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Hyatt has launched a 25% bonus for anyone looking to convert their Hyatt Gold Passport points into American Airlines AAdvantage miles and, if you convert 50,000 points to AAdvantage in one transaction, Hyatt will add a further 5,000 mile bonus. But just how good a deal is this?
Convert Hyatt Points To AAdvantage Miles
Unlike Starwood’s Starpoints Hyatt Gold Passport points don’t convert to American Airlines in a 1:1 ratio instead the regular ratio is 5 : 2 or 2.5 : 1.
With the current 25% bonus this is what the math looks like:
If you convert less than 50,000 Gold Passport points you’ll get a conversion ratio of 2 : 1 and, with a 50,000 point conversion, the best you’ll get is 20 : 13 – surprisingly Hyatt pays the 25% bonus on the 5,000 bonus miles they offer for converting 50,000 points.
Still, that doesn’t make this a good idea.
Andaz West Hollywood – 25,000 Hyatt Points per night
Should You Take Up This Bonus?
For me there are a number of issues with converting Hyatt points to AAdvantage:
- The cost of award travel through American Airlines has just gone up significantly
- Finding AAdvantage SAAver awards is getting harder and harder while Hyatt points aren’t that hard to use
- I value Hyatt Gold Passport points at around 1.4 cents while I value AAdvantage Miles a little under 1.3 cents.
AAdvantage miles are a lot less valuable nowadays and while using them economically (booking SAAver awards) continues to be as hard as it is I can’t see too many reasons to convert Hyatt points to AAdvantage.
25,000 Hyatt points can get you a night at some very nice Hyatt properties (Andaz WeHo and the Andaz 5th Avenue for example) but it will only get you 12,500 AAdvantage miles if you convert. Unless you’re topping up and account there’s not a lot you can do with 12,500 AAdvantage Miles.
As always, however, there are exceptions.
There are two ways that this conversion bonus can be of use.
- Chase Ultimate Rewards points convert to Hyatt so, technically, this is a way of converting Chase UR points to AAdvantage Miles at a better-than-normal rate. If you have more Chase UR points than you know what to do with then this could be useful….although I would still prefer to convert to United miles for the easier-to-find awards.
- If you have a low number of Hyatt points in your account and it doesn’t look like you’re going to build them up into an award stay any time soon. Conversion bonuses like this can be good for clearing out orphan accounts.
Bottom Line
For a Hyatt fan I can’t see how converting points to American Airlines can be a good idea – Hyatt points are easier to use, you can get great value out of them and, for most people, they’re worth more than AAdvantage miles.
Yes, as I’ve pointed out, there may be times where someone may find a use for this bonus but they’re almost certainly in the minority. If you’re considering converting your Hyatt points to AAdvantage just make sure you’re really thought it through.
