Miles Talk published a piece of brilliance that I wish I had seen right away yesterday: the short story is that if you are about to reach 70, 80, 90 nights or a higher milestone level with Hyatt, you should probably wait until 1/1 to make your choice.
En route to Globalist, Hyatt offers Milestone rewards. For many members, the most exciting milestone rewards are at 50 and 60 nights since each level awards 2 suite upgrades that can each be used to instantly confirm an upgrade to a suite (at the time of booking) for a stay of up to 7 nights, whether an award stay or paid stay. This can be massively valuable to those who want or need a suite.
I earned those milestone awards this year and my suite upgrades currently expire in February of 2023.
When you reach 70 nights and at each 10 night milestone thereafter, you get a choice between 10,000 additional points or an additional suite upgrade. If you want the points, this tip won’t matter to you. However, if you want the suite upgrade, you may want to hold off on selecting it.
That’s because Miles Talk reports that when you reach a 70+ night milestone benefit, you have 90 days to select the benefit. That means that if you have reached 70 nights (or another 10-night milestone thereafter) from October 2nd onwards, you can wait until 1/1/22 to select your benefit. The nice thing is that if you select a suite upgrade in January of 2022, it will be valid until February of 2024 according to MilesTalk.
I haven’t done this before, so I can’t vouch for the strategy working, but I see no harm in trying and it seems like it should work. The advantage here of course is that you would get an additional year to use the suite upgrade. Dave suggests that this might be especially useful if you aren’t sure that you’ll requalify for Globalist next year so that you could potentially use it to upgrade to a suite in 2023 when you otherwise wouldn’t be entitled to a standard suite as a tier benefit.
To that last point, I momentarily wondered whether it would be possible to upgrade with a suite upgrade award if you don’t have Globalist status, but then I realized that it has to be since 2 suite upgrades are a 50-night benefit, which in an ordinary year would come before you reach Globalist status.
Personally, I am kicking myself for not seeing this tip yesterday. I sit at 67 nights and would have gladly used 15K of the points I got for my club upgrades to book a three-night Category 1 stay if I had known that I could get a suite upgrade valid through February of 2024. I already have a few expiring in Feb 2023 and I wasn’t sure I needed another — but with another year to use them, I totally would have done this. Ouch!
If you have reached 70 nights since October 2nd or will in the coming couple of days, hold off on selecting your choice benefit until January 1st to buy yourself more time. See the post at MilesTalk for more.
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I made my selection a few days ago and my suite award is dated through February 29th 2024.
I did as well…and mine is dated through 2/29/2024 as well. I was told by my concierge that as long as you select after 1/1, it will be dated 2/28 (or 29 for a leap year) in 14 months, not in 2 months….and it makes no difference when after 1/1 you do the selection, it will be 2/29/2024 (for those earned in 2021).
So, bottom line: indeed waiting to earn milestones 70 and beyond until Q4 and then waiting until after the new year to make the selection of the suite upgrade (vs taking 10K WofH points) will extend the expiration date for the suite upgrade for an extra year!
I squeaked in one additional milestone reward for 100 nights just before the end of the year.and got the email asking me to make my selection on Thursday, the 30th…..has anyone made their selection post 12/31 and have any update yet?
Aww crap. My strategy was to keep selecting “upgrade cert” until I accumulate enough that will last me all of next year. This strategy requires the opposite =( I have one pending selection and 4 upgrade certs…was already counting on the 10k points, but guess I’ll take my time as I doubt we can hit 60 nights in 2022.
Nick!!!! I literally selected my 70 night Suit Upgrade award 8 hours before your post! 🙁 haha … Guess I didn’t procrastinate enough!!!
@ EricT — I waited until today to select a suite upgrade for 70 nights, but the suite upgrade did not post to my account. How long did yours take to post?
I just hit 70 thanks to the credit card. I have 90 days to select, will set a reminder. Think I will do it just before the deadline to see what happens. I hope they run another globalist promo as I don’t see myself qualifying again with 47ish actual nights per year. Since I would get 5 from card, plus 6 for $15k spend, plus redeeming annual free night and $15k spend night.
Great! Procrastination is my middle name (I know it looks like In is my middle name, but that’s just short for procrastinatIoN).
Does this not apply to the two each you get at 50 and 60? I just hit 60 this morning.
You get the two each automatically, not as a choice, so you can’t “select” this benefit in the next calendar year.
At 50 and 60 nights the SUAs should show up in your account right away, since there is not a choice, so you wouldn’t be able to wait until January. Maybe if they take a few days and don’t show up until Jan then this will work for you?
We’ll see. The nights have not yet posted.
Checked out the 30th, nights and awards posted the 31st and the awards are dated 2/23.
Nick, if you check in today or tomorrow 12/31 for a 3 night Hyatt award stay (booked as single reservation) the nights will all count toward 2021 qualifying. If it works in your plans, you could still hit 70 nights to get that additional Suite award!
No, they count for qualifying based on your checkout date. Last December, when Hyatt was offering double Elite night credit, I checked in for a 30-day stay and checked out at the beginning of January 2021 and earned 60 nights and Globalist status in 2021 as though all of those nights were in 2021 even though the majority of them were during 2020. We expected that based on previous years data points. So if I checked in for a three-night stay now and checked out in January, those nights would count next year.
Sorry I was incorrect about earning 3 more nights from stays at this point (since you’re at 67). Their system automatically posts to the checkout year, but Hyatt could manually adjust 12/30 & 12/31 nights to be 2021. That still doesn’t get you to 70 though. The other idea would be if you have WOH credit card and were close to a $5k spend threshold you would earn 2 more nights when your next statement closes. According to Chase those credit to the year purchase was made, not when statement closes. I’m counting on this spend scenario since I’m 2 nights shy of 60. My statement closes first week of January.
Would a day stay “work at Hyatt” rate work for today, another stay at different hotel tonight, and another “work at Hyatt” day stay tomorrow count as 3 eligible nights? I think I did something like that before and it counted as 3, but not sure this year.
But not too late for a “spend opportunity” on a chase WoH card, Nick!
No WoH card for me unfortunately.