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Retain Diamond status for $1250 + earn 33k points with Hyatt More points, more play

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Get Diamond status for $1250 + earn 33k points with Hyatt More points, more play

Hyatt More points, more play was announced today. It’s their fall promotion beginning September 1st and ending November 30th and gives members the opportunity to earn up to 75k bonus Hyatt Gold Passport points. I started to think how this promotion could help me keep my Diamond status. After crunching the number, “Hyatt More points, more play” it creates an opportunity to retain Diamond status for $1250 all the while earning 33k net Gold Passport points. Not a bad deal. And those numbers are starting with 0 stays/nights.

Hyatt More points, more play

Here are the terms

  • 5 eligible nights = 5k bonus
  • 10 eligible nights = 10k bonus
  • 15 eligible nights = 15k bonus
  • 20 eligible nights = 20k bonus
  • 25 eligible nights = 25k bonus

Total is 25 nights = 75k bonus points

Hyatt Diamond qualification

As you can see below:

  • 25 eligible stays
  • 50 eligible nights


Screen Shot 2016-08-31 at 10.04.36 PM

This promotion is for nights not stays. So you’d have to check in and out 25 times.

  • Remember cash and points qualifies.
  • Category 1 is just 2500 points + $50
  • Unless switching hotels there would need to be a night in between stays.

So I pulled up Excel

I have Diamond status from a challenge that I did last year and I loooooooove it so much. I’m a huge club level fan and the 4 diamond suite upgrades make a trip feel so luxurious. I went ahead and crunched the numbers as if I needed to hit all 25 qualifying stays with this promotion and utilized category 1 hotels with a cash + points rate. I also crunched the numbers as if I were only 25 nights shy, found a cheap $50/ night Hyatt, used my Citi Prestige for 4th night free benefits, and showed two different pricing options. Both rates assume that all properties gave a check in bonus of 500 GP. I didn’t include taxes or fees.

Screen Shot 2016-08-31 at 10.57.07 PM

$1250 and net 33k GP

  • 33125 net points ( 75000+8125+12500-62500)
  • Either $1250 or $950 total expense + taxes

I did two calculations:

The first, you need 25 stays, or one that starts as if you didn’t have a single eligible stay all year. If you value Hyatt points at $0.018 then you’re actually earning $596.25 back as well. That means you’re only out a little over $650 and the time to check in/out to re-qualify for Diamond with cash and points. Great deal

The second, assumes you are 25 nights shy and also had a Citi Prestige card that offers a 4th night free. In this scenario, since you aren’t using points at all, you’d clear 95,125 and spend $950 doing it. Around a $0.01 a point. This also assumes you can find a Hyatt for $50/night. I’ve seen some amazing deals around Phoenix and Atlanta, but for this exercise it was just for fun.

The first situation is a guaranteed situation if you can find a category 1 with cash and points avail for your 25 stays.

If you have the Hyatt card you could get an extra 10% discount on points. This would increase your net by 6250.

That represents an additional $112.50 in savings in the first situation.

Now I need to find some category 1 hotels. BYAW!

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card


4.8
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The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based including Hyatt, Southwest, United, IHG, and Marriott.

Welcome Offer

60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

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  • 3x on dining
    •  including eligible delivery services for takeout
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  • 2x on all other travel
  • $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Chase Travel
    • The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
  • Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
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  • No foreign transaction fees
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We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

5 Comments

  • […] travel at all. Even if you didn’t, with the point promotions that Hyatt put on it was easy to Mattress run with stays to get top tier at a reasonable price( I’d written an article about how you could […]

  • Geoff September 1, 2016

    Great analysis. Now if I could find a Cat 1 hotel within 500 miles…………..
    “Only” need 18 more stays:)

    • Miles September 1, 2016

      Thanks Geoff! – I hear ya!

  • jeremy September 1, 2016

    You can use the 4th night free benefit on the citi prestige card with cash and points redemptions?

    • Miles September 1, 2016

      Jeremy – no you can’t combine the two rates. I should have made that more clear. I’ll amend it.

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