I was looking for an upcoming stay in San Diego. The Park Hyatt Aviara had confirmed suites available, but that’s not where I wanted to be location-wise and prices were high even with a discounted rate. It’s a family stay and the standard suites at Andaz San Diego are very small. So I was targeting the Manchester Grand Hyatt which is ideal location-wise.

Credit: Grand Hyatt San Diego

However, there were no standard rooms available on points (though they were making club access rooms available for extra points, a bit of games-playing and a poor value for a Globalist who receives club access anyway).

The 700 square foot ‘Signature Suite’ (with one king or two double beds) is considered standard here, eligible for Globalist upgrades and confirmable in advance, but wasn’t available over my dates. So I couldn’t book a discounted rate for a regular room and confirm the suite using an upgrade certificate.

They did have a premium suite available and this can be one of the better sweet spots in the Hyatt program. However the Hyatt website can make the option look more expensive than it actually is. You need to dig in a bit to see the real value here.

Here’s what first came up when I searched for a 1,040 square foot grand suite (700 square foot living space plus 340 square foot king room):

$476 plus 17,000 points sure looked like a lot more than I wanted to spend for what’s still a fairly non-descript suite at the hotel. I was going to pass it right by. But I still clicked through. And the other rate? $359 + 9,000 points. That’s less cash and fewer points. Now we’re getting somewhere.

But let’s click through even further. The Hyatt website’s initial rate display makes the hotel look more expensive than it is. Here are the actual rates, which vary for each night: $350, $369, $259, and $269. What’s more, Hyatt’s website shows resort and destination fees in rates even for a Globalist logged into their account – and Globalists are exempt from these fees on paid nights (unlike with Marriott, nobody pays them on free night awards).

So the offer here is for an average rate of $312+tax and 9,000 points for a room that was going for $900+ per night. Those 9,000 points redeem for a premium suite at a ‘value’ of nearly 7 cents per points. It was the last suite of this type available for these dates as well – so not ‘excess unsold inventory’ being liquidated, either.

There have been plenty of more impressive suite options that members have booked using Hyatt points, from the Plunge Pool Rooftop Deluxe Suite at the Park Hyatt St. Kitts to the Governor’s Suite at Park Hyatt Mendoza, or even the 2,100 square foot suite with pool table at the Hyatt Regency Rochester that last I looked went for just 16,000 points for a free night (the hotel is sad, but not sad relative to Rochester, New York).

Park Hyatt St. Kitts Deluxe Plunge Pool Suite

Confirmed suite upgrades into standard suites are, of course, the single best deal – no additional cash, standard suite confirmed at booking for the cost of a regular room even on discounted rates. However premium suite upgrade awards at 9,000 points per night (versus 6,000 points for a standard suite) can yield massive value.

And the point I want to make here is that the value is sometimes obscured by Hyatt’s website which doesn’t show the best deal, or makes the deal look initially more expensive than it actually is on first display – and also that you shouldn’t necessarily sleep on Hyatt’s premium suite upgrade awards.