If you’re thinking about traveling, you don’t want to miss out on the upcoming points promotion from Hyatt. On May 9th they’ll be selling points for about 1.1 cents per point and if you use your American Express card to pay for them, you get a 10% discount on the price. The US Travel Association and American Express have been doing travel promotions for a few weeks now, but this is the one that stopped me in my tracks.
Hyatt points at this price are definitely worth it because you can book free nights at any of their hotels in almost any country for nearly 60% off what you would have paid in cash. There are four offers, and you can only buy one of each since this is a very limited sale.
Here is the breakdown of the costs and points:
- 24,000 Gold Passport points for $260. 100 available, 20 available for presale.
- 30,000 Gold Passport points for $330. 35 available.
- 36,000 Gold Passport points for $415. 15 available.
- 69,000 Gold Passport points for $775. 15 available.
For 22,000 points you can book a night at Hyatt’s top tier Hotels such as the Park Hyatt Tokyo – a night there goes for about $650 during cherry blossom season. If you buy these points instead, and then redeem them for free nights you can get the exact same room for about $242; a tremendous bargain. These points aren’t restrictive, you can use them on any property; for example, Instead of spending 22,000 points for a night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo you can hang out in Bali for 4 Nights for only 20,000 points. Each night there is only 5,000 points which you’re basically buying here for $55! Here’s a link to the property [Bali Hyatt Hotel in Bali, Indonesia]. Isn’t it lovely?
Hyatt points bookings count as dual occupancy, so if you’re traveling to Bali with a partner it works out to about $28 dollars a night per person. Another great thing about booking with Hyatt points is that you can cancel your reservation at any time (up until the day you’re supposed to be there) without any penalty. The only way to get a decent price at some of Hyatt’s nicer properties is to take a risk with a non-refundable booking. Points trumps cash when dealing with Hyatt – trust me, I used them on my last vacation to Japan and it’s just as easy as booking a room with cash.
Here’s the strategy that I’m suggesting:
- Go to the US Travel Association Daily Getaways site and click on a Hyatt promotion. Sign up to be alerted when the deal becomes active, or set a reminder on your phone for Noon on May 9th at least.
- Get in on the presale – “Like” Hyatt on Facebook so you can get the presale code. On the morning of the sale, a code will be posted on their wall that can give you access to the presale from Noon to 1 PM ET.
- If you have one, use an American Express Card for a 10% discount on the price – we want to maximize the CPM as much as possible. If you use the Costco American Express Card you can get an additional 2% cash back on your purchase. I always advocate stacking your bonuses like this.
- I’m personally going to try to buy all four promotions, but I bet the competition for the deals are going to be ridiculous. In any case, this isn’t the promotion you want to miss out on.
Good luck out there!
-R. P. Artemio
