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When planning for a recent weekend trip to Boston, I was poking around at the availability of hotels and found cash prices to be exceedingly high during our dates at $300+ per night. I scoffed at the idea of handing over $1,000 or more for a couple of nights away and instead turned to my trusty award miles to see if there was a most cost-effective approach.
As it turns out, I found a good deal on a centrally-located Hyatt property and was able to snag it for 8,500 points + $73 per night, a value of 3.8 cents per point as the cash prices were $398. In this post, I’ll explain how to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards® to Hyatt for great value.
World of Hyatt
Though Hyatt’s footprint of ~1,000 hotels and resorts worldwide pales in comparison to behemoths like Hilton and Marriott, their properties offer some of the best experiences, amenities, and value. Some of the incredible properties bookable with Hyatt points include the Park Hyatts in Paris, Vienna, New York, Tokyo, and Sydney, as well as Miraval properties, Zilara and Ziva all-inclusive properties in Mexico and the Caribbean, and more.
If you happen to have top-tier status (Globalist), you are treated to perks like free breakfast, lounge access, free parking (including valet), room upgrades, and more. However, you don’t necessarily need enhanced status to book yourself into a suite or club room with lounge access – they let you make award bookings in these room types for extra points (something other programs don’t allow) which is a great benefit.
Because Hyatt uses an award chart to categorize their hotels, you pay a fixed amount of points for award stays which does not fluctuate due to demand or seasonality and can often lead to exceptional value.
The Park Hyatt Vienna is located in a former 1900s bank, and their incredible pool used to be the vault. We had a wonderful stay there in 2016.
Booking and Earning with Hyatt
Booking an award stay with Hyatt is as simple as it gets: if you have the points in your World of Hyatt account, just search for the location or hotel you’d like to stay at, check the box on the search screen to show the number of points needed per night, and book it. They also offer a Points + Cash option which can sometimes offer better value than points-only bookings. However, earning Hyatt points can be tricky as they only offer two credit cards that directly earn them: card_name and card_name.
These cards are both issued by Chase and are therefore subject to the 5/24 rule, but the personal version is an excellent card to have not only for its welcome bonus but also for the annual Free Night Certificate it offers each year (usable at category 1-4 hotels). It’s one of the best cards to keep long-term because of this, as long as you can get more than the annual fee’s worth of value ($95) from the certificate, which I have always been able to do – usually with airport hotels on long layovers.
If you’ve maxed out your ability to open Hyatt credit cards, another great option for amassing points is to transfer them from Ultimate Rewards. Though it’s exceedingly rare that transferring flexible currencies to hotel points is a good deal, Hyatt is the exception. I often see returns of 3-5 cents per point or more on Hyatt award stays, which is more than I average on flights.
My wife and I enjoyed an incredible weekend at the Miraval Austin, booked with Hyatt points.
Best Credit Cards for earning Ultimate Rewards Points
Chase offers many credit cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points, including:
How to Transfer Ultimate Rewards Points to Hyatt
Please note that you must have a fee-charging credit card open (e.g. card_name, card_name, or card_name) in order to have the ability to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to travel partners. You must also have one of these cards to enable your earnings from the Freedom Flex or card_name to be used as Ultimate Rewards points instead of straight cashback.
To transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt or any travel partner, log in to the Ultimate Rewards portal and navigate to the Transfer Points page. From there, you can select which partner you would like to transfer to by inputting your corresponding account number. You cannot transfer to another person’s Hyatt account from your Ultimate Rewards account – the names must match. However, you CAN pool your Ultimate Rewards Points between members of the same household and then transfer to airlines from a single account in order to combine balances.
Once you’ve submitted the transfer, the points show up in your Hyatt account instantly and you’re ready to make your booking!
Booking Example
In the introduction I alluded to a hotel in Boston that I was looking at for a weekend stay – here’s how I booked it.
First, I checked the cash prices for our dates:
$400/nt – yikes! I next checked the number of points required for the booking:
Paying 17,000 points would equate to a value of 2.35 cents per point (400/17,000), whereas the Points + Cash option would be 3.8 cents per point ((400-73)/8,500). Winner!
Because of Points + Cash value, I decided to go that route and transferred 26,000 Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt to make the booking.
Final Thoughts
Hyatt offers some of the best value award redemptions of any hotel chain due to their static award chart, Points + Cash flexibility, and ability to gain access to lounges and suites for more points. Though there are fewer ways to earn big numbers of points than its competitors, credit cards like card_name are valuable to hold for the welcome bonus and ongoing perks. More importantly, however, you can transfer Ultimate Rewards points earned from other Chase credit cards directly and instantly to Hyatt to continue booking high-value stays.
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Editorial Note – Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
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I love Hyatt properties, actually. Good value, little pomp. Especially overseas you can sometimes book in capital cities for 10,000 points a night in the shoulder seasons. Cheers!
Agreed! We had an awesome redemption at the Park Hyatt Siem Reap a couple of years ago which was still a Category 4 and I was able to use a free night certificate – cha ching!
Hyatt points are my favorite. Did the chase sapphire to get the bonus last year, then transferred to Hyatt.
A great hack I discovered is when you transfer points from ultimate rewards to Hyatt, Hyatt counts these as base points. This means I paid for my vacation last year and collected enough points to be bumped up to Globalist status for this year.
This has some excellent perks:
1) free suite upgrades on check in if available
2) free breakfast for you and family of four
3) waived resort fees on free or bonus nights
4) 30% points kicker on any spend
It’s hard to quantify this but here’s a recent example. My family did a quick two night getaway to Monterey, using free nights I had collected, a $500 value. When we got there they upgraded us to a suite, an additional $600 value. They kicked in breakfast for two mornings, a $100 value. I had signed up for a promo they were running, which gave me 2022 points. End of the day we saved $1200 and went home with points worth $60!
So this year we are doing a number of Hyatt stays. The game plan is:
Book a room that would fit our family, some with points. Look to get upgraded to suites. For times we do have to spend (or when we hit the hotel restaurant or spa), we will get 5x base points plus a 30% kicker (so 6.5 pts per $1). Additionally we’ll get 4 bonus points via the Hyatt CC, so a total of 10.5 points (I assume they round this). Right now we have three trips planned, 10 nights total, 6 of which we are paying for.
For free nights, we are using 92,000 points towards a value of $2400 (room + fees), a 2.6 cent value. (Although those points have probably half bonus connected to them, so likely higher).
For paid time, I figure with meals and activities it’s going to be around $5000 in spend, or about 52,500 points. This will be enough for two free nights in our favorite Hawaiian Hyatt, a $1600 value.
And that doesn’t include the potential suite upgrades along the way. :)
This is awesome, Dan! Way to maximize value with your points, certificates, and status – that’s a great example of how powerful Hyatt can be.
Thanks Brandon
Just stayed at Indian Wells Resort in CA. Cost was inflated a bit due to spring break, but got a 25% off coupon for being globalist. Total 4 nights with a couple dinners and pool drinks $2150.
Got a minor upgrade, no suites available. Did get breakfast four mornings at the nice buffet (inflated too) for free based on globalist status, total value $450.
With card points, 30% base point uplift, and a promotion that provided 2022 points per 2-night stay, total points earned was just over 23,000. This is just about enough for one night at our favorite cat 6 Hawaiian resort, about $950 value.
So plenty to take advantage of in this program!
I should add, we had a blast!
Also saved $50 per night on parking and resort fee with globalist status.
The parking benefit alone has saved me thousands – great perk!