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Stay in Hawaii with Points: 3 Best Hyatt Hotels for Families

Categories: Redeeming Points, Where to Stay with PointsBy Last Updated: January 13, 2025

Aloha! If you are looking to take your family to Hawaii with points, you’re in the right place! After you’ve figured out how to use your points to fly to Hawaii, it’s time to figure out where to stay.

If you’ve looked at hotel prices and felt like a nice place to stay is out of reach, you’re not alone. We get a lot of questions about Hawaii with points. Fortunately, there are some fabulous family hotels on the islands that you can book with your credit card bonus.

Our favorite family hotels in Hawaii with points are all Hyatt hotels. Not only do they offer great value for your points, but they all come with wonderful family amenities and, when booked with points, your resort fee is waived.

Top Family Hyatt Hotels in Hawaii

Oahu: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach

The Hyatt Place Waikiki is the place to be if you want to be in the middle of Waikiki. As a Category 4 Hyatt, you can use Hyatt points to book your room for just 15,000 points per night.

Waikiki Beach
Waikiki

While not directly on the beach, the Hyatt Place is just a few minutes walk from the beach, the Honolulu Zoo, the Ala Wai Golf Course, and an abundance of restaurants.

The Hyatt Place Waikiki has a pool and fitness center and the amenity fee (which is waived if you book with points!) includes beach chairs, boogie boards and lei making classes. Check out a full list of their amenities here.

In addition to a great location and amenities, this hotel is an excellent choice for large families because rooms with two queen beds sleep six. All rooms include a sofa bed and breakfast is also included.

It’s also down the street from a great place to eat in Honolulu – Marugame Udon. This fast casual restaurant serves up huge bowls of noodles at a great price for Waikiki. The line is usually out the door, but it moves quickly and your whole family will love it. You can even watch them make the noodles while you wait.

Maui: Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa

If you are looking for a resort, your family will love the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa. The Hyatt Regency Maui is a Category 7 Hyatt with cash prices that typically exceed $700 a night. Booking on points offers an incredible value at 30k points per night.

Hyatt Regency Maui -Hawaii on points
Photo from Hyatt.com

Located on Ka’anapali Beach, this Hyatt Regency has so much to offer you won’t ever want to leave the resort. Included amenities include 6 pools, fitness classes, shuttle service in Ka’anapali, and beach chairs. Your kids will also love the onsite penguins, parrots, and flamingos!

The resort fee also includes a variety of cultural classes, including lei making, hula and ukulele lessons, kukui nut bracelet making, fire knife demos and more! For a full schedule, check here. Again, when you book with points your resort fee and taxes are all waived.

If you truly don’t want to leave the resort, the Hyatt Regency Maui also has 10 on-site restaurants and a nightly luau.

You can use more points to upgrade to a club room and you’ll get access to the Regency Club and complimentary food and beverages per day. If you’ve got the points this is worth considering since resort food is notoriously expensive and underappreciated by kids.

Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa

If I haven’t made your decision on where to stay hard enough already, the Grand Hyatt Kauai is another great option for families in Hawaii. Cash rates exceed $600 per night, but points offer a great value at 30k Hyatt points per night for this Category 7 hotel.

Like the Hyatt Regency Maui, the Grand Hyatt is a true resort. It boasts beautiful rooms, a beachfront location, fitness classes, and on site restaurants. The kids will love floating past waterfalls in the lazy river pool and swooshing down their 150 foot waterslide. The Grand Hyatt Kauai has its own Hawaiian Cultural Center where they offer a variety of cultural classes for kids and adults alike.

Grand Hyatt Kauai - Hawaii on points
Photo from Hyatt.com
Hyatt Place Waikiki Hyatt Regency Maui Grand Hyatt Kauai
Location Waikiki, Oahu Lahaina, Maui Koloa, Hawaii
Hyatt Category 3 7 7
Points per night 12k-18k 25k-35k 25-35k
Room capacity 4 (2 queen bed
rooms sleep 6)
4 4
Nightly parking fee $45+ tax (valet) $25 (self), $40 (valet) Included (self), $30 (valet)
Family friendly amenities Boogie boards
Beach chairs
Lei-making classes
Pool
Gym
Six pools
Waterfalls
Beachside location
Yoga/fitness classes
Daily penguin feeding
Cultural classes
Lazy river
Waterslide
Beachside location
Yoga/fitness classes
Cultural classes
Club access upgrade No Yes Yes
Resort Fee Waived for points booking Waived for points booking Waived for points booking
Hyatt Hotel Comparison

Why Book with Hyatt?

Why do we love booking Hyatt hotels in Hawaii with points so much?

No resort fees when you book with points

When you book pretty much any hotel in a touristy location in Hawaii, you will have to pay a resort/destination fee. These typically exceed $30 per night. When you book your hotel on points at any Hyatt, the resort fee is waived so your Hyatt booking on points is truly free.

Great amenities

Beautiful beaches, pools, water slides, cultural classes, fitness classes. Each of these three resorts offers great family amenities! The resort properties are going to get you more amenities, but they’re also going to cost you more.

Hyatt quality

Booking hotels on a budget can be iffy. The pictures may look good, but when you get there the furniture is over worn, there is hair in the shower, and the room smells mildewy. We don’t think you’ll find this to be the case with any of these Hyatt properties! And the best part is you’re getting great quality for FREE with points.

Availability

Unlike other hotel chains, there is not a cap on the number of award rooms available with Hyatt. Their policy is that “World of Hyatt Standard-Room Free Night Awards are available when hotels have standard rooms available at the Standard Rate.” So if there are standard rooms available for your dates, you will be able to book those rooms with points.

Great value

We are always looking to maximize value with our points. You could go through the Chase or Capital One portal and book with miles or cover your spending, but the real value here is booking directly through Hyatt.

Here’s a screenshot of the number of points to book the Hyatt Regency Maui through Chase Travel℠ with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. You’ll get a value of 1.25 cents per point and one night would cost 51,808 points + $53.

Here’s the same booking using your points directly through Hyatt – at 35k points! You can use those same Chase Ultimate Rewards points but get more value just by transferring them over to Hyatt before booking.

How to Use the Rate Calendar To Find Cheap Dates

Hyatt award redemptions follow a straightforward dynamic pricing model. The rates vary throughout the year, but they follow a set pricing model based on demand.

How do you know what the rate is when you want to go though? It can be tedious to plug in dates searching for those off-peak days. Fortunately, Hyatt has an easy way to find out these dates for each hotel.

After you’ve selected a hotel you will go to “Book Now”. You’ll see the date and occupancy search option and you can leave it at the default and click “Book Now” again. You want to get the reservations page, where you will see the option to see the “Points Calendar”. This will only show at the website, you cannot view this Calendar on the app.

Now you’ll see a scrollable calendar by month that shows the points per night for that specific Hyatt property. Note that this does not mean the rooms are available.

For a step by step on how to do this, check out Katie’s Instagram post on using the Hyatt calendar to find the cheapest rates.

How to Find Availability

Hyatt website

Hyatt releases rooms 395 days in advance. You can check availability for your dates by plugging them into the Hyatt search bar directly from Hyatt.com or from your preferred property and selecting “use points”.

Make a Hyatt points booking
Make a Hyatt points booking

You may get the message “Unfortunately, this hotel is not accepting World of Hyatt points or award during those dates. Explore our other rates or modify your search.”

There are a few reasons you may get this message. It could be:

  • There are no standard rooms available,
  • Your desired occupancy is too high
  • Your stay is too short (some properties have a minimum length of stay for award bookings).

Try changing your occupancy down to 2 and switching from “view points” to “view rates” to see if there are still no standard rooms available. If there are still no standard rooms available then they are sold out.

If there are standard rooms available to book with cash, give Hyatt a call and remind them of their award booking policy and see what they can do to help.

Max My Point

While the Hyatt website does not have a calendar view option that will show you award availability, there are some other sites that can make finding award availability easier.

Max My Point tracks availability of award nights at Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt. You can search for your desired hotel and see a calendar view showing what nights are available to book with points as well as rate information.

Start by searching for your desired hotel. Find the dates you want to travel. If there is availability, you will see the award rate and lowest cash rate. If you click on an available date, Max My Point will take you directly to Hyatt’s site for booking.

If there is no availability, you can click the bell icon to set an alert. Set your parameters and you will be notified if something becomes available.

My My Point alert

Stay With Points

Stay With Points has similar functionality as Max My Point. It pulls award availability information from Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott. As with Max My Point, you can search your desired hotel, see award night availability, and set alerts.

Stay With Points alert

How to Get Hyatt Points

If you follow our Three Year Plan, you will earn 219,000 Ultimate Rewards points in the first year alone — which is enough for a 6 night stay at any of these hotels! Our Three Year Plan starts with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card which we consider the best card to start with in award points.

Chase Sapphire Credit Cards

Both the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card earn Chase Ultimate Rewards® that can be transferred to Hyatt. The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is one of our favorite starter cards and you can read our complete guide on the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

The standard bonus on both these cards is 60,000 points, which could get you 5 nights at the Hyatt Place Waikiki! If a husband and wife both get these cards (and one refers the other for an extra bonus) — you will have 143,000 points after completing your spending — enough for 6 nights at the Hyatt Regency in Maui which typically would cost $4200!

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welcome offer:

bonus_milesbonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

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  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Enjoy benefits such as 5x on travel purchased through Chase Travel℠, 3x on dining, select streaming services and online groceries, 2x on all other travel purchases, 1x on all other purchases, and $50 annual Hotel Credit, plus more.
  • Great transfer options to Hyatt, United, Southwest, and more
  • Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027. Plus $10/month for non-restaurant orders. More here.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is THE top beginner card I recommend for miles & points. The travel protections it provides is top tier, too. Get this card early in your travel points journey, it’s a keeper. It’s the first card in my Three Year Plan.

The points you’ll earn are easy to redeem and it’s also easy to keep earning them. Our favorite use is to transfer them to Hyatt for hotel stays but you can use them for cash back, for any travel expense, or for airlines.

It has a fun extra benefit through December 31, 2027: $10 a month for non-restaurant purchases at DoorDash. Read here how to use this benefit.

If you want to learn more about it, check out Season 1 of my podcast — I dive into the benefits and how to use the points.

The standard bonus is 60,000 points. An offer for 60,000 points + $300 credit towards Chase Travel in the first year ran from September – early November 2024.

An offer for 75,000 points ran from early May – mid June 2024.

A publicly available online offer for 80,000 points ran from March 2023-May 2023.

An 80,000 point bonus ended in Fall 2022.
An offer for 100,000 points ended in Fall 2021.

card_name

Current Bonus:

bonus_milesbonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

annual_fees
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • $300 annual travel credit
  • Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
  • Great transfer options to Hyatt, United, Southwest, and more
  • TSA Precheck, NEXUS, or Global Entry credit up to $120 every 4 years
  • Priority Pass lounge access

This card stands out over other premium cards for two main reasons. First, it is one of the few cards that still gives you access to Priority Pass experiences (restaurants were discontinued as of July 1, 2024). Most other cards just give access to the lounges but if you frequent an airport with a Priority pass experience, this benefit can be worth a lot to you! Second, the travel credit is very easy to use. I also like to use this card to book via Chase Travel℠. When you use 10,000 points, you’ll get $150 worth of travel.

An offer for 75k points ended in June 2024. A publicly available online offer for 80,000 points ran in December 2022.

An offer for 100,000 points ended in 2019.

Chase Freedom Cards

If you already have a Chase Sapphire card, Chase Freedom cards offer a great way to keep earning Ultimate Rewards. The earning rates are actually better than with the Sapphire.

Officially these cards earn Chase Ultimate Rewards® that can only be redeemed cash back (and not transferred to partners like Hyatt) but if you also hold a Sapphire card, you can combine move your points from your Freedom card over to your Sapphire and they become transferrable to Hyatt. If you earn $200 on a Freedom, that will be 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

community referral

welcome offer:

$200

EARN A $200 BONUS after spending $500 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening.opens overlay to offer details

(Reader Referral) All information about this card has been collected independently by Katie’s Travel Tricks. This card is no longer available through Katie’s Travel Tricks.

Annual Fee:

$0

  • Includes cell phone protection if you pay your bill with the card

  • Rotating quarterly categories earn 5x total points on up to $1,500 when activated.
  • If you have a Sapphire card, you can transfer the Freedom points to the Sapphire card to get all the airline and hotel transfer benefits!

This card has great earning potential and is perfect to pair with a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card for ongoing earning. When you combine these cash back points with a Sapphire, they can become transferrable to programs like Hyatt and United.

$200 (20k points) is the standard offer.

Chase Ink Business Credit Cards

If you have a business or a side hustle, and are able to meet the minimum spend requirements, the Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card and Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card each offer a welcome bonus with NO annual fee. These offer a great opportunity to build your points balance.

The catch is, unless you have a Sapphire card or the Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, points from the Business Unlimited and the Business Cash card cannot be transferred to transfer partners.

card_name

welcome offer:

bonus_milesbonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

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This offer is a lot easier to earn than other cards in the Ink family due to the longer time you have to do the full amount of spending.

The bonus for this card is listed as cash back. But if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, you can actually combine the “cash back” points with your Sapphire card. (If you have a Chase Ink Business Premier® Credit Card you cannot combine the points.)

You can get a Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card and Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card . You can also get multiple if you have multiple businesses. Don’t forget to refer your spouse to this one! Full guide here

For many years, the bonus on this card offered $500 after you spent $3000 in 3 months. The offer changed to $750 after spending $7500 in 3 months during the pandemic. In fall 2022, the offer went to $900 after spending $6,000 in 3 months. In fall 2023, we saw the $900 offer return from September to mid-January 2024.
card_name

welcome offer:

bonus_milesbonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

annual_fees
  • If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, you can transfer the Ink points to the Sapphire card to get all the airline and hotel transfer benefits!
  • Earn unlimited 1.5% Cash Back rewards on every purchase

Chase Ink cards are our favorite option when we have larger expenses coming that help us to meet the higher minimum spend. The bonus for this card is listed as cash back.But if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, you can actually combine the “cash back” points with your Sapphire card. (If you have a Chase Ink Business Premier® Credit Card you cannot combine the points.)

You can get a Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card and Chase Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card . You can also get multiple if you have multiple businesses. Don’t forget to refer your spouse to this one!

For many years, the bonus on this card offered $500 after you spent $3000 in 3 months. The offer changed to $750 after spending $7500 in 3 months during the pandemic. In fall 2022, the offer went to $900 after spending $6,000 in 3 months. In fall 2023, we saw the $900 offer return from September to mid-January 2024.

card_name

welcome offer:

bonus_milesbonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

annual_fees
  • Earn 3 points per $1 on the first $150,000 spent in combined purchases on travel, shipping purchases, Internet, cable, social media and search engine advertising, and phone services
  • Travel Benefits: Get 25% more when you redeem your points through Chase TravelSM, No Foreign Transaction Fees and Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption Insurance.
  • No foreign transaction fees

Learn more about this card here. Learn more about qualifying for business cards here (even without an LLC business)

Chase Ink cards are our favorite option when we have larger expenses coming that help us to meet the higher minimum spend. This card will allow you to transfer its points to all of Chase’s travel partners like Hyatt, United, Southwest, and more.

I also love the 3x earning on travel expenses and no foreign transaction fees — along with a good suite of benefits.

This card used to offer 100k points but required a $15,000 spend. An offer for 120,000 points after spending $8000 in three months ran from July to early September 2024.

World of Hyatt Credit Cards

World of Hyatt offers both a personal and business card. These cards offer up to 60,000 bonus points. The spend to get the full bonuses is quite a bit higher than a Chase Sapphire so we recommend you look at a Chase Sapphire first. The World of Hyatt personal card offers a free night (At a Category 1-4 hotel) every year on account anniversary and this can be used at the Hyatt Place Waikiki.

card_name

non-affiliate link

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welcome offer:

bonus_milesbonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

annual_fees
  • Provides 1 free night certificate every year on account anniversary (up to a category 4 hotel)
  • If you spend $15,000 per year on the card you will earn an additional free night certificate

This is the first new offer we’ve seen on this card since 2019. I love keeping this card for the annual hotel night certificate. This is a great offer if you are planning to stay at a Category 1-4 Hyatt in the next year! Standard pricing for Category 4 hotels is 15,000 points per night!

But a few things to note:

The free nights can not be combined with Club Access Awards, so this won’t work to use these nights and also trying to upgrade those nights to Club Lounge Access (unless you already have Globalist status). You also can’t use a Suite Upgrade award with these.

These free nights will expire a year after you earn them.

We consider this card a long term keeping. You’ll get a Free Night Award every year on your account anniversary (for a Category 1-4 hotel) and instant Discoverist status (which is helpful for guaranteeing breakfast at Hyatt Places not that it’s not a guarantee).For anyone trying to earn Globalist or trying to earn 20 Elite Night credits to get Club Lounge Access, this card is a also must! You’ll get 5 elite night credits added to your tracker just for holding the card.

In 2019 when it offered 40K after $3K in 3 months + 20K after $6K total in 6 months. From 2019-January 2024, the offer was 30k.

card_name

welcome offer:

bonus_miles bonus_miles_full

Annual Fee:

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  • Up to 9 points total per $1 spent at Hyatt – 4 Bonus Points per $1 on qualified purchases at Hyatt hotels & up to 5 Base Points per $1 from Hyatt as a World of Hyatt member
  • 2 Bonus Points per $1 spent in your top three spend categories each quarter.
  • 2 Bonus Points per $1 spent on fitness club and gym memberships
  • 1 Bonus Point per $1 spent on all other purchases.
  • Up to $100 in Hyatt statement credits — spend $50 or more at any Hyatt property and earn $50 statement credits up to two times each anniversary year.
  • 5 Tier-Qualifying night credits toward status and Milestone rewards for every $10,000 you spend in a calendar year.
  • World of Hyatt Discoverist status for as long as your account is open. Plus, Discoverist status to up to five employees
  • Member FDIC

I don’t like that it has a higher annual fee than the personal version and doesn’t come with an annual free night. However, this card is a great option for high spenders on a business card who want to become Globalists. Since you’ll earn 5 elite night credits for every $10,000 you spend, it helps get those 60 elite night credits you need for Globalist faster. The two $50 credits per year are a decent benefit — if you spend money on food at Hyatt properties they are easy to redeem.

When this card was released, it had an offer for 75k points that required $10,000 spend. In fall 2021 and 2022, it also offered double elite night credits. The standard offer is 60,000 points after spending $5,000. In fall 2023, there was an offer that added another 15k points for spending $12,000 total. The same offer returned in fall 2024.

How to Transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards® to Hyatt

After you have confirmed availability, transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards® to your Hyatt account. Do NOT transfer points until you’ve confirmed availability since transferring Ultimate Rewards is irreversible.

If you don’t have a Hyatt account, it’ll just take a few minutes to join the World of Hyatt. Click here to set up your free account.

In order to transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards® you will need to log into your Chase account, select your Sapphire or Ink card, and find your points balance. Click “Redeem”.

How to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards

Click to “Earn/Use” your points.

How to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards

Select “Transfer to Travel Partners.”

How to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards

Locate World of Hyatt under the Hotels transfer partners and click “Transfer Points”.

How to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards

Select the name (yours or an authorized user) on the account you want to transfer the points to and enter the corresponding Hyatt account number.

How to redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards

On the next page you will be prompted to choose how many points you want to transfer (in increments of 1,000). You will receive a confirmation of transfer and the points will be in your account immediately.

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2 Comments
  1. Gregg G April 28, 2023 at 1:24 pm - Reply

    Thank you for this. I see that all of these are for families of 4. Do you have any idea if there are any standard rooms with Hyatt on Maui or Kauai tht sleep 5? If not any suites that are affordable or any suggestions for hotels that do?

  2. Katie May 1, 2023 at 12:32 pm - Reply

    The Hyatt Place in Waikiki does sleep 6. For options that sleep more in Kauai, another good option would be staying at a Vacasa rental. There are some that sleep 6. I will also add that anecdotally, I know many families of 5-6 who have slept in one room at the Hyatts in Maui and Kauai with no issue from staff.

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