A Hyatt free night certificate (FNC) allows you to book a free night at a Category 1-4 property (although there is a higher one I’ll discuss in a second). You can combine this FNC with a points or cash booking. You’ll also get all of your elite benefits if you have status and it will count as an elite qualifying night if you are looking to move up in status. Using a FNC will cover all taxes and resort fees just like an award booking. While you can use it at any Category 1-4 property, you’ll obviously get more of a benefit booking a Category 4 property or possibly the occasional Category 3. Hyatt makes it real easy to sort by category by going here. Note that you cannot use these for all inclusive hotels.
Earning FNCs
There are four ways to earn a FNCs: credit cards, Milestone Rewards, Brand Explorer and Lifetime Globalist Status.
Credit Cards
The easiest way to earn FNCs is with the World of Hyatt personal credit card. You’ll receive one FNC every year after your cardmember anniversary. If you spend at least $15,000 in a calendar year on the card, you’ll earn an extra FNC. I realize not everyone can spend $15,000 a year every year on a credit card but even if you can’t, that one FNC should easily offset the annual fee of the card. Category 4 hotels can be up to 18,000 points. Valued at 2 cents per point, that’s $360 in value. Really a no brainer and this is a good reason to always have this card.
Note that the World of Hyatt Business credit card does not have any FNCs for some reason. Kind of a bummer there but that’s still a card to consider.
Milestone Rewards
Hyatt has a great program called Milestone awards that give you something starting at 20 nights and then every 10 nights thereafter up to 100 nights. For purposes of this discussion, if you reach 30 nights (or 50,000 base points) you’ll get a FNC in addition to explorist status, two Club Lounge access passes. If you reach 60 nights (or 100,000 base points) you’ll get an additional FNC but this one allows you to book Category 1-7. Most people won’t get this far so I don’t usually comment on them too much. At the same time you’ll also earn Globalist status, two Club Lounge access passes and My Hyatt Concierge.
Brand Explorer
This one isn’t really discussed that much perhaps because they are once in a lifetime awards. It’s pretty straightforward. You get one FNC for every five Hyatt brands that you stay at. Hyatt keeps adding brands so right now, the max you can earn is five. But again, this is once in a lifetime so once you get one, you’ll never get it again. If you max out, your only hope is that Hyatt adds more brands.
Lifetime Globalist Status
In order to get this incredible status, you need to earn one million base points which comes out to about $200,000 worth of spending with Hyatt. Yeah, that’s out of reach for 99% of you but if you can get there, you’ll earn one Category 1-7 FNC every year.
Expiration dates
Understanding the expiration dates is important for plotting out your strategy to get maximum value for your FNC. In general, they expire after one year after it is issued. However, the following FNCs (for some reason) expire after just 180 days: 30 night Milestone Reward, 60 night Milestone Reward, annual Lifetime Globalist.
Strategy
Now we have to put this all together. The first thing to pay attention to is how you can obtain a FNC so that you know when you are going to get one. This is important because without even paying attention you could stay at 5 brands or 30 nights and not even know that there is a FNC in your account. Since there is an expiration date, you’ll want to make sure that you plan everything out accordingly. For example, if you have no plans on staying at a Category 1-4 Hyatt property for the next year, you may want to adjust some of your planning. Or if you want to get several FNCs to use, you can plan that out as well.
With Brand Explorer, you can decide when you want to earn that FNC. So, if you have stayed at 4 brands already and you are deciding between two different Hyatt hotel brands for an upcoming stay, you could book one you’ve already stayed with if you want to put off this FNC or you can book a new one if you want to earn it now. Same goes for all subsequent Brand Explorer awards.
There’s a similar strategy with the 30 night award although I think if you are over 20 nights you are probably pretty dialed into a strategy already. I think the main thing here is to just be cognizant of where you are at and when you’ll wind up with that award.
With regard to the credit card, the FNC can help you decide if you want to get the personal credit card first or put that off until after you get the business card. You should also be sure to note when your cardmember anniversary is since you should be expecting your FNC to hit your account shortly thereafter.
Two-player mode strategy
If you are in two-player mode, you have a few options here. You can both work on the Brand Explorer awards together. There’s two ways to do this. If you’ve already booked one brand, you can have P2 book that brand the next time you stay there. Another way is for both of you to book the hotel and then combine the reservation together. That requires more work and you might only want to do that with some brands you are probably only going to stay at once.
On the other hand, if one of you are going after status, it doesn’t make sense to break up the bookings as having two people with 30 nights is horrible compared to one person with 60. Likewise, if someone is going for that 30 night milestone reward, there is no reason to have P2 eat into those nights. This is where it helps to plan things out so you know the best route to take.
You can also both get the World of Hyatt credit card and do next to nothing with it and you’ll each get a FNC just for that annual fee. (of course, there are several benefits to actually using the card).
Conclusion
The Hyatt FNC (Category 1-4) is an amazing benefit as it is like getting gifted 18,000 points (assuming you shoot for max value). Now that you know all the different ways to earn it, you just have to know how to use it. That’ll be in a different post.