Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Is it worth booking a 30 night Hyatt stay to secure two years of top tier Globalist status? At first I thought Nick was a bit nuts for considering it, but in this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air he convinced me… almost. We then tested out my new Cash or Points Worksheet to decide whether Nick should book his stay with, you guessed it, cash or points. We were both surprised by the answer!
In addition to our usual segments (Giant Mailbag, What Crazy Thing Did Citi Do This Week?, and Question of the Week), we discussed Chase’s latest big welcome bonuses. This is an awesome time to be new to the game since it is now super easy to amass over 160,000 valuable Ultimate Rewards points with only two new cards. But… should we wait to see if even better offers appear? Watch Frequent Miler on the Air, here:
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This week at Frequent Miler
Chase goes big
Rather than taking my advice to add 3X categories to make the Sapphire Preferred attractive again, they decided to apply some lipstick. Don’t get me wrong… 80K points is a lot of beautiful lipstick! But, should you go for it? See this post: Chase Sapphire Preferred 80K Offer – Should you go for it?
What if you recently signed up for the old 60K offer? Will Chase match you to the 80K offer? What if you want to refer a friend? Will they be able to match to the 80K offer? See this post: Will Chase match the Sapphire Preferred 60K offer to 80K?
Finally, don’t forget that the new Freedom Flex and the updated Freedom Unlimited cards also have 80K-ish offers. The offers are really 20K plus 5X at grocery stores for 12 months on up to $12K spend. If you spend the full $12K at grocery stores, you’ll end up with 80,000 points. See our updated guides to both cards:
Rocking Hyatt Promos
I love that Hyatt has come out with multiple huge overlapping promotions. Even the one that I had earlier dismissed seems to be way better than I had thought: Work From Hyatt Package Rates: Cheaper Than Expected + Stack With Other Current Promos.
With all of these juicy opportunities on the table, I dug in with a deep analysis: Rocking Hyatt’s overlapping promos. Top tier status is easier than ever.
The question with these promos is not whether to take advantage of them, but how best to. And the top question there is whether to book stays with cash or points. Is it better to earn triple points on a cash stay or a 25% rebate on a points stay? I don’t know the answer, but I built a tool that does: Hyatt cash or points? Use the Frequent Miler worksheet.
Orphaned points & certificates are worth less
After cancelling lots of travel due to the pandemic, many of us are left with stray travel credits, airline miles, hotel certificates, etc. In this post, I argue that we need to abandon our usual way of deciding which points to use and instead use up these orphaned assets. See: Miles, credits, and certs orphaned by COVID-19 (on my mind).
Dreamin’ of Hawaii
We’ve heard this before, but this time it looks like it might be really happening: they have a cool chart. See: Hawaii opening to tourism October 15th!
Updated resources
The deal of the week
Work From Hyatt Package Rates: Cheaper Than Expected + Stack With Other Current Promos. We’re all working from home anyway. Maybe it would be more fun working from Hyatt? Yeah, I think so.
More noteworthy deals
- 50K, 60K, and 70K offers for Delta Gold and Platinum cards
- Walmart: Save $10 Off $35+ Order With Instacart When Using Promo Code WALCART20
- IHG Q4 2020 Promo: Earn 2x Points + 10,000 Points (For Cardholders) After Your First Stay
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[…] this piece of news could be a piece of knowledge worth holding in mind if you’re contemplating a Hyatt mattress run for status. We don’t yet know if Hyatt will once again offer American Airlines Executive […]
Alright – I tried to pull the trigger on the 27 night award stay but got an error on the app and online. Apparently one cannot book an award stay of that length online or on the app but instead need to call and put multiple awards into one reservation. Has anyone ever successfully done that?
Right. See our Hyatt Mattress Run Q&A post for this:
Q: Award stays longer than 10 nights can’t be booked online. Is there a workaround?
Hyatt Rep: This is due to the number of night limitations to which we can issue an award stay. We issue awards in increments of 10 nights. If a member would like to redeem multiple free night awards for longer than 10 consecutive nights, they should contact the Global Contact Center to assist them in booking multiple awards under one reservation.
Q: If Hyatt strings together multiple point awards into one reservation that spans the new year, when will elite nights be credited?
Hyatt Rep: Since nights are always awarded based on checkout date, those awards under one reservation would be based off of the Jan checkout date, and therefore, earn Tier Qualifying Nights and bonus nights for 2021.
Greg: Some people are understandably nervous about this. The concern is that elite nights for the first increments may be awarded to 2020 rather than 2021. My advice: after booking the stay, contact the hotel and confirm with them that they see it as a single long stay with checkout in January. As long as this is the case, my bet is that this will work as Hyatt has said.
Thank you!
Greg, I just called the WOH Globalist line and was told that, for a stay with a check in date prior to January 1st and a check out on January, the nights in December would count towards 2020 and only those in January would be for 2020. This doesn’t jibe with what I’ve heard elsewhere. Can you get an official confirmation from Hyatt about how such a stay would be classified?
I believe that agent was incorrect. First, it doesn’t agree with what was told to Greg by WOH management. Second, there have been many years where I have more elite nights than days already passed in the year (e.g., have 9 elite nights by Jan 2 of a year) exactly because programs act as we’re hoping here.
It didn’t sound right to me, either—thanks for chiming in.
Yes I have double confirmation that what you were told was wrong.
Thanks for confirming this, Greg. I’m considering going staying at the Hyatt Regency Albuquerque starting in December 2020 and ending in January 21. Hopefully, I can score the VIP/Presidential Suite on points.
I very much enjoyed podcasts on 30 night Hyatt run. However I am a bit confused how to get 60 nights required for Globalist status from 30 day stay given every elite night earned during Bonus Journeys promotion will earn only one additional elite night towards status in 2021. Many thanks.
The trick is to setup the stay so that the checkout date is in 2021. That way both the base elite nights and the bonus nights will apply to 2021.
Regarding the 30 night Hyatt stay – if you have the card, not only do you get the 25% rebate but you also get 5 elite nights / year. So you’d need an incremental 55 elite nights in 2021. A 27 night stay checking out January 2, 2021 would give someone with the Hyatt card a minimum of 59 elite nights as soon as the stay nights, the bonus nights, and the credit card nights post. A 27 night category 1 award stay would cost 101,250 Hyatt points.
I’d say 60 minus 5 = 55 needed nights
55/2 = 27.5 or 28 nights needed.
Check in on 12/7/2020
Check out on 1/4/2021
Would you get 60 nights upon check out credited into 2021, and, thus, instant Globalist? And, if so …
Assuming that you can find a cheap property at $99+tax per night. Not counting earned points (minimum around 57K points earned), that would be about $3,200 for 2 years of Globalist – is it worth it?
Round up or down from 27.5 based on individual circumstances.
If I end up doing this, it’ll be a throw-away 27 night award stay at a nearby cat one property for 101,250 points. I’d get a 15k (max) free night and a 30k (max) free night, so 45k there. Let’s say those are worth 2/3 face value, so 30k total. I also get the 5k points for passing 40 nights. So 35k of “rebate,” which takes 101,250 to 66,250, or ~30,500 points / year for Globalist status (since status would go for 26 months, not 24). One suite upgrade / year covers that, so actually not a lot of downside that I can see.
What happened to the embedded audio podcast that’s usually on the page?
I didn’t think anyone used that so I left it out. I just put it back in for you.
Honored! I can deal without it btw, was just curious as that was how I played it before. There’s plenty of options though it was just 1 extra click. 😉
I’ve done the 30+ night hotel stay. It sure beats hopping hotels constantly. If it works for you, then I recommend it, but just to get status? I’m a Hyatt Globalist and no, I would not go out of my way to achieve/retain it. If I am going to pay for a month, I’m going to stay in whatever hotel works best for me.
I would be worried about a hotel collecting payment or messing with a long term stay that makes it so you have to fight for the double credit in 2021. I think Stephen posted in his post about taxes on long term stays that the hotel collected payment weekly and it was a hassle. $1700 is a lot to spend to have a problem if the hotel closes you out prematurely in 2020 or otherwise doesn’t post it as a 30 day stay.
Regarding the Sappahire 80K offer, if I’m currently an authorized user on a Sapphire card do I qualify for the offer? Thanks!
Yes, no problem.