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Today is the last day of the latest World of Hyatt points promotion which sees the Hyatt offering its points for sale with a 40% bonus thrown in. Bonuses of this magnitude aren’t all that rare with Hyatt but, unlike in this promotion, they’re not always available to all World of Hyatt members – the last 40% promotion appeared back in September but it was targeted so only a select few got the full benefit.
Headline Terms & Conditions
- This is a link to the promotion page
- The 40% offer is available on points purchases made by 11:59 pm ET December 15, 2017.
- Bonus Points can be purchased in increments of 1,000, up to 55,000 points per calendar year.
- Members can receive points in increments of 1,000, up to 55,000 points per calendar year.
- Bonus Points awarded under this offer do not count towards the calendar year maximums.
Full terms and conditions can be found on the promotion page.
The World of Hyatt’s 40% Bonus Promotion
Here’s how the tiering works in this promotion:
- Buy 1,000 – 4,000 points – no bonus – cost/point = 2.40 cents
- Buy 5,000 – 9,000 points – 20% bonus – cost/point = 2.00 cents
- Buy 10,000 – 29,000 points – 30% bonus – cost/point = 1.85 cents
- Buy 30,000+ points – 40% bonus – cost/point = 1.71 cents
Working Out The Math
As long as you buy at least 30,000 points you will be buying World of Hyatt points at the best available cost/point.
Whether you buy the minimum number of points that entitles you to the 40% bonus…..
….or the maximum number of points allowed….
….the cost per point doesn’t change – it remains at ~1.71 cents/point.
Is This A Good Deal?
A 40% bonus is as good as it gets from Hyatt – I’ve looked back at the last 3 years of offers and I haven’t found one which offered a higher bonus.
While Hyatt does offer bonuses on point sales pretty frequently, the non-targeted 40% bonuses don’t appear all that often so, when they’re available, they’re definitely worth considering.
Before I go any further here’s the Hyatt award chart – its crucial to deciding on how good or bad this promotion actually is:
In reality this promotion is both good and bad depending on how you plan to use the points.
Top-tier Hyatt Properties cost 30,000 points/night so if you wanted to use this promotion to book an award night at one of these it would cost you approximately $513.
I don’t know about you but I think that’s a lot.
I’m know that some will say that a few of the top Hyatt properties can charge a lot more than $513/night (the Park Hyatt Maldives is an example often given) and that makes buying points in this promotion a good idea.
For some this may be true but for most that’s simply not the case.
This argument could make sense for someone topping up an account to allow them to book a multi-night stay or for someone wanting to add a night to an existing booking…..but it makes absolutely no sense for someone without enough existing points to book a few more nights as well.
But that isn’t to say that there isn’t good value elsewhere in this promotion.
If we take a look at a mid-tier Hyatt property (like the category 5 Andaz West Hollywood that I enjoy using as an example as often as I can) the math can make this promotion look very tempting indeed.
20,000 points (what an award night costs here) would cost approximately $342 in this promotion and, during busier periods, that could offer some serious savings.
During popular times of year it’s not at all unusual to see rates at the Andaz West Hollywood go past $400….
…and that’s before taxes.
When the taxes are added in the nightly rate gets closer to $500:
Buying points in this promotion and using them to book a room when rates are this high would see you save a considerable sum of money.
You could easily buy three nights worth of points in this promotion for around $1,026 and save well over $400 on a long weekend…and that’s a very good deal!
Cash & Points Redemptions Also May Make Sense With This Promotion
Cash & Points redemptions are another example where, occasionally, buying World of Hyatt points at a discount can lead to some really good deals.
Here’s the Hyatt award chart showing Cash & Points redemptions across all of Hyatt’s hotel categories:
As the Andaz West Hollywood is a category 5 property the Cash & Points rate is 10,000 points + $125 per night and, once you add on the taxes, the cash portion increases to $145.18:
Sticking with the same room rate as I mentioned earlier ($482) the 10,000 World of Hyatt points is saving you around $337 and that means that you’re getting an incredible 3.37 cents of value out of each World of Hyatt point.
Considering those points can be bought in this sale for just 1.71 cents each that’s a very good deal indeed.
Bottom Line
Is this a universally good promotion? No..definitely not….but it can be used to save serious amounts of money if you think things through and plan well.
Hyatt has just announced that 9 of its properties will be changing category so we should be safe from any further category movements for a while. That, combined with the fact that this is about as good as Hyatt points promotions get, makes this promotion well worth considering closely.
If I was planning a stay in the next few months I’d check award availability, work out the math and see if buying points at 1.71 cents each could save me some cash. Don’t forget that the points don’t have to get you an award night outright for them to be a good deal – as long as they’re saving you money that would have otherwise spent then they’re worth buying.
