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?
Update 7/7/21: Registration is now live for Hyatt’s new promotion, so you can register here.
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World of Hyatt has announced its coming Bonus Journeys promotion: beginning on July 7, 2021 members will be able to register to earn triple points on every stay of two or more qualifying nights completed July 20 through September 15, 2021. While that is significantly less exciting than the previous two iterations of Bonus Journeys, it isn’t a bad promotion considering the general uptick in domestic travel. In other good news, Hyatt will not introduce peak and off-peak pricing until October 2021 for stays beginning in March 2022. That’s great news for those looking to make 2022 travel plans in popular vacation destinations.
New Bonus Journeys
Hyatt’s latest bonus journeys promotion will open for registration on July 7, 2021. Members who register will earn triple points on stays of two or more qualifying nights from July 20th through September 15, 2021.
Triple Hyatt points means 15 points per dollar spent before any elite bonuses, which would be a fantastic return in a normal world. In comparison to the past two Hyatt promotions, it feels less exciting. I really wish Hyatt would get on Fiverr.com and hire someone to come up with a new promotion name because there has to be a better option than the same name every time.
Notable is that this will stack with the summertime offer for cardholders to get 25% back on qualifying award stays. That is to say that if you have incidental spend during those award stays or additional paid nights, you’ll earn triple points. Since Hyatt allows you to book a mix of paid and award nights in a single reservation online, I think this means that you could theoretically book one award night in conjunction with one paid night and earn triple points on your paid night. Whether or not that will be appealing will be situational depending on the value proposition of award nights and paid rates.
I have a paid Hyatt stay planned during the promotional period, so I’ll be happy to pick up some bonus points though this promotion probably wouldn’t make me choose Hyatt over other options. On the flip side, I believe that the Chase Offer for Hyatt was recently extended. Stacking 15% back on your credit card with all the additional points here could certainly make for a decent rebate on a paid stay.
Peak / off-peak further delayed
In my opinion, the more exciting news today is that Hyatt will further delay the launch of peak and off-peak pricing. Hyatt had previously pushed that back a couple of times and had said that peak and off-peak pricing would begin in summer 2021. Thankfully, they have now announced that they will further delay the launch of peak and off-peak pricing for award stays until mid October 2021. Starting mid-October, peak and off-peak pricing will begin to show up for stays in March 2022 and beyond.
In my opinion, this is a customarily generous accommodation from Hyatt. By waiting until October to launch peak and off-peak award pricing and having it affect stays beginning in March, there should be plenty of time for the early birds among us to scoop up standard awards for summer 2022 travel before peak pricing hits us. That’s really nice as the booking window isn’t yet open for mid-summer 2022 dates and now there should be plenty of time to take advantage of standard pricing for one more summer provided you can plan by October.
Point forfeiture delayed through December 31, 2021
Hyatt also announced today that they are suspending the forfeiture of points through December 31, 2021. This extension had previously been previously scheduled to end June 30, 2021.
Hyatt notes in their press release that “the general policy is that points do not expire, but they will be forfeited if a member’s account is inactive for 24 months”. To me, that’s a distinction without difference. If you haven’t had activity for 24 months as of December 31, 2021, your points will go *poof* in January 2022. Call it expiration or forfeiture or repossession or vaporization or whatever you like, the points will go bye-bye if you don’t have activity, so make sure you have some every 24 months to keep your points alive.
Bottom line
This is pretty good news from Hyatt. I wish they’d not keep saying that Bonus Journeys is “returning” and just come up with a new name for their triple points promotion, but overall it is an OK promotion for peak travel dates. More importantly, I’m really glad to see the delay in peak and off-peak pricing. While some may wish for off-peak pricing to save on shoulder season stays in low-demand areas, I think many of us will appreciate the opportunity to pick up high-demand properties for summer 2022 before peak pricing begins.
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During the current promo, I had 10 paid stays at an average of $125 a night. That got me 12,500 points extra plus a Cat 1-4, which I immediately burned at a value of $250, for a total value of ~$450.
The current promo would get me 12,500 extra points. Still, not too bad when you incorporate tier bonuses for a newly-minted Globalist-lite with a WOH card.
I calc the new promo at 20.5 pts/$ plus tier bonuses, or a hell of a lot more than any lousy Marriott/Hilton “deal”.
Then again, I also got 5k free points for 4 award nights in the earlier promo.
Also overlaps with the chase WOH bonus offer of 8x until 8/15/21 for a total of 23x, wow.
I have a longer stay with a checkout on July 20th. Would I receive the bonus for any of the stay’s nights prior to the 20th?
I am in the same situation.
Actually, my stay starts in June prior to registration but extends until the end of July. My stay obviously starts prior to registering but ends after I have registered.
From FAQ
9. I have a stay with a check-in date before the Promotion Period begins, but a checkout date during the Promotion Period. Will I earn Bonus Points for all these nights during the Promotion Period?
Yes, if your eligible stay begins prior to the Promotion Period and has two qualifying nights or more with a checkout date within the Promotion Period, then you can earn Bonus Points on eligible spend for that stay, provided you register for the promotion prior to both the registration deadline and checking out of the property on that stay
Is triple points really not as good as their last one? 2000/2500 pts per 2 nights, 1 cat 4 after 10 nights?
I guess if you managed to stay 10 nights during that promotional period, you’re looking at on average, 2750 bonus points/night which would be better but that’s assuming you can use the Cat 1-4 certificate before it expires and at full value.
I’d argue that this one is better simply because there’s less hoops to jump through – last promo needed an even number of night stayed, favored cheap stays (triple point is superior if the room costs $125+ or $275 if you count the cert), needed at least 10 night.
Good points.
Last one awarded points for award stays in addition to paid stays. Just cleared 5K points this morning from award stays over this past weekend.
Nice to see that the delay in peak and off peak will allow us to book summer 2022 at the standard rates. Given how far in advance Hyatt let’s you book, the mid October 2021 timeline means you be able to book through early November at the standard rates, but won’t be able to book Thanksgiving 2022 at the standard award chart a year in advance.
Hey Nick!
Any word if Hyatt plans on extending the expiration date on the free night certificate earned for those of us who did a mattress run for Globalist earlier in the year? It looks like those expire 6 months from earning (unlike 12 months for the anniversary night certificates). Mine is set to expire in August.
Thank you for your help!
All I see in the press release about free night certs is this:
I finished my mattress run on January 3rd and my Cat 1-4 and 1-7 free night certs show a 12/31/21 expiration date.
Interesting my awards show the following:
A search on FlyerTalk confirms your findings, here’s hoping they extend all 2021 earned certs through at least the end of this year.
Thank you for your help Nick!
Darn, I have four Hyatt stays from the end of June to July 15th. Would have been nice to have it start right away. Is there any current bonus I’m not aware of?
“Choose Your Adventure, Choose Your Offer” I esp like the free night with purchase of 2, 3, or 4:
https://www.hyatt.com/info/chooseadventure?src=adm_sem_agn_360i_crp_ppc_D+Brand-Hyatt-NonGP_google_Brand-Hyatt-General-BMM_b_%2Bhyatt_Brand&&src=adm_sem_agn_360i_crp_ppc_D+Brand-Hyatt-NonGP_google_Brand-Hyatt-General-BMM_%7Bbidmatchtype%7D_%2Bhyatt_Brand&gclid=CjwKCAjwn6GGBhADEiwAruUcKopz8Vo0t1e0rWVsPEPjCrGmHDJehXp158c9WNmNBFW5oc18kFZOkhoCZn4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
“Choose your adventure, Choose your offer” free night with purchase of 2, 3, or 4
“Offer valid for qualifying reservations made between June 14, 2021 and July 31, 2021 at participating hotels for stays with a check-in date between June 15, 2021 and September 30, 2021.“
Well done, Hyatt! It’d be nice if Marriott and Hilton learned this concept of doing things that benefit the customer.