For people that always want to redeem for aspirational properties in the Category 7 arena with Hyatt, then it is a sad day as the 2 free night offer is gone. For everyone else, the best public offer for the Hyatt card is now here.
The New Hyatt Card Offer Is Here
Link: New Hyatt Card Offer – 40,000 Points, $50, and 5,000 Bonus points
I have been saying this ever since the targeted 40K and 50K offers came out – these point offers have an incredible amount of flexibility with them compared to the old 2 free night offer. Unless you absolutely want to redeem at a Category 7 hotel, this new offer will get you everything below that (almost with the Category 6 – missing by a hair!) and offers a lot more value.
What About Category 6?
Some bloggers said the old offer was better for Category 6 and 7 but the truth is that it is just about a wash at the Category 6 level. Here is why:
- 40,000 points bonus
- + 5,000 points for authorized user
- + 2,000 points from minimum spending
- = 47,000 points
Two nights at a Category 6 require 50,000 points. So, you will come up just 3,000 points shy of those two free nights at a Category 6, should you desire to use your points for that. Since Ultimate Reward points transfer at 1:1, you can transfer that way. Otherwise, an additional $3,000 in spending on the card will get your there. For most people, getting the extra 3,000 points (through a transfer, most likely) is not going to be a problem.
The level of flexibility and value that this new offer gives helps you in that you don’t have to feel like you need to redeem for Category 6 or 7!
What Does This New Hyatt Card Offer Give In Value?
For the purpose of point value, I will assume everyone is adding an authorized user as it is really a free 5,000 points for doing so.
Many Free Nights – Up To 9
The 40,000 point offer (+5,000) could give you up to 9 nights!
The Hyatt point chart for free nights goes from 5,000 points for a Category 1 to 30,000 points for a Category 7. If you were to redeem this new offer for Category 1 properties, that would give you a total of 9 free nights with this offer!
Of course, you could also mix it up. A Category 3 (like this one in Abu Dhabi) costs 12,000 points per night. The 40,000 point offer gives you 3 nights at that property and still leaves you with 9,000 in your account. Even redeeming for a Category 5 at 20,000 points per night gives you the two nights that the 2 Free Night offer gives and leaves you with 5,000 points! A Category 4 requires 15,000 points per night so that would give you 3 free nights.
Points+Cash Nights – Up To 18
Using the 40,000 point offer for Points+Cash redemptions could give 18 nights!
I am a big fan of the Points+Cash redemption method with Hyatt. It gives a great balance to paying some cash while also using your points and lets you earn elite night credit and bonuses
Using Points+Cash for a Category 1 with the points from this offer would give you a total of 18 nights from just the points! That is huge! With the 2 Free Night offer, you did not have any points to use for a Points+Cash mix so you are stuck just getting two nights instead of mixing it up.
No Expiration
You could get 4 nights at the Hyatt Capital Gate with the new Hyatt card offer!
The 2 Free Nights expire a year after they are issued so it was a card offer that was best holding off for until you knew how and when you planned on using the nights. Points do not have an expiration so you are free to collect the points from the 40,000 point offer and just use them as you like over time instead of having to use them in a set amount of time.
This works great because it gives you an offer that you could really apply for at any time and then have the points in your account for when that special trip comes up.
Ultimate Reward Saver
Every year when Hyatt hotels shift categories, many people book rooms at the hotels that are going up so they can lock in the lower amount. For some people, that kind of speculative booking means that they have to transfer Ultimate Reward points into their Hyatt account to make the booking. The problem with that is that if they cancel the booking later, they cannot put the Hyatt points back into their Ultimate Reward account. So, a change of plans might mean they have a lot of their Ultimate Reward points in their Hyatt account where they may not have any great need for anymore.
This 40K Hyatt card offer gives you a lot of points that you can leave in your account for those times when speculative bookings can make a lot of sense. This way, you do not have to transfer your valuable Ultimate Reward points in for a speculative booking – you already have 40,000+ points in the account!
Hyatt Globalist Benefits
With the new World of Hyatt, the top-tier Globalist level got some added benefits. These include waived resort fees on award stays, the ability to use the confirmed suite upgrades on award stays, and free parking on award stays. Those are all things that you would not receive with the free night certificates from the old Hyatt card offer so this new Hyatt card offer is definitely better for Globalist members wanting to get more value out of their points and status!
Transfers & Other Uses
Of course, you can also use Hyatt points for things like dining and spa treatments at Hyatt hotels as well as redeeming points for suite upgrades. While the dining/spa redemptions are not normally the best use of points, you at least have points that you could use for those purposes now if you get the 40,000 point offer.
Another great part about the point offer is that you can transfer your points to friends or family. If you have a family member that you book the awards out of, you could transfer your points to their account for redemptions. This is better than the 2 Free Night offer as the person who has the nights has to be staying in the room. That may not always work for everyone so the points are a better option if you are going to be using the redemptions for different people.
Finally, Globalist members are allowed to book reward nights for friends and family and have them share in their benefits. Getting points as a Globalist member to book rooms for other people can be a nice benefit as well – something that you cannot do with the 2 Free Night offer.
Takeaway
As you can see, unless you were only redeeming at the Category 7 properties (and maybe for Category 6), the new Hyatt card offer is a great offer. You will be able to have a lot of flexibility and get a lot of value from the World of Hyatt program.
Why do you include the 2000 points from minimum spend when we also got that when it was 2 free nights? Shouldn’t that be taken out of the equation? Before we had the 2 free nights + 2000 points of minimum spend.
Agreed. Also, I think “most’ might be overreaching unless you have some data on how people use Hyatt points (luxe vs. multiple nights). Also, 2 free nights are deval-proof, whereas 45K points are not.
The $50 bonus was a bit annoying to see because if you did a dummy booking before, you got the same. No improvement there. We applied for the card before the deval and are glad we did. Glad to see that they didn’t bump down to 45K though.
True on the devaluation point but my “most” is in reference to a fairly decent amount of feedback and reference points on free nights from customers. Also, there are (as of recently) only 14 Category 7 properties out of over 600+ Hyatt hotels. That is a small amount of hotels in a sliver of the world. Finally, I used “most” because the customers that are new to this and who the airlines and hotels are regularly targeting are better served by a point offer than a free night deal.
As to the devaluation, those category changes typically come in the early part of the year – January/February. That leaves a lot of time to make plans on category changes and even take advantage of certain changes. I rebooked during the last category change and saved thousands of points. Going for 2 free nights does protect you from that but you are not getting more than that when the categories break the customer’s way. Also, they expire.
Fair point on the 1 year expiration.
For one thing, the other offer’s points from spending did not equal even a the points for points+cash redemption so it really wasn’t meaningful in the talking of categories. If you notice, I really only used it to demonstrate how 2 nights at a category 6 are fairly doable with the current offer. That spending was irrelevant in the old offer.
But if you put it in those terms, the old offer is still better. Under the new offer, with spend, you can get 2 nights Cat 6 (and even higher); and still be most of the way to another award (Cat 1).
Only if you were redeeming at a Category 7 and maybe Category 6 – depending on your spending habits/transfer ability. For anything less than a Category 7 (and 6 for some people), the point offer gives far more flexibility and value at the bulk of the hotels in the Hyatt system. Not only that, it really unlocks award stays for Globalists since those free nights did not allow those other benefits.
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