Use Your Points for Hyatt: Guide

When it comes to booking hotels with points — especially with Chase Ultimate Rewards points — Hyatt is our go-to. It’s an easy way to simplify travel planning and maximize points. This post dives into the world of Hyatt, exploring tips on how to use your points effectively and how to book even those hard-to-get reservations.

Saying that we love Hyatt is in no way revolutionary. Hyatt is a popular choice for many points enthusiasts, and for good reason. The predictable award chart, solid benefits, and the ability to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points make it a great option for both beginners and experienced travelers. We specifically love it for family travel savings!

One of the reasons Hyatt is our favorite is that we can always count on the quality. We’ve stayed in a lot of Hyatt hotels or resorts and they deliver every time. This is not the same with every hotel rewards program. Because of the consistent quality of Hyatt, I no longer need to spend a lot of time reading reviews and I don’t have to wonder what we’re going to walk into.

Earning Hyatt Points

There are many ways to earn Hyatt points. Here are some of the ways to earn points through credit cards.

Chase Ultimate Rewards

The easiest way to earn a lot of Hyatt points is not actually via Hyatt but through the Chase Ultimate Rewards program. By holding a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card or Chase Sapphire Reserve® card or Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, you can earn valuable points that can be transferred to Hyatt at a 1:1 ratio.

Other no annual fee cards like those from the Freedom family of cards (there are two) and some of the Chase Ink cards also earn cash back that can convert to Ultimate Rewards points, providing multiple avenues to accumulate rewards.

We walk through how to easily earn a lot of Chase Ultimate Rewards in our Three Year Plan and our Guide to Ultimate Rewards.

Two-Person Mode (or Friends and Family Referrals)

If you’re in a household with two adults, you’re in luck! All of the cards I mentioned above also offer referral bonuses! This means you can refer each other, earning additional bonus points on top of the new cardholder earning a welcome offer. It’s a great way to boost your points balance.

If you don’t have a spouse or partner to refer, you could also consider working with a friend or family member to help both of you earn more points faster.

Bilt Rewards

While not as widely known, Bilt Rewards is another option for earning points that can be transferred to Hyatt. The Bilt credit card allows you to earn points on rent payments, making it a great choice for renters.

However, it’s important to note that Bilt Rewards doesn’t offer a significant welcome bonus, so building up a substantial balance may take time.

Hyatt Cards

There’s one personal Hyatt credit card, though it typically doesn’t have a very exciting welcome offer. Additionally, there’s a business Hyatt card.

Tip: Keep the Focus on Chase Ultimate Rewards

There are many ways to earn Hyatt points, but focusing on Chase Ultimate Rewards is the easiest way to earn a lot of points quickly. Because there are so many different cards to sign up for, Chase makes it easy to accumulate a lot of points–especially when you can refer a partner or friend and get those extra referral points.

It’s important to note that once you transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt, they are locked in to Hyatt. You won’t be able to use them anywhere else. While this isn’t a major issue for me, as I always have Hyatt hotels on my travel list, it’s something to keep in mind.

How Hyatt Points Pricing Works

Award Chart Divided by Categories

One of the biggest advantages of Hyatt is its predictable award chart. Unlike some other hotel programs, Hyatt uses a straightforward category system, making it easy to budget for your trips.

You can find the chart here.

For any given Hyatt hotel, you can look up its category and know what the price is a year in advance and that’s really nice for planning purposes. If you’re browsing hotels, you can use the Explore feature on Hyatt’s site to filter by category or browse hotels in a certain region.

You can also view a list of every given hotel in a region in a category.

The standard rate for a Category 1 hotel is 5,000 points per night. That’s true of every Category 1 hotel no matter where it is in the world, no matter what the cash price is. The levels go all the way up to Category 8. A standard night at a category 8 hotel costs 40,000 points per night.

All-Inclusive Resorts

Hyatt also offers a chart for all-inclusive hotels, categorized from A to F. These all-inclusive properties require a higher point cost, starting at 12,000 points per night for Category A and going up to 58,000 points for a peak night at a Category F.

Off-Peak and Peak Pricing

Hyatt also has peak, off-peak, and standard pricing to add flexibility to its award chart, which is set a year in advance. Off-peak dates offer lower redemption rates, and peak dates require more points.

Note: You cannot see the calendar of peak and off-peak dates when you search for a Hyatt hotel via the app. This information is only available on the web browser version of the Hyatt website. If your travel dates are flexible, you can use this information to plan your trip and potentially save points by choosing off-peak dates.

To see the calendar, you will go to Hyatt.com and search for a stay (any dates) at the hotel you’re interested in.

When the search results pop up, look for the “Points Calendar” link

Then if you click Points Calendar, you’ll be sent to another window that shows the off-peak, standard, and peak-pricing for that property. Note that this calendar doesn’t show availability, just pricing structure.

No Resort Fees or Taxes When You Book With Points

When you book with Hyatt points, you won’t pay any resort fees or taxes.

The tax part is true of pretty much any hotel chain — typically when you book with hotel points you won’t have to pay taxes.

But waiving the resort fees is not the norm — other chains like IHG and Marriott will charge you the resort fee even when you pay with points. And at some properties the resort fees can be $50 a day or more.

With Hyatt, the resort fee is waived for any points stays. Plus, you still get any benefits associated with the resort fees.

At the Hyatt Place Waikiki, for instance, the resort fee covers amenities like borrowing beach chairs and sand toys for free — you still get those benefits included even though you don’t have to pay the resort fee.

Pro Tip: Check What Is Included With Resort Fees

Hyatt hotels always disclose what is covered by the resort fees on the website. But sometimes the hotel front desk won’t necessarily offer this information at check in. Check yourself so you get all your perks!

When you’re booking a Hyatt hotel, you should see a little disclaimer about the resort fee and a link to view inclusions. You can search for any dates for your hotel to find this link.

Be sure to click the link to see what’s included. For example, when I view the inclusions for Hyatt Place Waikiki, it gives a long list — including a tote bag, discounted rates for some luaus, use of boogie boards, a Lei-making class on Wednesdays and Fridays, and more. So be sure to check to see what’s included!

Hyatt Brand Explorer Awards

Hyatt has something called “Brand Explorer” where you can earn free nights just by staying at different brands in the Hyatt portfolio. People sometimes call this “Hyatt Bingo”

Here’s how it works. For every 5 unique Hyatt brands you stay at, you earn a free night certificate for a category 1-4 hotel. You can pick and choose from any hotels in the Hyatt portfolio. For instance, they don’t have to be all luxury hotels or all classic hotels. It can be a mix of any brands on this chart.

Stays can be paid with cash or booked with points. That means you can book all your stays with points and still earn a free night by staying at 5 separate brands!

What makes it even better is you can complete this challenge multiple times. Hyatt has over 30 different brands in their portfolio so that means you can earn a free night through the brand explorer up to 6 times!

You can check your progress in your Hyatt profile under “Brand Explorer”.

How to Find the Best Hyatt for Your Next Stay

The best search tool to start with is the Hyatt website. I like to use this Hyatt map to view all of their hotel options.

You can filter this by hotel category if you want to stick to a particular budget. Another idea is to select filters that will help to narrow your search like specific hotel brands, a pool option, or viewing resort properties only.

Typically resort properties are going to have more amenities and often some included activities on specific days.

Family Size Rooms + Free Breakfast

If you want a hotel for a bigger family — you’ll want to focus on Hyatt Place or Hyatt House hotels. Hyatt Place has a pretty standard 2 queen room with a sofa bed that sleeps 6 throughout the US. In the US, most Hyatt Place hotels also includes breakfast so it’s a great option for families.

You can find Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotels in all kinds of places. Waikiki, Chicago, on the beach in Florida, near Arches National Park — and many more! We’ve stayed at quite a few. Even in Winnipeg, Canada.

Pro Tip: Hyatt Place outside the US, especially in Europe, is different. We stayed at a Hyatt Place by the London Heathrow airport that only slept 2 people and didn’t include breakfast.

Finding Inspiration

Beyond the map feature, you also might find some inspiration by looking at other people’s trip reports and seeing where they have gone.

When we stay at a Hyatt, I typically share stories on Instagram and save these as a highlight to my profile with the destination so you can browse those as well if that interests you. Some that I have saved are Andaz Papagayo in Costa Rica, Andaz Mayakoba in the Riviera Maya, Hyatt Regency Merida, Hyatts in Tokyo and Fukuoka Japan, and Ziva Cancun.

You can also read our community trip reports as many of those include stories of Hyatt stays!

But overall, for browsing, I think going to a computer and going to the Hyatt map on the Hyatt website is the best starting place.

Hyatt All-Inclusive Stays

Hyatt also has the most all-inclusive options to book with points of any chain. I will say the pricing can be a bit steep and it seems to be going up and up every year. But if you want a fully all-inclusive vacation, there are a lot of Hyatt options. You can filter for these on the Hyatt website.

Hyatt Club Lounges

There is one type of stay that Hyatt does not make easy to search on their website — and it also happens to be one of our favorite kinds of stays: Hyatt hotels with club lounges.

Club Lounges, when they are available at a hotel — and the hotels that have them are pretty limited — typically include a lounge area that will serve breakfast and also what is called “cocktail hour” but essentially is dinner.

If you’re in a room that is designated as having “Club Lounge Access” — you get to enjoy the lounge.

We really like club lounges for family travel because it helps us simplify our trip planning and gives us a good rhythm. So when we stay at a place with a club lounge we usually wake up and go and eat breakfast in the club. Then we’ll go out and explore for the day and eat lunch out. And then we come back for cocktail hour for dinner and relax the rest of the night at the hotel.

It means we’re spending less on food and also we’re spending less time researching where to eat. And we’ve found that most club lounges include some local food — we enjoyed some great Japanese food in Japan or Mexican food in Mexico.

Book Club Lounge Access Using More Points

Unlike other hotel programs, Hyatt allows you to use a few more points to get one of these Club Lounge Access rooms. So for a Category 1 hotel that is usually 5,000 points, it costs 6,500 to book a Club Access Room. This pricing is included in their award chart.

Club Lounge Access with Globalist Status

This option is less relevant to most beginners. You get Club lounge access automatically if you have Hyatt’s highest level of elite status which is called Globalist.

Club Access Awards for the Frequent Traveler

If you start to travel more, you may get the perk of earning two Club Access awards! Hyatt has extra rewards called “Milestone Rewards” which are awarded after you stay a certain number of nights at a Hyatt.

You get what’s called one “elite night credit” for each night you stay. An elite night credit just means they track the nights stayed with that brand. Whether you paid with points or cash you still get an elite night credit after a stay.

If you get to 20 elite night credits within a calendar year, you get to choose from a few perks and one of those is 2 Club Access certificates.

A Club Access certificate can then be used to upgrade a stay that you have booked at a Hyatt that has a club lounge. It won’t upgrade your room pernsay, but will give you access to the club lounge at the property. Each certificate is good for a stay of up to 7 nights long.

These Club Access certificates are particularly valuable at the higher end Hyatts with club lounges. Some really popular places to use them would be the Grand Hyatt Kauai or Hyatt Regency Maui.

The Hyatt Regency in Maui, for instance, usually costs 30,000 points per night. If you book a club access room it costs 39,000 points per night. If you were staying for 4 nights and could use a Club Access certificate instead of paying 9,000 extra points per night — that’s like saving 36,000 points!

If you’re interested in trying to earn some Club Access awards, you’ll have to stay 20 nights at a Hyatt in a calendar year. Note that you can get a little boost if you hold a World of Hyatt Credit Card. By holding that card, you will automatic add five elite night credits to your account so you really only need to stay 15 nights.

How to Find Hyatts with Club Lounges

It is really hard to search on the Hyatt site and know which Hyatts actually have club lounges! Our team went through all the Hyatt locations systematically around the world to find each and every Hyatt with a Club Lounge and put them on a custom Google map.

See the map here!

Help keep these resources forever free. If you are new here, I want you to know that I have always managed to keep all my resources like the map above completely free. Some of the cards we share about, allow me to earn a cash commission when you use our links. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it supports our team in making these resources available and keeping them forever free. The other piece of good news is that even when we don’t earn a commission, we still tell you about the best deals! With all of that in mind, I simply ask that when you’re ready to open a new credit card, that you visit my list of best offer recommendations. Thank you!

Booking Strategies – How to Find Availability

There are a few reasons that you might be trying to book a Hyatt hotel with points and finding an error screen that says “This hotel isn’t currently accepting bookings with points” or “Unfortunately this hotel is not available during those dates.”

The good news is that this message isn’t the end of the story and there are a lot of ways you may still be able to book the hotel.

Adjust the Number of People You’re Searching For

The first reason this might happen is that you are searching for too many people. Hyatt hotels only have to make one type of standard room available to book with points.

So if a hotel has some rooms that have 1 king bed and some that have 2 queen beds, they might just designate the 1 king bed rooms as the “standard room” that is bookable with points.

If you go to search and enter in 2 adults and 2 children — but this hotel only has the King bed rooms with an occupancy of 2 — it will just tell you that it isn’t bookable with points at all.

If a hotel comes up as unavailable and you are searching for 3 or more people, the first step you should take is to search again for 2 people and see if the hotel then shows availability.

Depending on what you find, there are different ways to proceed.

What to do if a hotel has points rooms available for 2 but not more

If it does show available rooms for 2 people but not for 3 or 4 or 5 — here’s what to do.

The next step is to do a “cash” price search for the same hotel to see if they have other rooms that are similar in price but would more easily fit your group.

Maybe a king room is $150 a night and the 2 Queen room is $160 a night. If I find this, I typically book the hotel for 2 people — and then message the hotel directly or call them and ask if they can move us to a different room type.

If you booked a standard room, they aren’t going to just move you to a upgraded suite! But if you booked a 1 king room and you can see they have 2 queen rooms available, there is a decent chance they can just move you. They may charge you the price difference of $20 per night or whatever the room difference is in cash.

If it’s within the US and the room type will work for you as is — we typically just book the room for 2.

Then you could have just have one adult check in and the other adult wait outside with the kids. And once we have our room key we would go up discreetly together.

The only place that sneaking an extra kid into a hotel room doesn’t work is (1) All inclusive hotels (2) hotel resorts with wristbands and generally (3) hotels in other countries.

Generally hotels in Europe are going to be very strict about occupancy due to fire codes. In other countries, we often find that hotels ask for passports for everyone in the room. But did find that in Merida, Mexico, for instance, the hotel didn’t blink when we showed up with 4 people for a room that had been booked for 3 people.

Check for Minimum Night Stay Requirements

The next step is to check for minimum night stay requirements.

Minimum night stay requirements is another game hotels play to avoid having to let people book with points. One of the worst offendersI’m aware of is the Andaz Maui which sometimes has an eight night minimum stay if you’re booking with points! Hotels sometimes impose minimum night requirements only for certain weekends or certain seasons.

You can test your dates by trying to book a longer stay and seeing if that now comes up as available.

There are also tools that make it easy to test for this which I’ll discuss below.

If your hotel does have a minimum night restriction but you don’t want to stay that number of nights — there are a few strategies.

Option 1: Book a longer stay, then shorten it

First of all — if you have enough Hyatt points, I’d recommend you just book the longer stay. Then call Hyatt — or message them with the chat function on the Hyatt website or on Twitter/X — their agents are very responsive there — and ask to shorten your stay. This typically gets around the minimum night stay.

Option 2: Book a stay and then change dates

Some hotels have minimum stays for certain seasons but not others. In that case, you can also often book the same number of nights that you want for a period that doesn’t have a minimum night stay — and then call or message Hyatt to change to the dates you actually want.

Again, you can call or send messages on Twitter/X. If you are thinking that you don’t have an X account — well let me tell you, I opened one for the ONLY purpose of messaging Hyatt.

Use an Award Searching Tool

The last thing you can do if you are getting the message that a hotel is not available with points is use a points searching service.

This could also be your first step. It is typically my first step.

At some point, popular Hyatt hotels will sell out of standard rooms. So some days are truly unbookable. To avoid this, you’ll want to book as far out as possible if you’re going to popular places.

Or if you’re like me and don’t like planning far in advance, you can use these services to browse available dates or to set up alerts because when someone cancels a room, it may become bookable with points again.

MaxMyPoint: Most user friendly

My go-to service is MaxMyPoint. This site lets you see the Hyatt award availability for a specific property on a calendar view.

I like it because of this calendar view since it is how my mind works for trip planning. It also makes it easy to page through availability for any given Hyatt hotel.

The calendar view will show you how many rooms are available, the pricing in points and cash, and if suites are available it will show those, too. With the free version, you can view 10 hotel availability pages per day.

You can also set up alerts which is really helpful if your dates are set but you aren’t seeing any availability. With the free version, you can set one alert at a time.

I used the alert service for a trip to Costa Rica with our extended family: The Andaz Papagayo is a pretty popular hotel AND we were trying to book four rooms over a holiday week. Still, I was feeling optimistic so I upgraded my MaxMyPoint subscription for a few months to a level where I could get multiple alerts. I set alerts for when any room became available and as they did, I booked them one by one.

Even at highly popular hotels, a lot of people still cancel rooms and those rooms go back into the inventory and can be bookable with points. The easiest way to find them is to use a service like MaxMyPoint. You may find that at times you are really doing more searching that it is worth paying for a month of the premium membership.

The premium version also has an option where you can find hotels that are imposing minimum night stays, but this functionality isn’t as great as it is with Rooms.Aero.

Rooms.Aero: Great for Minimum Night Stays + Free Alerts

Rooms.Aero is free to use and set unlimited alerts which is a great feature. But the interface isn’t as intuitive and because it doesn’t have a calendar view, it can be harder to visualize availability for trip planning.

To find availability at a given hotel, you’ll want to click on Explore > World of Hyatt and then enter the hotel name in the Search box.

Rooms.Aero is particularly good for its better functionality for finding rooms at properties that have minimum night stay restrictions. Here’s how you could use this feature. This is a sample search at Alila Ventana Big Sur which rarely releases availability for single nights for standard rooms. In this initial search for 1 night stays, it only returned 5 nights in a whole year.

But when I changed the option to a stay of 3 nights and arranged by “Standard Room” — there were now 5 PAGES of available dates.

Learn More About Hyatt

By understanding the nuances of the Hyatt program and implementing these strategies, you can maximize the value of your points and enjoy unforgettable travel experiences. Here are a few more Hyatt resources I have to help!

• Sign up for my free course which has a whole module on Hyatt.
• Download my free Hyatt guide as a reference.

If you don’t have a World of Hyatt account, I’d also encourage you to sign up for one now. That’s because if you wait to sign up for an account till you’re ready to transfer your Chase points to Hyatt — sometimes they will hold the points for up to a week before transferring them if it is a new account. Better to do it now and have it done!

Pro tip: The name on the Hyatt account will need to match the name on the Sapphire Preferred account in order to transfer points. So make sure this will match up — whoever holds the Sapphire Preferred should also open the Hyatt account in your household.

With Hyatt, you can unlock a world of travel possibilities. Whether you’re traveling with a family or looking for adults only resorts, Hyatt has something for everyone. So, what are you waiting for? Start planning your next adventure and let’s make the most of those Ultimate Rewards points!