For Canadians who have started their journey into miles and points, there are three hotel loyalty programs worth focusing the majority of their efforts on: Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Honors, and World of Hyatt. These programs are the best way to save on hotels, through earning and redeeming points toward your desired stay.
All three of these hotel loyalty programs also offer members the ability to earn free night awards, making it even easier to stay for free to further reduce your travel costs. World of Hyatt is usually the least utilized program of the three as a result of having lower accessibility for Canadians, but there is still value to be had.
Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about World of Hyatt free night award certificates, and how you can best use them to save money on your next vacation.
What are World of Hyatt Free Night Awards?
World of Hyatt Free Night Awards are vouchers or certificates provided to members in the World of Hyatt loyalty program that can be redeemed for free night stays at Hyatt properties worldwide. Essentially, these certificates can be used in lieu of a points redemption to book a free night stay. They can also be combined with a Hyatt points redemption for a longer stay if desired.
All Hyatt hotels are assigned a category that is associated with the World of Hyatt points redemption cost. Similarly, World of Hyatt Free Night Award certificates are always assigned a range of property categories that they can be used at, most typically either category 1-4 or category 1-7.
Hyatt free night awards have an expiry date of one year from the date they are earned, and the stay that is booked with a free night award must have a checkout date that occurs before the award expiration date.
How to Earn World of Hyatt Free Night Awards
There are a number of ways to earn World of Hyatt Free Night certificates, including through World of Hyatt co-branded credit cards, milestone rewards, and brand explorer awards.
World of Hyatt Credit Cards
Chase Bank in the United States issues two World of Hyatt co-branded credit cards, and one of them gives cardholders the opportunity to receive up to two free night award certificates per year.
The Chase World of Hyatt credit card gives one annual free night award certificate upon the cardholder’s anniversary, simply for keeping the card in your wallet!
The Chase World of Hyatt credit card earns Hyatt points and gives cardholders one annual free night at a category 1-4 Hyatt hotel or resort.
30,000 World of Hyatt
$3,000
$415+
$95
No
–
Upon spending $15,000 USD in a calendar year, the cardholder will also earn an additional World of Hyatt free night award certificate good for a one-night stay at a category 1-4 Hyatt hotel. This means that if you hold the card year over year and can spend a minimum of $15,000 USD per calendar year, you will consistently receive two free night awards.
This is similar to the best strategy to accrue Hilton Honors free night award certificates, so if you can generate the spend, it is absolutely worth earning this additional certificate.
As I mentioned above, these are US credit cards, so if you are a Canadian you will need to learn more about how to get US credit cards as a Canadian and eventually go down the path of getting an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN) as well to be eligible for Chase credit cards.
World of Hyatt Milestone Rewards
World of Hyatt wants to reward their members for staying at their properties, and they achieve exactly that through their Milestone Rewards program. As part of this program, members can earn benefits such as additional World of Hyatt points, suite upgrade awards, club lounge access awards, and free night award certificates.
While Marriott Bonvoy offers free night awards tied to status levels, Hyatt Milestone Rewards offers more regular rewards tied to nights stayed or base points earned. However, there are two free night award certificates that can be earned when reaching both Explorist and Globalist status levels and two more that can be earned by staying a set amount of nights within a calendar year:
- Reach Explorist Status (30 nights or 50,000 base points): One category 1-4 free night award
- Reach Globalist Status (60 nights or 100,000 base points): One category 1-7 free night award
- Reach 100 Nights: One category 1-7 free night award
- Reach 150 Nights: One “Ultimate Free Night Award” usable at a category 1-8 hotel, category A-F all-inclusive resort, or Miraval resort.
If you want to fast-track your way to Explorist or Globalist status to earn these free night award certificates, there are two credit cards that you can use to quickly accrue free qualifying nights.
The Chase World of Hyatt credit card earns 2 qualifying nights towards elite status and Milestone Rewards upon spending $5,000 USD on the card. On the other hand, the Chase World of Hyatt Business credit card earns 5 qualifying nights towards elite status and Milestone Rewards upon spending $10,000 USD on the card.
The Chase World of Hyatt Business card earns Hyatt points and gives cardholders complimentary Discoverist status.
60,000 World of Hyatt
$5,000
$821+
$199
No
–
Both of these cards have no cap as to how many qualifying nights you can earn through spending, so the only real restriction is how much spend you can generate making this Milestone Rewards a straightforward method to earn free night certificates. Coincidentally, if you are interested in chasing World of Hyatt Globalist status, utilizing one of these cards is an approach worth considering.
World of Hyatt Brand Explorer Award
World of Hyatt wants their members to discover and explore the 28 different brands within their portfolio. To accomplish this, they offer the World of Hyatt Brand Explorer Award program, which is a unique program that rewards members with a free night award certificate for a category 1-4 Hyatt hotel upon staying at five different Hyatt brands.
Since there are 28 brands within the Hyatt portfolio, members can earn up to 5 free night award certificates by staying at 25 different brands. The Brand Explorer Award program does not reset and is a once-per-lifetime program, meaning you can take your time to work on earning these free night award certificates over an extended period of time.
How to Redeem World of Hyatt Free Night Awards
Once you’ve earned your World of Hyatt Free Night Award certificate, redeeming it for a stay is easy. Log into your World of Hyatt account and click “My Awards” to see all of your current Free Night Awards available.
The best way to search for hotels is through the World of Hyatt Explore tool here. You can enter a destination to easily see all the hotels in the area. You can also look to use an award search tool aggregator like PointsYeah, Rooms.Aero and numerous other tools to filter for actual award availability or even set alerts to notify you if a hotel becomes available for booking on points.
Ensure you take advantage of the filters when searching, as you can easily filter to only hotels that fall within the category range of the free night award certificate you are interested in redeeming.
For example, searching near Disneyland for category 1-4 Hyatt properties, displays 22 properties, including the Hyatt House at Anaheim Resort Convention Center. To search for dates at this specific resort, click “Select” and then enter your desired dates and click the “Use Points” checkbox. Search by clicking the “Check Availability” button.
On the next screen, you will be able to either redeem World of Hyatt points or a free night award certificate by selecting one of the two tabs at the top. Select your free night award and proceed with the booking to complete your free night award redemption.
How to Maximize the Value of World of Hyatt Free Night Awards
When it comes to redeeming World of Hyatt Free Night Award certificates for maximum value, the most logical approach would be to use the certificate at the highest category property possible.
For example, if you have a free night certificate that is usable at a category 1-4 Hyatt hotel, the greatest value would be received by using it at a category 4 hotel since that would in theory be one of the nicer and more expensive properties you could stay at with the certificate. If you are looking to maximize value or receive a high cent per point redemption, this is a fine strategy.
Realistically though, I always recommend that miles and points enthusiasts use their free night award certificates at the hotel that will generate the most value for their needs, and that value may be decoupled from the actual cash rate or expected savings. Not everything should always be about cents per point, but instead, usefulness.
For example, if you are planning a vacation to Disneyland on points, there is nothing wrong with redeeming a Hyatt free night certificate for a free night stay nearby Disneyland, even if it isn’t the highest expected value you could receive when using the certificate. In this situation, the utility is so high, and ultimately you are still getting a free stay out of your certificate, so it might be worth it to redeem one in this scenario.
Conclusion
World of Hyatt Free Night Award certificates add another utility to the miles and points toolbox. Similar to other hotel loyalty programs, it is worth learning how to easily earn and receive maximum value from them to further reduce your travel costs, all the while staying at gorgeous hotels within Hyatt’s portfolio.
Josh Bandura
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