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Until this post you may not even be aware that Hyatt has a booking option on multi-night stays to “Pay my Way” which allows guests to choose if they want to pay with points on some nights, cash others, etc. One frustrating aspect of Hyatt’s program, up until this point, was the inability to select the specific award night you’d like to use for a booking if you had more than one in your account.
For instance, when you hit 30 nights, receive a brand explorer award, or get your annual credit card free night, you receive a free category 1-4 night certificate. However, when you hit 60 nights, and hit globalist status, you receive a category 1-7 certificate. Prior to this update, when you’d choose to use one of these certs, unless you called in to specifically choose the award certificate you want, the Hyatt software would choose the cert that expired first.
This was very frustrating and I was one of the sad lot that didn’t pay attention to this issue and ended up using a 1-7 cert on a category 3 property, and no, there wasn’t really a way to “undo” this…
That is all fixed, thankfully!
Hyatt “Pay My Way” options
Let’s take a look at how this will work in practice using a faux booking at the Thompson Chicago
Selecting “Pay my Way” options
I don’t currently have any category 7 certs so these were my options – you can see I could pay one night with points, another night with a free night cert, and another night with cash + points should I choose.
Seeing the different free night certificates in Pay my Way
This is an image sent from Hyatt that illustrates how you can choose which cert you’d like to use. Off to the side you can clearly see the different kinds of awards you could apply when selecting that option. This makes it MUCH MUCH easier to use online.
Overall
This is a nice improvement to integrate a free night certificate on a multi night stay and choose the exact one you’d like to use.
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
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 60k points after $4k spend in 3 months
- Worth $750 in Chase Travel℠ and way more if you maximize transfer partners
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 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)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 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℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2024
- $95 Annual Fee
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.
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