Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
Last week, Greg published a really thought-provoking post about earning Hyatt elite nights and milestone rewards through spend (See: Hyatt Milestone Spending. What’s my X?). As I read the post, I found my thoughts drifting away from credit card spend and towards the implications of Greg’s valuations on the idea of a mattress run. I started out by questioning whether the value of milestone rewards can justify a mattress run in my own situation — but later, it made me ask whether everyone (or at least everyone who is remotely interested in Hyatt) should mattress run if we accept Greg’s valuations.
My own situation: 16 nights short of 60
This train of thought began because I am currently on track to end the year with 44 elite nights. That is almost exactly where I intended to be. I wanted to end up with at least 40 elite nights in order to get 1 Guest of Honor award that I could apply to one of my own stays next year and 1 Suite Upgrade award (that I could apply to another stay). I figured that I’d guarantee at least two extra nice Hyatt stays with those milestone benefits. Note that you can’t combine and use both of those on a single stay.
As I’ll end up 6 nights short of the chance to pick up 2 more suite upgrades, I read Greg’s post with interest to try to decide whether it would be worth it for me to put $15K more in spend on my World of Hyatt credit card (I’ve already done $15K for a free night certificate, so this would be an additional $15K to earn 15K points + enough elite nights for 2 more suite upgrades). If I share Greg’s valuation of 54K points for those suite upgrades, that’s like earning a combined “value” of 69K points on $15K spend — a return of 4.6 points per dollar spent. That seems like a no-brainer!
However, to repeat an argument frequently made by commenters whenever the idea of big spend on a single card is raised, that same amount of spend could yield a couple of new welcome bonuses on other cards. We’ve seen some really big bonuses lately. Is it worth the opportunity cost to spend that much on my Hyatt card?
That train of thought led me to a different question entirely: Is it worth a mattress run to get the 50-night milestone reward (2 suite upgrades)?
If I could book 6 nights in a Category 1 Hyatt at standard pricing, that’s 30,000 points spent. If I value the 2 suite upgrades at 54,000 points as Greg did, that’s an easy trade to make — I’d get the “54K” in value (assuming I value the suite upgrades as much as he does) without needing to spend $15K (or rather while dedicating that $15K in spend to earning a greater return).
That idea led me to the next milestone level. Greg’s sample valuations of the 60-night benefits were as follows:
- Cat 1-7 free night certificate: 20K points
- 2 suite upgrades: 36K points (read his post for why these are valued less)
- My Hyatt Concierge: 20K points
- 2 Guest of Honor awards: 30K points
- Globalist status: 60K points
That’s a total value of 166,000 points. Added together with the 50-night suite upgrades (54K points), his sample valuation of 50 and 60-night Milestone Rewards is 220,000 points!
In fairness, my valuations for the various milestone benefits would likely vary a bit from Greg’s. For instance, I don’t value the My Hyatt Concierge at all (mine have never been particularly helpful and instead it adds stress waiting for a response that sometimes takes days rather than just calling and speaking to any agent). However, I’d probably not discount the value of the 50 and 60-night suite upgrades the way that Greg did. Rather than get lost in those weeds, let’s just assume that I agree with Greg’s individual valuations and I accept that the 50 and 60-night Milestone Rewards are worth a combined “220,000 points”. Should I find a 16-night mattress run?
If I were able to spend 16 nights at a Category 1 Hyatt at standard pricing, I’d need to spend 80,000 total points to end up earning the 50 and 60-night milestone rewards. If I accept Greg’s valuations, a 16-night mattress run is a clear win! I’d come out 140K points “ahead”!
Can that really be true? Is it really worth a 16-night mattress run? In my own circumstances, I hadn’t considered it before reading his post (the idea of mattress running sixteen nights would have sounded ridiculous to me), but I actually think it probably is worth it now that Greg made me consider how I value the perks. I think I’d be hard pressed not to get at least 80,000 points in value out of the Milestone Rewards at 50 and 60 nights. More on that in a minute.
But that thought exercise led me to a bigger question: Should everyone who cares about Hyatt mattress run to Globalist status?
Adding up the Milestone Reward perks
After adding up the 50 and 60-night Milestone Rewards, I decided to add up the rest of them according to Greg’s numbers. In total, Greg’s valuations of the Milestone Rewards (from 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 night Milestones) add up to “288,000 points” in value. Keep in mind that Greg was intentionally conservative here — so whereas he valued those “2K next stay” awards at only 1K points, you would get to “290K” just by using both of those to full value. You may (and probably do) value other perks more or less than he does.
I found that number interesting. Two hundred and ninety thousand Hyatt points can be tremendously valuable — that’s quite a hefty valuation. At the same time, perks like an upgrade to a suite for up to 7 nights and a Category 1-7 free night certificate that can be used at properties that in some cases cost upwards of $1,000 a night or more can certainly be tremendously valuable. That makes chase for Hyatt Milestone rewards and interesting endeavor.
Should everyone mattress run?
If you start at 0 elite nights and have no World of Hyatt credit card, you would need 60 elite nights to get Globalist status and all of the major milestone perks I’m including in this analysis. At a “standard” priced Category 1 property (5K points per night), you’d need to spend 300,000 points to earn Globalist status starting from zero. That’s pretty clearly not worth it unless you value the Milestone Rewards significantly higher than Greg does.
However, if you’ll spend even 5 nights in Hyatt hotels (or have the World of Hyatt credit card, which awards 5 elite nights each year), then you’d only need a 55-night mattress run at a cost of 275,000 points to get the same “~290K” in perks. That’s still probably not enough margin to justify mattress running the whole thing, not to mention that it wouldn’t make sense to chase after on-property perks if you’re only spending 5 nights a year at Hyatt. Further, I should remind you again that you may not value all of the milestone rewards as highly as Greg does.
But if you have the World of Hyatt credit card and you’ll spend $15K for 15K points and a free night certificate and the resulting 6 elite night credits, you would have 11 elite nights total. If you wanted all of the Milestone Rewards up to 60-night perks, your mattress run drops to 49 nights (since you get 5 nights for holding the credit card and 6 nights from the $15K spend). Now you’re looking at a cost of 245,000 points for around “290K” in perks. If you were able to get that Category 1 hotel off-peak, it would “only” cost you 171,500 points to mattress run the gap to Globalist and its 290K points worth of perks! And if you’d gift the 40-night Guest of Honor award and earn the elite night en route to Globalist status, you’d need one night fewer yet!
If you’re still looking at me like I’ve got two heads for suggesting that it makes sense to spend 245,000 points to mattress run your way to Globalist, that’s OK. I don’t disagree with you. The idea of a 195K-point mattress run seems nuts to me. That led me to question Greg’s sample valuations.
On an award-for-award basis, I don’t find most of Greg’s valuations individually flawed. In fact, I find many of them to individually make sense. Surely your mileage may vary some — maybe you don’t really care about the ability to gift Guest of Honor awards at all. But overall, they seem reasonable (and, importantly, reasonably conservative). Is not the total the sum of its parts?
In this case, I’m not convinced. For instance, I don’t really believe that Greg would consider spending $15K on his World of Hyatt credit card and then mattress running the other 39 nights. In hindsight, I don’t think Greg was conservative enough when considered through this lens.
On the other hand, I’m not picking on his post. I think it was fascinating to consider return on spend through the lens of Milestone Reward perks. And I don’t necessarily think he was wrong. He was looking at the “value” received in the form of return on spend required to receive certain benefits and I’m looking at the points I’d be willing to spend to get the same benefits. In short, we’re looking at a similar problem (wanting the Milestone Rewards) but with entirely different means for getting them.
A crack at my own valuations and mattress run evaluation
As mentioned at the outset, I’m on track to end up with 44 elite nights. That’s 16 nights short of the 50 and 60-night milestones. But instead of considering a single 16-night mattress run, I think it makes more sense to take the 50-night and 60-night milestones separately since I think both need to pencil out separately.
In order to decide how many points I’d use for a mattress run, I need to consider how many points I’d be willing to pay for these benefits. That’s different than the value Greg expects to derive from the perks. I should only consider “paying” for perks (in the form of points used to mattress run) if I’m confident that I’ll get more value out of the perks than I’m spending.
All of this assumes that I can actually find a Category 1 Hyatt with 16 nights priced at “standard” pricing during a time when I’m able to travel/check in, etc. Let’s just make the assumption that I can do it. Should I?
Mattress running the numbers on the 50-night Hyatt Milestone Rewards
If I push on to 50 nights, I’ll get 2 more suite upgrade awards. As a family traveler, I highly value suites. A 6-night mattress run at a standard-priced Category 1 Hyatt (5K points per night) would cost me 30K points and yield those 2 suite upgrades. I think I’d gladly pay 30K points for two suite upgrades valid for up to 7 nights each. In reality, I’d probably be willing to pay even more for them, but since (in my case) I’d only need to spend 30K to get them, that’s where I’ll value them.
Here’s why I feel very comfortable with 30K points for two of these: At a category 3 Hyatt property, a standard suite costs 8,000 more points per night than a standard room (a standard-priced Category 3 standard room is 12K points per night vs 20K for a suite). If I used an upgrade for a Category 3 stay of two nights, one suite upgrade would save me 16K points. Two suite upgrades applied that way save a combined 32K points. This means that if I used 30K points to mattress run my way to the suite upgrades, I’d be coming out slightly ahead by using up 30K points on a mattress run to earn the upgrades even if my use case ended up being two stays of only 2 nights each in a Category 3 suite. In reality, I’m pretty confident that I’d use each for far more value — I more often use suite upgrades for stays of 3-5 nights in categories 4-6, where I’d come out handsomely ahead of the “cost” of the mattress run (I have an upcoming 5-night stay at a Category 6 property where a standard suite would have cost 15K additional points per night, so the suite upgrade I’m applying to that one suite upgrade will save me 75K points over the cost to book a suite with points). I think it’s a no-brainer for me to mattress run six nights if I can book a Category 1 standard property.
Once I reach 50 elite nights, my focus will turn to 60. Is it worth another 10-night mattress run?
Mattress running the numbers on 60-night Hyatt Milestone Rewards
Once I reach 50 nights, ten more nights at a Category 1 property at standard pricing would cost me an additional 50K points in order to reach the 60-night Milestone Rewards. As a reminder, at that level I would get:
- Globalist status
- 1 Category 1-7 free night award
- 2 more suite upgrades
- My Hyatt Concierge
- 2 more Guest of Honor awards
Globalist status
Let me start with a simple personal valuation of Globalist status. I tend to stay at Hyatt properties at least 30-40 nights per year (sometimes more). I value free breakfast, lounge access (where applicable), 4pm late checkout, and free parking on an award and I use all of those multiple times each year.
If it were possible to “buy” Globalist perks with points, how many additional points per night would I be willing to pay for Globalist perks? Surely that varies: for a stay at a Hyatt Place, I might not be willing to pay anything. For a stay at a property in Manhattan that includes free breakfast, free parking and a 4pm late checkout, I’d surely be willing to shell out some extra points. This year, only two of my nights are Hyatt Place/House nights, though it varies from year to year.
Attempting to be conservative, I think I’d be willing to pay, on average, an extra 2K points per night for Globalist perks. Assuming my “usual” ~30 nights stayed, I feel like I can conservatively value Globalist at 60K points per year — which is spot on with where Greg had guestimated.
Category 1-7 free night certificate
I spend at least one night every year in New York City where I’d use the Category 1-7 free night certificate for a property that ordinarily costs 25K points per night or more. I’m very comfortable with Greg’s valuation of 20K points for that perk as I’d definitely come out ahead if it cost me 20K to get this perk.
2 suite upgrades
Unlike Greg, I don’t value the suite upgrades less than the first two. I still think it is highly unlikely that I’d use one for less than a 2-night Category 3 stay and it is highly unlikely that I’d let one go unused. However, I’m going to stick with the 30K points that I said I’d use to earn the 50-night suite upgrades and call these worth 30K points. In reality, I think I’ll get far more value out of them, but that’s the way it should be if I’m going to mattress run.
My Hyatt Concierge
I don’t value the My Hyatt Concierge at all — I just haven’t gotten value out of this that I’d be willing to pay for at all.
Guest of Honor awards
This one is tricky. I love being able to treat friends and family to a nice stay at a Hyatt, but not many of my friends & family are into the games we play and would even know to ask me about these. That said, we’ve been taking more trips where a family member joins us and/or where we need two rooms, so I do value Guest of Honor awards. That said, now that these will be in limited supply, I’ll be more hesitant to use these for short 1 or 2-night stays, which might increase the chance of breakage. I’d probably be willing to part with 10,000 points to get two of these. In my case, I’m basing that entirely on free parking in New York City: if I used one Guest of Honor award for a family member or friend to join us for a weekend in New York City and get two nights of free parking, I’d feel like I was already ahead of the points I poured into it.
Totaling my own values
Based on my own valuations, I’d be willing to part with 120,000 points to get the 60-night perks. It therefore looks like it would be well worth a 10-night mattress run at 50K points in order to secure those perks. I think I should mattress run to 60 nights.
That said, I’m still dubious of my own values here. Would I really be willing to pay 150,000 total points for the 50 and 60 night milestones year after year if I ended every year at 44 nights naturally? That’s hard to say and would likely depend on how hard it would be to earn that price plus enough points to get value out of having status.
That said, in my case, I’d be looking at using about 80K points to secure those perks. That feels far more reasonable — though, at the same time, that’s a lot of points to pour into the benefits, particularly if I did it year after year.
At this point, I’m not willing to commit to that behavior every year. However, I think it’s worth an experiment: if I spend 80,000 points this year mattress running 16 nights (or less if I end up with more nights than expected and/or find off-peak Category 1 nights), I’ll be curious to see how much benefit I actually get in 2025. As it stands right now, I don’t yet have any Hyatt stays booked next year beyond the expiration of my Globalist status. I’ll be curious to see how this experiment shakes out. I’ll keep track of how I use each of the 50 and 60-night milestone benefits with the intent to revisit this next year and decide whether it’s worth more mattress running in the future.
Will you mattress run after Milestone Rewards?
As someone who writes about miles and points, it’s easier for me to justify a crazy pursuit like mattress running sixteen nights to Milestone Rewards, so I’m curious to hear from readers: would you consider mattress running your way to Hyatt’s Milestone Rewards? Would you be willing to mattress run as many nights as I will, or would your magic number be fewer or even more mattress run nights? Do you think that Greg and I have lost our minds in how we value Hyatt’s Milestone Rewards? Let us know in the comments.
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I recently completed a Hyatt challenge for Globalist. 12 of the 20 nights were mattress runs in cat 1 properties ranging from 3500-5000 points per night. I calculated that even if I had to use 60000 points to achieve Globalist it was totally worth it for the perks and benefits. We already have 15 x different stays booked for the future with Hyatt, with more to come.
I’m staring down at a similar scenario Cristy. Did you mattress run in the US and check-in in person and then do remote checkout for the 12 nights? Were the other 8 nights organic stays?
Yes all in the US, physically checked in and never did anything for check out. The other nights were all actual stays at a variety of hotels.
I really hope that you guys discuss this in this weeks podcast.
Reading to hard for dummy
I’m glad you mentioned the value of the Globalist Concierge. I’ve read articles about issues with the front desk being resolved before getting to the room. I’ve experience nothing like that. Either no answer is received (and I need to follow up) or it comes many days late.
I’d be interested if anyone really sees value.
Sorry, I’m a Hyatt newb, but why are you not discussing the 3,500 point nights at Lindners if you’re talking about a pure mattress run?
I’m mattress running around 100 nights this year! I want to get ALL the milestones. I did my own math similar to this earlier this year.
WTF dude? How bored are you
Can you clarify on free night certificate 1-4 that is issued by Hyatt vs Chase?
Does that mean if I get a free night from spend I won’t qualify for the 10,000 points if I let it expire?
Correct. A night issued due to the credit card (whether the annual cardholder FNC or the one from spend) has to be used by expiration or it is lost – you won’t get points from that. Hyatt will typically issue points for an expired cert earned as a milestone if you ask.
Even after reading this excellent article, It’s hard for me to properly value Globalist with so many Hiltons and Marriotts around. Nick I assume you have at least Hilton Gold and Bonvoy Platinum. In your Hyatt calculations do you deduct the value of the perks you would have received staying at a competitors hotel since you have the competitors status already?
FWIW, DFW is beautiful* in winter and there are usually plenty of 3500 point Cat 1 hyatt places https://www.hyatt.com/explore-hotels/rate-calendar?spiritCode=dfwzy&startDate=2024-12-10&endDate=2024-12-12
My plan is to let current globalist lapse this year (which means Mar 1, 2025) and then employ Greg’s Suggested $15K personal card spend + $70K business card spend + 15 nights between Jan 1 and mid-year to secure Glob until Mar 1, 2027. I’ll have a few months of Glob gap next year, but I find chasing Glob status EVERY year to be fatiguing.
* For Texas, beautiful is defined as not oppressively hot.
Blackstone near deal to buy Hyatt Clearwater Beach
Oh, no!
Valid to the conversation: Remember that Hyatt house and place properties have a double points promo right now. If you want to save your points and can find a 50-75 dollar property it might better to use cash and get those double points. Haven’t done the math on that but if you are eyeing properties that you can get 3+ cents per point on, then my I’d bet it is worth it.
I dont think the 4.6 points per dollar is not the right way to calculate it. Normally for cpp, we usually look at the points we would spend vs the amount we might/might not spend. But here you are calculating the points earned for the spend. It’s like comparing an earned SUB with a spend.
Valuations are personal but the SUA and GoH rewards seem extremely overvalued. The market value, based on sites that I won’t mention, are about $90 for the SUA and $60 for GoH. Not saying people should do it, but that’s what the market has settled on. Then again, with those prices, it might just be a better value to buy them as needed and forego chasing status altogether.
I came to mention the exact same thing- since awards are now easily transferable between members on the app, may as well buy them on 3rd party sites
I am a newly minted globalist (lite) this year and am at 36 nights. I’ve been planning to at least hit 40 (for the SUA) but now you have me seriously debating going further.
Interesting that Nick says not many of his family or friends play this game! I’ve found that not many want to put the time and effort into it but would rather have me spoon feed them.
People are in or out. You have to enjoy the game otherwise it will feel like work. Fortunately, we love the game.
If you aren’t enjoying this it goes from being a hobby to work – and most people are already busy with a job they may or may not care for. Once you are at a certain point you can put things on cruise control but there is an initial setup and learning curve to figure out the rewards you will actually use and arrange things so it’s smooth to collect and spend those points.