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Last year Hyatt expanded its footprint in the luxury boutique market with a Small Luxury Hotels of the World partnership. This afforded Hyatt loyalists the ability to earn and burn points at a large crop of independently owned and operated hotels around the world. It created more incentive for customers to choose Hyatt for their business because they’d have more options to redeem for their leisure travel.
They doubled down on this strategy by purchasing Thompson Hotels, Joie de Vivre, Alila and Destination Hotels which added 85 new hotel properties to their portfolio. Now, we get more information as to the integration of the new properties, dates, and even some award levels.
You can search Thompson Properties here, and Joie De Vivre properties here
On March 28th Thompson hotels will be avail, and then on May 15th, Joie de Vivre will join the Hyatt family. Destination hotels and Alila will be announced at a later date
Currently only Thompson has released award redemptions levels:
- Category 4 ( 15k a night )
- Thompson Chicago
- Gild Hall New York
- Category 5 ( 20k )
- Thompson Seattle
- Category 6 ( 25k )
- Thompson Zihautenejo
- The Cape ( Thompson Cabo )
- Thompson Nashville
- Thompson Toronto
- The Beekman, NYC
The Cape is the one Thompson property I’m most excited about experiencing. It’s a sleek, sexy resort that is uber Instagrammable and offers a boutique redemption option in Cabo vs Hyatt’s Ziva and Place options.
Since we still have some time before you can earn, let alone burn, points at Joie De Vivre, I expect we will be hearing which properties are redeemable at different category rates sometime in May. I have no info on this, but it would correlate with the Thompson announcement which stipulated categories the day before they were available.
A Promo to celebrate: 2000 bonus points for your first stay at each of these new brands, plus a free night when you try all four!
- In total 20 new destinations will be serviced
- 60 more hotels
- Hyatt’s Resort portfolio will increase by 60%
I’m planning a trip to Bali later in the year and promos like this certainly incentivize me to investigate Alila has a potential brand to try out vs other competitors. Alila has one location in the US: Big Sur. And wow…does it look incredible.
Are you excited for these new earn and burn opportunities? I AM!
You can view the entire press release here
*feature image courtesy of Alila from the Alila Villas Ubud
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card went through a major refresh in 2026 adding new bonus categories, travel protections, statement credits, and remains one of the best travel starter cards in the market. It 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. Note that Hyatt is now a 4:3 transfer partner
Welcome Offer
Earn 100,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Earn
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- NEW ACCELERATED EARN CATEGORY: 3x points on gas and EV charging
- NEW ACCELERATED EARN CATEGORY: 3x points on vacation homes at top brands
- Cardmembers will earn 3x points on vacation homes at these top brands: Airbnb, Vrbo, Plu Guide, HomeAway, Homestay.com and Vacasa.
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 2x on all other travel
- 1x on everyday purchases
- 5x points on Lyft rides Earn 5x total points on eligible Lyft rides including ride share, bike and scooter rides and subscription and membership products through September 30, 2027.
- 5x total points on Peloton equipment Earn 5x total points on eligible Peloton equipment and accessory purchases over $150 through December 31, 2027.
Benefits and Credits
- $100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- NEW: $120 Global Entry, TSA PreCheck or NEXUS fee credit Cardmembers will receive one statement credit of up to $120 every four years as reimbursement for the application fee charged to the card.
- NEW: Complimentary Apple TV subscription for one year
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Complimentary DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees & lower service fees for a min. of one year when you activate by 12/31/27. Plus, a $10 promo each month on non-restaurant orders
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® Card is great 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: Chase Ink Business Cash® , Chase Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into the Sapphire Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee remains quite low at $95 a year and if you use the $100 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠ you’ll wipe out that annual fee every year. It has great bonus categories and other useful statement credits to enhance your travel.
One thing that is a bummer is Chase lowered the transfer ratio to World of Hyatt from 1:1 to 4:3.
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