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If you missed out on the Hyatt Globalist status fast-track promotion offered by Bilt back in April, there’s some potentially great news. FoundersCard is offering a similar promotion, but it’ll be more costly as you’ll have to pay for a FoundersCard membership which costs almost $700 for the first year.
The Deal
- Get Hyatt Explorist status for 90 days with FoundersCard. Maintain that status through February 2025 by staying 10 nights within 90 days, then stay additional 10 nights within those 90 days to earn Hyatt Globalist status.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Terms
- To qualify for this offer, qualifying World of Hyatt members must register by November 16, 2023.
- Limit one offer per member.
- Members eligible for this offer are limited to those members who receive this offer directly from Hyatt and who are employees of an eligible account. Hyatt reserves the right to remove any ineligible individuals from this offer and rescind any benefits provided in connection with it (in addition to any other remedy Hyatt deems appropriate).
- Members may only register for a trial tier offer from Hyatt Sales Force once every three (3) years.
- Only Qualifying Nights on stays completed within the first ninety (90) days following registration for this offer (“Qualification Period”) will count toward this offer. Nights completed before prior to the start of or after the end of their Qualification Period will not count towards this offer (even if any night stayed otherwise qualifies as a “Tier-Qualifying Night” for purposes of the World of Hyatt program and was during the Qualification Period).
- To earn credit toward this offer, member must check out of a reservation during their Qualification Period.
- If member checks into a reservation during their Qualification Period but does not check out until after their Qualification Period has ended, they will not earn credit towards this offer for any nights stayed as part of that reservation.
- Each member’s Qualification Period begins at their registration and may not be extended.
- For the purpose of this offer, a qualifying night is any night where a member is paying an Eligible Rate or redeems a free night award.
- Only the room occupied by the member will count toward this offer.
- Members must provide their World of Hyatt membership number at the time of check-in for each stay.
- Offer may not be valid with other offers, promotions or discounts and is non-transferable.
- If members earn a new elite status through this offer, their new status will be applied within 7 business days of checkout of the stay during which they complete the applicable requirement.
- Explorist Trial: Upon registration, World of Hyatt members with Member or Discoverist status will receive a trial upgrade to Explorist status for their Qualification Period. The trial will provide the member with the benefits of Explorist status, as set forth in the World of Hyatt program terms, for 90 days, provided that the member will not receive any Explorist Club Lounge Access Awards (as defined in the World of Hyatt program terms) or be eligible to tier match into Gold status with MGM Rewards, the loyalty program of MGM Resorts International, as part of the trial.To maintain Explorist status through February 2025, member must complete at least ten (10) Tier-Qualifying Nights (as defined in the World of Hyatt program terms) at any participating Hyatt hotels and resorts worldwide, participating MGM Rewards destinations, Small Luxury Hotels of the World (“SLH”) properties, or Lindblad Expeditions on stays completed during their Qualification Period.
- Globalist Quick-Qualify for Current Explorists: Upon registration, World of Hyatt members with Explorist status will have the opportunity to earn Globalist status through February 2025 by completing at least twenty (20) Tier-Qualifying Nights at any participating Hyatt hotel or resort worldwide, participating MGM Rewards destinations, Small Luxury Hotels of the World (“SLH”) properties, or Lindblad Expeditions on stays completed during their Qualification Period. If members satisfy the above requirements during their Qualification Period, they will receive Globalist membership through February 2025. The offer will provide the member with the benefits of Globalist membership, provided that the member will not receive Complimentary Suite Upgrade Awards, a Category 1-7 Free Night Award or My Hyatt Concierge (as defined in the World of Hyatt program terms).
Quick Thoughts
It’s awesome that there’s this new opportunity to earn Hyatt Globalist status after staying only 20 nights within 90 days of registration, but it does come at a steep price. A standard FoundersCard membership costs $595 with a $95 initiation fee on top, so you’re looking at paying almost $700 as the entry fee for this offer. You then have the cost of 20 nights to account for too which won’t be a problem if you were already planning on staying at Hyatt properties for 20 nights within three months of registration, but which gets even more costly if you need to mattress run any of those nights. If you would need to mattress run in order to earn Globalist status, see this analysis from Nick which related to the similar promo via Bilt, but take into account the additional $690 cost of a FoundersCard membership in the first year if you don’t already have a membership.
One of the great things about Hyatt status fast-track challenges such as these is that both paid nights and award stays count. That can make the 20 nights far more achievable than if only paid nights were eligible which is how status challenges often work with other hotel chains. However, be aware that you’ll only get Globalist status after those 20 nights. If you want any of the Milestone Rewards that normally come along the way to earning that status organically like free night certificates, Suite Upgrade Awards, etc., you’ll have to stay the requisite number of nights.
While that $690 initial cost is high, it might still be worth it if you can get value from other FoundersCard benefits. For example, it gives you Caesars Rewards Diamond status through January 31, 2024, up to 16% off United airfare and lower discounts on airfare with other airlines like Alaska, Qantas, British Airways and more. If you own a small business, you can get fee-free payments with Square and Stripe, along with savings on Google Workspace, Slack and many more business services.
FoundersCard makes it hard to see all their benefits as the only link on their home page is to inquire about membership, but you can view all its benefits here.
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If you have a friend refer you, I’ve seen pretty regular $395 and especially 495 deals, and even $295 deals if you are willing to prepay for 2 years (this also locks in the 295 rate for a “lifetime”) (I don’t see this currently, but it was available until 10/31 so may repeat). If anyone needs someone to refer them, let me know.
As Nick says you are gonna have to eat a lot of free breakfasts to make this worth it.
I want to say the answer is yes, but can you spend on a Hyatt credit card instead of staying those 20 nights to meet the challenge? I already hit Globalist this year, but just thinking that $40k on a Hyatt Biz Card in 90 days for a small business is not a particular outrageous sum to hit.
Unfortunately not – for these kinds of challenges, it has to be elite nights earned from actual hotel stays.
If you are not employed by an eligible company, can you still do the Globalist challenge through Founders? The wording in the T& C’s are somewhat confusing. I am currently Explorist and missed out on the Bilt Challenge. I am a small business owner. Have renewal ability with Founders for $300, so might be worth it to get Globalist status again.
I think that’s the wording that’s used for corporate programs where they’re eligible for these status fast-track promos. In this case, I think Hyatt has probably copied & pasted those entire terms for FoundersCard to list on their website without removing that non-pertinent section.
I find it really hard to see value in the founders card and can only assume it’s aimed at people with very little knowledge of credit card rewards but who want to show off an ‘exclusive’ membership they have.
From the Terms in the post:
”Members eligible for this offer are limited to those members who receive this offer directly from Hyatt and who are employees of an eligible account. Hyatt reserves the right to remove any ineligible individuals from this offer and rescind any benefits provided in connection with it (in addition to any other remedy Hyatt deems appropriate).”
Is this some sort of copy/paste mistake by Hyatt using the T&C of a corporate challenge offer?
Same question I had.
A year of free ” Founders Club ” membership is a new ” perk you pick ” as a Jetblue Mosaic member. I personally don’t see the value in Founders Club, so I didn’t choose this perk however, some may now leverage this ” freebie ” into Hyatt Globalist after leaping 20 hurdles in 90 days.
Before spending $700 on the FoundersCard, it’s worth checking Hyatt’s “Elite Tier Offer” page to see if your company has an agreement with Hyatt to offer the same challenge to their employees. You can enter your work email address and then it will tell you whether you are eligible.
I became a globalist through the Bilt offer earlier this year, but a week before my final qualifying stay I found out that employees of my company were eligible for the same challenge. Had I done it through my company, I would have been able to set the challenge dates so that more of it overlapped with the Bonus Journeys promotion.
Do you know if I enrolled in the Bilt offer but didn’t hit the nights, am I eligible for this offer?
I think you’re only allowed to do this type of challenge once every 3 years as per the t&c’s above.
confirming, I emailed and they said no.
If you can get a free trial, you’ll find various offers where you can get 6-12 months for $295 (the offer seems to vary from one page/email to another). Unfortunately, the path I used to get the trial appears to be closed now so I’m not sure how to get one.
Shocked to see the current rates for Founders Card. I am grandfathered in at $295!
Does the FoundersCard count toward 5//24?
No, it’s not a credit card.
It’s not a credit card, so no it doesn’t count. It’s simply a membership that provides coupon book benefits. I had it for a few years. I found most useful benefits it offered to overlap with benefits I received from other sources. Many benefits I’d never use. A one-off benefit such as the one in this article will be great or some. Ultimately, I found no incremental value and dropped it. Others might find it very valuable.