Hyatt just announced a limited-time offer on purchasing Hyatt points. Is it a good deal?
Buy Hyatt Points and Receive Up To 40% Bonus
Now through August 18, you can purchase Hyatt points and receive up to a 40% bonus on your purchase! The maximum number of points you can purchase is 55,000 (and receive the bonus) making for a total of 77,000 points for $1,320.
This offer is tiered and the structure is as follows:
- 5,000 – 19,000 points = receive 20% bonus
- 20,000 – 39,000 points = receive 30% bonus
- 40,000 – 55,000 points = receive 40% bonus
This offer was sent to my wife (Platinum), but it was also valid for my account as well (Diamond member). I tried for another account that I control that does not have status and it was not eligible. So, it appears you must have elite status for this offer. Hyatt Platinum status is very easy to get since it comes as a perk with the Hyatt Chase card.
Good Deal or Not?
If you max out the bonus structure (so, purchase to receive a 40% bonus), you would be paying 1.7 cents per point. The highest category Hyatt hotels demand a 30,000 point per night cost so that would end up costing you $514 (from purchasing points) to stay at those hotels.
While that is a lot of money and I would not pay it, if someone was going to shell out the cost for one of those hotels, it could be cheaper to use points. For instance, the Park Hyatt Sydney (Category 7) costs over $800 per night this fall! So, purchasing these points would save you some money. On the other hand, just typing out the words about paying over $500 for one night makes me want to choke. 🙂 That does not seem like a great value, but I do know that some people might find it to be so.
For lower category hotels, the value may come out to even less of a difference. The hotel near me, the Hyatt Regency Thessaloniki, routinely goes for almost $200 (or more) per night and is a Category 3 (12,000 points). At the 40% bonus point, it would cost $205 to get enough points to pay for that one night! Potentially, you could pay more for the points than you would for the room – and you would not even get credit towards your elite status!
Those are just two examples. The results could widely vary depending on the hotel you choose to use them on. If you are looking for an opportunity to purchase points, this is as cheap as it is going to get (when buying from Hyatt – via points.com).
Unless you really need the points, the better option would be to use the Points+Cash option for Category 2 – 6 hotels. Of course, this requires you to already have the points to start with. Paying cash instead of some of the points basically allows you to “buy” Hyatt points (or use cash instead) for less than this amount. Some of them are as low as 1.2 cents a piece. I understand that there are some circumstances where buying the points might make sense for your situation, but I would imagine that most people would just choose to pass on this offer. A 40% bonus is nice, it is just too bad it is not offered for all point purchases instead of the tiered structure.
What do you think? Are you buying?
