Ultimate Guide to Hyatt Hotels

Best Rate Guarantee

If a lower price is available than what is offered by Hyatt for the same booking, Hyatt will discount 20% on the lower price room rate or award 5,000 points.

Brand Explorer

For every 5 different Hyatt brands stayed on cash or awards, earn a category 1-4 certificate. This is a lifetime milestone, so won't ever reset.

Guest of Honor Awards

Each Guest of Honor Award will apply Globalist status and benefits to a paid or award stay, up to 7 nights. The giver will receive an qualifying night credit after the Guest of Honor stay was completed. Unfortunately, the award cannot be applied in conjunction with a suite upgrade or free night award. Later sections will explain how to earn Guest of Honor awards.

Hyatt Stays

The Hyatt points earning rate is based on the amount of money spent. No matter the tier, each stay will earn 5 base points per dollar, with the rest of points earned being bonus points. Hyatt Studios earn half, so 2.5 base points per dollar. More on the difference in a later section.

General Member: 5 base points per dollar
Discoverist: 5.5 points per dollar
Explorist : 6 points per dollar
Globalist: 6.5 points per dollar

Please do note that like most other hotel programs, booking through third party like Expedia or travel portals don't earn points.

Buying Points

Points typically go on sale for 2.4 cents per point, up to a maximum of 55,000 points per year. However, they frequently go on sale for 20% or 2.04 cents per point. Not the best value so would not recommend.

Meetings and Events

Earn 1 bonus point per dollar when hosting a meeting or event at a Hyatt hotel, up to 50,000 bonus points each year.

FIND Experience

Hyatt has various experiences that can be booked to earn 10 base points per dollar

Transfer Partners

All of the below transfer partners represent a poor value at the ratio they are transferred. At the transfer ratio listed below, I would highly discourage transferring.

Everyday Partners

Hyatt Stays

Hyatt follows several award charts shown below. For a standard room, category 1 and 2 represent great value on the low end and are great for budget stays. Category 7 and 8 encompass the high end hotels, which may get more than 2 cents per point, as there isn't a real ceiling for cash prices of those hotels. Typically, Hyatt points are touted as holding 2 cents per point or greater. In practice, they are more often than not worth around 1.7 cents per point, which is still great value for points.

All inclusive will fall into a different award chart, with the Miraval brand (also all inclusive) falling into another award chart too.

Hyatt also allows for the flexibility of booking directly into club rooms, suites, and premium suites without charging an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, the one exception to the award charts are Mr and Mrs Smith properties. Their redemptions are dynamic and usually mirror close to cash value, or 1 cent per point. For more information on how much hotel and all inclusive club rooms, suites, and premium suites cost, visit Hyatt's website.

Pay with Points and Money

Hyatt allows for the flexibility to pay with half of the points required for a stay and the rest in cash. The cash component is 50% to 70% of the standard cash rate. At 50%, the value is good, but anymore and I would not recommend this method.

No Resort Fees

Award stays don't have resort fees imposed.

Points Pooling

Members can transfer unlimited points, but only transfer or receive points once every 30 days. To do this, you must complete a pdf form. After that, send it to combinepoints@hyatt.com.

Suite Upgrades

Hyatt allows for redeeming points on a paid stay to upgrade to a suite. Resort hotels require a deluxe room booking, while all other hotels just require a standard room booking. The cost for a suite upgrade is 6,000 points while a premium suite upgrade is 9000 points.

Dining, Spa, and more

Regardless of whether you stay at a Hyatt property, Hyatt points can be used to cover dining and spa charges at the rate below. In-room movies, parking, transportation and other charges could also be redeemed for below.

FIND Experiences

Redeem points for Hyatt Find Experiences.

Meetings

Redeem Hyatt points at a rate seen below. Redemption rate is below 1.5 cents per point.

American Airlines Status for a Day

Redeem Hyatt points for American Airlines status for a day. Redeeming for status for a day could be helpful for adding checked bags, selecting seats, and getting into Oneworld lounges. AAdvantage Platinum Pro could even get you into FIRST classes lounges, like ones from Cathay Pacific, Qantas, and Japan Airlines.

Hyatt Explorists and Globalists:

• Redeem 5,000 Hyatt points for 1 Day AAdvantage Gold status.
• Redeem 8,000 Hyatt points for 1 Day AAdvantage Platinum status.

Hyatt Globalists only:

• Redeem 12,000 Hyatt points for 1 Day AAdvantage Platinum Pro status.

Transfer to Airlines

Hyatt points can be transferred to airline miles at a rate of less than 1 to 1. I would highly discourage this method of redemption, as the transfer rate is quite low.

Elite Status Requirements

Hyatt now has 3 tiers of elite status after general members. Notice how the requirements say base points, rather than bonus points. Extra points earned by elite status, credit cards do not help qualify for elite status with Hyatt. Here are the requirements to earn each status tier:



Just like all major hotel groups, qualifying nights and points are only earned when booking direct or through portals like Amex FHR and Chase the Edit. It is my opinion that the easiest way to qualify for Hyatt elite status is to hold the applicable credit card.

Elite Status Benefits

Honestly, the only status worth chasing after is Globalist. Explorist benefits are pretty nonexistent over Discoverist. The chart doesn't show it, but an additional Globalist benefit is no resort fees on paid stays. Most of the benefits I value are are from Globalist tier but free bottle is as below:

• Free breakfast
• Free parking
• No resort fees on paid stays
• Guaranteed 4 pm late check-out (except resorts)
• Free bottle water
• Welcome amenity at Hyatt Studios

Lifetime Globalist Status

Earn lifetime Globalist status after earning 1 million base points. If earning base points strictly on Hyatt stays, it requires $200,000 in spend to obtain this status. Also earn 5 guest of honor certificates each year on March 1st.

Milestone Rewards

After staying 20 nights, for each 10 nights stayed, earn an additional reward along the way. Milestone rewards can also be earned when earning base points. This is also where another part of the American Airline partnership comes into play, with additional milestone rewards to choose from. The choice benefits are in order of which options I would consider first.

Key rewards to look out for:

• 30 nights: Category 1-4 free night award
• 40 nights: Guest of Honor award (useful before getting Globalist at 60 nights)
• 60 & 100 nights: Category 1-7 free night award
• 100 nights: AAdvantage Platinum status (Oneworld Sapphire)
• 150 nights: Ultimate free night award

Corporate Fast Tack

Hyatt offers a fast track to status for many companies. The status match comes in the form of a 90 day trial. Explorist status comes immediately upon approval for the status match. Staying 10 nights will retain Explorist for for the rest of the year, next year, and until end of February on the following year. Staying 20 nights will promote your status to Globalist for the same duration as mentioned for stay 10 nights to get Explorist.

World of Hyatt

The card's main perks are to obtain a category 1-4 free night certificate on anniversary and 15k in spend and obtain qualifying nights to accelerate the path to status. For the amount of spend needed and that people put on to reach globalist, this card is definitely over hyped compared to the free night certificate obtained from the Amex Hilton Aspire and Amex Hilton Surpass cards.

World of Hyatt Business

The primary perks of this card is to obtain more qualifying nights for less spend than the personal Hyatt card, up to $50,000 in spend per year. It also comes with a 10% award discount and Hyatt leverage membership that could be useful. However, for the annual fee, it is hard to recommend this card.