going to end up with 28 or 29 nights. You’ll be just shy of 30 nights. Wouldn’t it by nice to get that FNC at 30 nights? Of course, it’ll also be nice to get a 2k reward or one of the other awards.
If you follow the scenarios explained above, you can plan out in advance to make sure you hit 30 nights. If you use points, and you should, it will cost you 3,500 points a night off-peak or 5,000 points otherwise. So this will be anywhere between 7,000 and 10,000 points. Let’s assume it’s 10,000 points. Once you hit 30 nights, you’ll get a FNC which will save you up to 18,000 points on a future stay. You can also choose that 2k reward which would my suggestion. So let’s do the math. You spent at most 10,000 points. You’ll get back another 2,000 for the next stay award. If you use the FNC on a Cat 4 to save 18,000 points, spending 10,000 (or less) will have saved you 8,000 points and then you would have earned an extra 2,000. In other words, that mattress run turned 10,000 points into 20,000 points.
What about using cash?
Can you use cash to do a mattress run? Yes, but I think you are better off using points. I think the only time I would suggest using points is if you can snag a hotel under $100 and the points required is 5,000. Since Hyatt has some great redemption values, I think using points will make sense most of the time.
Conclusion
Travel hacking is more than just getting points and using them for hotels. Travel hackers take advantage of every facet of award programs in order to extract as much value from them as possible. This includes taking advantage of Hyatt’s Brand Explorer rewards and Milestone Rewards by doing mattress runs. Of course, there are other reasons to do mattress runs but that’s for another course.
Want to discuss points and miles? Join our Facebook group.