October 6, 2024

Is it Worth Buying Hyatt Points When They are This Cheap?

Is it Worth Buying Hyatt Points When They are This Cheap?

World of Hyatt has launched its latest “buy points” promotion, with the discount as large as I can remember. Between now and May 30, 2022, members can receive a 30% discount when buying at least 5,000 points.

Members can buy up to 55,000 points per year (before any bonus). Sometimes Hyatt runs a 30-40% bonus offer (which makes the price 1.71 – 1.84 cents per point) and sometimes it offers a 25% discount (which makes the price 1.8 cents).

This 30% discount brings the per-point price down to 1.68 cents!

Is it Worthwhile?

I have sometimes found it worthwhile to buy Hyatt points to immediately make an award booking. Here’s the award chart with peak and off-peak pricing…

At 1.68 cents per point, you could get yourself an off-peak night (3,500 points) at a Category 1 hotel for $58.80. Even the cheapest Category 1 hotels are still likely to charge a paid rate higher than that.

And at the high end, Hyatt’s best hotels could cost 45,000 points, which would cost you $756. Although that sounds like a lot, it is still potentially quite a bargain, although you would quickly run into the 55,000 point annual cap if you were looking for a longer stay.

There is one major downside, however, to buying points in order to book an award stay. Hyatt’s Lifetime Globalist status requires that you earn 1 million base points ($200,000 of pre-tax spend). Buying and redeeming points doesn’t earn you any base points…

Don’t Forget Cashback

Hyatt sells its points via Points.com, which means that you can earn 2.5% cashback via TopCashback and others.

If you are not yet a member of TopCashback, you can earn an additional $15. Simply sign up using this referral link – http://www.topcashback.com/join-us/inside-flyer/ref/craigsowerby – and earn $10 of cashback.

You would have to buy $400 worth of Hyatt points to pick up $10 of cashback from a single transaction, but you can also earn cashback in many other ways, including hotel stays with a number of major chains…