There are a many ways to get Hyatt free night certificates. The World of Hyatt card offers a category 1-4 cert each year upon renewal and again when you spend $15K within a calendar year. Additionally, Hyatt offers free night certs as Brand Explorer rewards (when you’ve stayed at 5 different brands); as Milestone Rewards (when you earn 30 elite qualifying nights within a calendar year you get a category 1-4 cert and at 60 nights you get a category 1-7 cert); and sometimes as rewards for miscellaneous promotions.
One annoying aspect of these free night certificates is that it seems like you can’t use them on multi-night stays. If you search for more than 1 award night at a time, the Hyatt website doesn’t show free night certificates as an option to pay for your stay. Luckily there’s an easy solution: Pay My Way.
The problem
Normally, to use a free night certificate, you simply log into Hyatt.com, search for a hotel and check the “use points” box.
With a one night stay, if you have a free night certificate that is valid for the stay, the search results will show two tabs titled “Standard Room Free Night”. The one with the subheading “Free Night” is the tab to select to use your free night certificate. The next tab is for paying with points:
With a multi-night stay, Hyatt won’t show you a tab for using your free night certificates even if you have enough certificates to cover the entire stay.
“Pay My Way” lets you use a Hyatt free night cert on a multi-night stay
The solution to the multi-night problem is simple. Switch to searching for a paid stay. You can do that by making sure that the “Use Points” check box isn’t checked. Or, simply click the “View Rates” link in the search results. Then select the “Member Rate” tab. Below the “Book Now” button, you should see a link to “Use Pay My Way.” Click that.
When you click “Use Pay My Way,” you’ll be given the option to choose how you want to pay for each night of your stay. Here you can choose for each night whether to pay with cash, with free night certificates (titled “Awards”), with points, or with Points + Cash. If you have enough free night certificates you can pay for the entire stay with those certificates. Or, as shown below, you may choose to pay partly with free night certificates and partly with points.
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Can I use. Free Night Certificate to book a Hyatt All Inclusive hotel that is a Category A hotel and only 15,000 points a night?
Pay my way never shows up on my app, doesn’t have to be on a computer?
One other thought that has worked out very well for me when I plan a vacation far in advance. When I expect to earn more cat 1-4 free night certificates in the future, I will book a series of one night stays on separate reservations using points. As I earn more certificates (for example, early in the year I may over a period of a few weeks or months earn a cat 1-4 for having the credit card, a cat 1-4 for $15K spend on the credit card and a cat 1-4 for 30 nights), I will try to make a new reservation for one night using the newly earned certificate, and then cancel the one-night reservation on points and get my points back. That way, as the year progresses, I use up my certificates and get my points refunded. Worst case is if availability on points dries up and the hotel won’t let me substitute a certificate, my vacation plans remain intact. I have done this with Hilton and Marriott as well on stays less than five nights. I have never, ever had to change rooms mid-stay–the only impact (if any) may be to have my keys redone every morning when I go to breakfast.
Very helpful tips! Thanks
Same strategy (book each day individually) on a pre-devaluation booking. If you need to make any changes (e.g., shorten a long trip by a few nights) the entire reservation gets re-priced (higher), so it behooves one to book each night individually (you can always cancel a night and get points back) rather than book under one whole reservation
[…] Been in this hobby for almost three decades and still learning something new: How to use Hyatt free night certs on a multi-night stay. […]
Thank you for this great and useful information! Several times I have used a combination of Free Night Certificates (FNC), Points and even sometimes cash. I always had to call MyHyatt Concierge to get this done correctly (especially when pulling the FNC with the earliest expiration date). This process seems so much easier!! Only one big question…when using PMW to book, does it select and apply the FNC with the earliest expiration date? Especially if you don’t want to use up all of your FNCs on one reservation. I use my FNCs strategically throughout the year. Thank you again for this valuable information!
What I do is I make a dummy booking far in advance using a FNC that I DON’T want to use now (say my 1-7 Cat one) so that it is kept separate before I book using a later date Cat-4 one. Or, if you have multiple 1-4 ones just note the dates then book each one separately (far in advance) and keep track of each separately and cancel as appropriate. Awkward, yes. But sometimes the concierge can make a mistake and I prefer being in control anyway.
Thanks! Great strategy to be 100% certain.
can you stack points on a free night certificate like the ihg program?
Sadly, no.
My husband is a globalist. I had a free cat 1-4 certificate and called the globalist line. Had a GREAT person help me transfer my cert to my husband and book 3 nights – one with a cert he had, 1 with a cert she transferred from my account to his, and one with points. She combined them all into 1 reservation. BEST Hyatt globalist rep!
Mine does the same.
This is so brilliant – thank you! I just checked and this process lets you over-ride the length of stay limits when trying to use different payment methods. (tried to stay a Fri & Sat night using points for one and cert for the other – website would not allow a single-night Saturday stay, and calling the hotel and Hyatt reservations couldn’t get it done either). This method worked perfectly.
Pro tip on this- By using the PMW you can also force the system sometimes to find reward availability. For instance, I had a stay for three nights I was looking to do with three different reward certs. By searching each night individually, it was showing that no availability was on the middle night for award stays. However, using PMW, you could book all three nights as award stays.
What should you do if you want to use a club access award as part of this sort of mixed stay? Let’s assume two-night stay, first night paid with points, second with Cat 1-4 certificate. As I understand it, a club access award can be applied to points stay but not to free night certificate. Would it be best to make two bookings, keep them separate until check-in, then get them linked on arrival and hope the club access ends up applying for both nights, even though it technically shouldn’t?
Interesting question. I’d book it all as one stay and then ask Hyatt to apply the club access award. I don’t know if it will work, but it’s worth a shot. If they can’t do it then hopefully they can split the reservation and apply just to the first night.
Thanks. I have a 2 nights reservation coming up, one free night and one on points. I called Hyatt and rep told me I had to make 2 separate reservations.
It’s never surprising when call center reps don’t understand every little detail of their program. This one is especially well hidden.
I know I have to always make a second call to add on a Free Night Certificate if I already used a suite upgrade certificate on the first call with points.
Been around this space for three decades and still learning something new…, thanks.
Thanks Greg for these tips on using Hyatt free night certs for multiple nights.
Great reminder, I forgot about this trick. Marriott has a similar feature where you can choose which nights you want to pay cash and which nights you want to pay with points or FNCs. I do not believe IHG or Hilton offer this feature, but I haven’t tried recently.
Yep, with Marriott the feature is easier to find (at least when it’s actually working which is not always the case). I agree, I don’t think the other programs have this.
This works when using a desktop or laptop, but apparently the Hyatt app doesn’t have this functionality.