The Chase Hyatt card is one of my favorite hotel cards since it comes with two free night certificates that can be used at any Hyatt properties. These certificates could together bring you over $2,000 worth of value at the top Hyatt properties, so the card is one of the most valuable hotel cards on the market. But that’s going to be changing soon.
Via OMAAT, Chase has announced that the Hyatt Card’s sign-up bonus will be changing from two free night certificates to 40,000 Hyatt points beginning June 29, 2017. (The spend requirement of $2,000 will stay the same.)
Is this a loss?
Overall, this means less opportunity to capitalize on maximizing value but it’s certainly not a loss for everyone. If you take a look at the Hyatt award chart you’ll see why.
Currently, the top Hyatt properties require 30,000 Hyatt points per night so that would require 60,000 Hyatt points for two nights whereas before you could just use the two free night certificates and cover two free nights with the sign-up bonus. Now, you’ll have to come up with 15,000 additional Hyatt points (at least Hyatt is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards).
On the other hand, you can now cover 3 nights at a Category 3 or even 5 nights at a Category 2 with the sign-up bonus. This is something that was not possible before, so for those travelers who are more concerned with stretching their points, this is a much better value proposition.
It also provides you with the added luxury of not having to worry about the free night certificates expiring, since you only have a year to use them from the date of issue. A lot of people don’t think things through when they apply for the Hyatt card and before they know it, the time’s up on their free night certificates and they’re forced to burn them in a less ideal way. Now, you don’t have to worry about that since your points won’t expire as long as you hold on to the card.
The biggest losers
The biggest losers here are those families who used the free night certificates for all-inclusive properties, such as the Hyatt Ziva and Zilara. I recently stayed at the Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall in Jamaica and loved it there. These all-inclusive stays were great redemptions with the free night certificates because two kids could be included with your family.
But now each kid will require 10,000+ per night, so the redemption quickly becomes much more expensive, especially since 40,000 points from the sign-up bonus won’t cover 2 nights at most or all of these properties.
With that said, the card still comes with some good perks and in my opinion is still worth getting and holding on to. I’m betting that the authorized user bonus of 5,000 points will still be around, so that it should still be easy to earn 45,000 points with signing up. And the free anniversary night (restricted to categories 1-4) is still good and still easily covers the $75 annual fee that usually is not waived.
And important to note, this card is not subject to the Chase 5/24 rule, meaning that it’s one of the more obtainable credit cards issued by Chase.
Final word
Overall, this isn’t a major loss for everyone but it’s definitely a big loss for those people who were planning on redeeming free night certificates at top Hyatt properties, since it’s going to take more work to cover two nights at top Hyatt properties.
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
