The World Of Hyatt Credit Card
This is a strong rewards credit card. Points-earning for your spend is fine, not top of market, but what makes the card great is how well it plays with the Hyatt loyalty program, contributes to status, and how well that program rewards customers for incremental activity.
When it first launched, I told a room full of the heads of travel brands issuing rewards cards that was convened by one of the payment networks that this was one of the two best products at the time which really “rides on the rails of” its loyalty program. And that remains true today. I have and have used this card for years.
- But there haven’t been exciting bonuses for it. Hyatt itself has largely been a pretty conservative company, their points are expensive (and valuable) and they have a hard time getting creative.
- Meanwhile, while Chase issues the Hyatt cards, they also issue Marriott and IHG co-brand cards. Those portfolios have had creative, and lucrative, initial bonus offers.
- Finally that changes.
Category 4 Park Hyatt Siem Reap
Category 4 Thompson Washington D.C., Next To Department Of Transportation
The most recent offer for the World Of Hyatt Credit Card was just 30,000 bonus points after $3,000 in purchases within 3 months, plus “up to 30,000 More Bonus Points by earning 2 Bonus Points total per $1 spent in the first 6 months from account opening on purchases that normally earn 1 Bonus Point, on up to $15,000 spent.”
That’s ok I guess with a lot of spend, but nothing like the ‘5 free night’ offers we’ve seen with Marriott and IHG. We now have one with Hyatt, and personally I’d rather have one from Hyatt.
- Earn 5 free nights at any Category 1 – 4 Hyatt hotel or resort after spending $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.* These nights could be worth up to 90,000 points.
View from the Category 4 Hyatt Regency Sydney
Category 4 Hyatt Regency Danang
A peak season category 4 hotel costs 18,000 points so 5 free night awards potentially are ‘worth’ up to 90,000 points. However I do prefer points, since free night awards aren’t as flexible and do expire after a year. (I’ve always had luck letting credit card free night awards expire and then asking to have them converted to points. Not everyone has had that same luck.)
Club lounge at Category 4 Hyatt Regency JFK at Resorts World
Key considerations with this card are that you get 5 elite nights each year as a cardmember, and earn an additional two elite nights for every $5,000 spent on the card.
In addition to points and benefits of the card, Hyatt provides incremental rewards every 10 elite nights between 20 and 150 nights – rewards like confirmed suite upgrades, granting of top tier Globalist status for a stay, and more.
They also offer another category 1-4 free night each year at card renewal plus a category 1-4 free night when spending $15,000 in your cardmember year.
Ongoing spend earns 4x with Hyatt; 2x at restaurants, on airline tickets purchased directly from the airlines, on local transit and commuting and on fitness club and gym memberships. I use the card for my Hyatt spend.
Category 4 Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, My Usual Disney Hotel
View From Category 4 Hyatt Regency Austin
Consider, of course, if you’re in a position to get a small business card that the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card has an offer to earn 90k bonus points after you spend $8,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening – and those points transfer to Hyatt (and other programs).
Hyatt Regency Jersey City On The Hudson
Also, the no annual fee Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card has an offer to earn $900 bonus cash back after you spend $6,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening – and if you have another Chase cards whose points are transferable, these can be combined into that account and then transferred to Hyatt.
I’m struggling to understand / parse the second paragraph “When it first launched, I told a room full of the heads of travel brands issuing rewards cards that was convened by one of the payment networks that this was one of the two best products at the time which really “rides on the rails of” its loyalty program”. Can you / someone please explain what this means?
Is this bonus available to people who have had this card in the past?
I wouldn’t say FINALLY to this offer. Like you said above, it COULD be worth up to 90K points, but free night certificates often have an expiration date. Not only that, but suite upgrade awards generally can’t be used with these. The 90K INK business card is much more valuable. I understand it’s not an either/or situation. I just don’t think it’s that strong an offer. I think in practice, these nights would be difficult to use. I often stay one night at a cat 4 at an airport. Category inflation has negatively affected the value of these cat 1-4 certificates.
Hyatt’s Category 4 is threadbare after so much category inflation. There’s nothing at all in Manhattan. The two in Santa Barbara are gone now.
I find it hard to imagine how I could use 5 Cat 4 nights in a year (and they can’t be extended or converted). There are just too few Cat 4 hotels where I’d want to stay. Pass.
The cat 4 footprint is definitely not what it used to be. Have stayed at four of the ones mentioned above. Favorite is Grand Cypress in Orlando. Hyatt DaNang was awesome.
Need a little luck finding one to match your vacation schedule. The Grand Cypress is now our go to property for Disney/Universal. The staff there is outstanding.
@ Gary — Five nights at a Cat 1-4? Yawn.
The credit card award free nights availability for standard rooms at Hyatt is more restrictive than the points award nights for standard rooms at Hyatt. Keep that in mind when deciding whether to go in for this card for the free nights.
Meh…I spent my Hyatt visa free night yearly at Park Hyatt Siem Reap, Cambodia, where Hilton had no hotels. However, now that Hilton has a SLH property in Siem Reap — the Angkor Village Hotel — I will have a hard time finding a Cat 4 Hyatt hotel where to spend the Hyatt visa FN, which will thus likely be going to waste henceforth 🙁
@GUWonder: When you see availability for points but not for free nights, in my experience this is always due to a minimum stay requirement. Just call WoH and they will have to call the hotel to temporary lift the minimum stay requirement long enough to allow WoH to use two (or whatever number of) free night awards for your stay. I have done this several times. Not every phone agent knows the trick.
TLDR: There is a workaround when points are bookable online but free nights are not.
I kind of agree with several of the commenters. There’s been a lot of category inflation, and I often end up blowing free Cat 1-4 nights on a local stay just to get the night toward status. I would much rather have points that I could redeem toward a Cat 6 or 7 (or even 8).
That’s not to say this isn’t a good deal for some consumers. Most Hyatt Houses are Cat 4 or under, and I find those to be ideal for traveling with kids. This would be a valuable proposition for them. But this is not enticing enough to make me give up my existing card and re-apply.
Long Island City here I come
Good advice for the most part from nsx, but sometimes — and increasingly in more and more cases than used to be the case outside of the Americas too — the Cat 1-4 free night award availability at a property being worse than availability using points for standard rooms has had nothing to do with minimum stay requirements. I was speaking about when minimum stay requirements are not the issue.
Does a Hyatt hotel get the same reimbursement amount from a Cat 1-4 free night award at a given property that they would get for from a points award night at a given property when it’s a one-night stay on the very same night? They do charge the same cash amount for no-showing.on a Cat 1-4 free night award as on a points award night, but that is definitely not indicative of the reimbursement amounts for either type of award stay.
Yeah this is actually weaker than the Chase Marriott 5 x 50K night offering. The card itself may be better but the Marriott 50K’s are more usable because of the opportunity to top off. If you have specific use case in mind, go ahead. But otherwise it will be an exercise in frustration.
@nsx is absolutely correct in that the category inflation depleted quality hotels from Cat4 and lower. There are 3 Hyatts near me and only one is Cat4.
And what I think should also be mentioned is that free night certificates can be blocked by the property even though they are showing available rooms. So there’s no guarantee that your nearby Hyatt will allow you to use points or free night certs
OMG FINALLY!!!!!!!
A mediocre offer for sure. Hyatt badly needs to up their game on category 1-4 certificates, making them 1-5 instead given how they’ve run an ongoing category devaluation for several years. In some ways you could actually see this as notably worse than a decent points signup bonus. Hard pass.