When you redeem points for a hotel stay, the loyalty program reimburses the hotel for that stay. But, how much does a program pay a hotel for an award stay? Specifically, how much does Hyatt pay a hotel for an award stay?
How Much Does Hyatt Pay a Hotel for an Award Stay?
There are two ways that Hyatt calculates the reimbursement amount for an award stay. One is if the hotel is full/near full capacity (in which case Hyatt pays closer to the actual rate for the stay) and the other is when the hotel is not full.
During a recent stay, I had a peek at what Hyatt paid the hotel for my award stay so here is that information! Now, one thing I am not sure about is if this is a fixed rate per point reimbursement or if things vary a bit more than that. Since the amount comes right out to .6 cents per point, I would not be surprised if it is a fixed rate – especially since things would get so much more complicated if it varies based on category, location, brand, average rate per night, etc.
How I Found the Hyatt Reimbursement Rate for My Award Stay
At a recent Category 1 Hyatt Place stay, there was an issue with my bill (leading up to the stay, my rate would not show in the app and was instead showing as a “confidential rate” – probably due to some changes I had made and combining two stays). So, when I was approaching check out, I pulled up my anticipated bill in the app (love having this feature now!) and was confused to find a $30 charge on two of the award nights and a $92 for the last night of the stay.
Before checking out (I had left the hotel already), I quickly called the hotel to find out what was going on. The manager told me that those rates were what Hyatt paid them for my award stay. This made sense since the last night of my stay was one where they were mostly full so it would be closer to the full cost of the night.
Does This Amount Work for All Hyatt Award Reimbursements??
Now, do all Hyatt properties follow this same reimbursement rate? To put it exactly, the rate that I saw matched with the 5,000 points per night comes out to .613 cents per point. If we were to match that across all Hyatt categories for actual Hyatt properties, here is what we would get for what hotels are reimbursed for on award stays:
- Category 1 – $30
- Category 2 – $49
- Category 3 – $73
- Category 4 – $92
- Category 5 – $122
- Category 6 – $153
- Category 7 – $184
Maybe Not at This Fixed Amount for All Hotels?
The payouts on Category 6 and 7 hotels does make me think that they may use different fixed rates based on categories because those are really low. I mean, some Category 7 hotels could cost $1,000 per night! I would think those hotels would only designate a few rooms as “standard” rooms if they are only getting about $185 per night on award stays.
On the other hand, I doubt Hyatt is going to pay over 1 cent per point, especially when you can buy them on sale for 1.7 cents per point. Many people end up buying for those aspirational properties and I don’t think Hyatt would want to be only getting such a small margin on such redemptions.
Have you see your Hyatt redemption reimbursements before? Is it in line with what Hyatt paid the hotel I was at?
[…] With Miles had the amount Hyatt was paying his hotel show up on his bill during an award stay, and he speculates on what it means for how much Hyatt compensates properties […]