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Buy Hyatt points with a 30% bonus until 2/23/21

Hyatt is currently selling their points with a 30% bonus which equates to 1.85 cents a piece through 2/23/21. Why would you buy Hyatt points? Great question.

Buying any kind of point whether it be Hyatt or another brand is done strategically. The idea is that you can often buy points to redeem for a specific hotel or flight that will end up costing you less than the cash rate.

Before you plunge into a points purchase, the first step is making sure your desired hotel has award availability, and then to make sure the points purchase would price less than the cash rate. If it does…voila, pull the trigger.

Some of examples of when it makes sense.

In fact, I did this last year to stay at the Alila Villas Uluwatu – what I declared to be the best Hyatt property in the world. It ended up saving me almost $500 a night vs cash. Albeit, I don’t think I would have forked over the cash rate, but still…it was massive.

 

It doesn’t to be uber high end properties either. I recently redeemed points for a Hyatt Place stay in Asheville, North Carolina. The reason I did this was because the going rate was nearly $250 a night and that didn’t include parking or taxes. While I had points in my account, the decision is always based off of what kind of value am I extracting and what is my replacement cost.

This situation was different than usual because another promotion needed to be taken into account – 15-25% off. I was able to snag 15% off my stay which dropped the net price to just $196 and included all the taxes and parking. The cash rate would have been close to $300. Using points was clearly the right redemption option.

Register for the 15 to 25% rebate on point redemptions I mentioned

While the 30% bonus is a good rate, the timing is actually really good because you could redeem for even less. In fact, if you carry the World of Hyatt credit card, until 2/28/21 – you can get 25% of your redeemed points back. That is super solid and reduces your out of pocket cost a lot.

Don’t have the card? You still get 15% off.

The Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card

I mentioned this before and if this is something you’re interested in, we have affiliate offers and greatly appreciate you checking them out. While it’s not a card I currently have in my wallet, it’s one I highly intend to add because it’s one of the best co-branded credit cards on the market.

Here’s a look at the pricing – 30% bonus kicks in at 5k:

Often times bonus points, regardless of the program, will tier the offer with large purchases getting the biggest bonus. This one…starts at just 5k points. Low bar and we like it.

Is this the best price?

No, I believe the best price we’ve seen is 1.7c, or a 40% bonus.

Maxing the deal out

You can purchase 55k points a year, but this doesn’t include bonuses that often occur during these promotions. This yields an effective 1.85c per point if you hit the max, but the bigger distinction, in my mind, is that you can only add 55k points to your account.

Merging points for a booking

This is something you should definitely consider and would allow you to purchase more than 55k points across multiple accounts, and then combine them for a booking. Two members may combine points using this form, but may only do so once per 30 days. In my experience if you cancel a booking, the points stay in the account that was used for the booking, or in other words, the account that received the points.

Additionally, you can transfer points from your Chase Ultimate Rewards account to shore up your balance.

As I mentioned, When Buying Points < Paid Rate =

you should pull the trigger

I purchased points for a trip I took in August of 2020. I actually had enough Chase Ultimate Rewards to transfer in, so why did I buy?

I’d already transferred 60k Ultimate Rewards into my Hyatt account, and would rather save the 30k needed to another night for a future premium flight redemption.

I’ll walk you through my thinking, and how it gave me roughly double in value.

The Alila Villas Uluwatu has entry level rooms that measure 3k sq ft, all have private pools, and starting rates are roughly $1k a night ( it says $830 but after fees and taxes…$1k+)

I used a 40% bonus, when it was running last summer, to buy 30k points for a little over $500.  Currently, those same 30k would equal $540, but you’d be getting close to $1k in value.

You still earn Status on award stays.

If you didn’t already know this, by using points, you aren’t sacrificing those elusive Elite Nights that you need to gain/retain status for next year. Hyatt now counts award nights towards status. In fact, most of your Elite benefits are extended to you when staying on an award night. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Recap

• Do you need points?
• Can you get more value for the points than your purchase price?
• If so…this could be a great deal for you.

You can buy here