Booking Hyatt Premium Suites Awards
Hyatt has made some changes to their award program and they’re not all bad (mostly bad, but there’s some definite value to be found.) One interesting change is Starting November 1, 2018, you’ll gain the ability to use points for free nights in premium suites. Also, there’s no longer a minimum length of stay for free nights in suites. You can also use cash plus points awards to book both standard and premium suites. Last, you’ll have the option to upgrade to premium suites using 9,000 World of Hyatt points on paid nights. I did some analysis for awards at different ends of the spectrum to see how these new options for Premium Suites play out.
Value of World of Hyatt Points
Hyatt Points can be purchased for 2.4 cents a piece unless there’s a sale like the one they’re currently offering where points can be purchased for about 1.71 cents each. We recently detailed a simple formula you can use to determine whether it makes sense to buy points. You can also transfer Ultimate Rewards Points into World of Hyatt at a 1:1 ratio.
Related: World of Hyatt Credit Card Review, The NEW King of Hotel Credit Cards
Premium Suite Booking Options
- Points and Cash
- Points alone
- Cash only
- Cash Rate + Flat 9k Hyatt Points Upgrade Award
| Hotel Category | Standard Room Points Per Night | Cost to buy Points
Reg / Sale |
Standard Suite Points Per Night |
NEW: Premium Suite Points Per Night |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5,000 | $120 ⁄ $72 | 8,000 | 10,000 |
| 2 | 8,000 | $192 / $115 | 13,000 | 16,000 |
| 3 | 12,000 | $288 / $172.8 | 20,000 | 24,000 |
| 4 | 15,000 | $360 / $216 | 24,000 | 30,000 |
| 5 | 20,000 | $480 / $288 | 32,000 | 40,000 |
| 6 | 25,000 | $600 / $360 | 40,000 | 50,000 |
| 7 | 30,000 | $720 / $432 | 48,000 | 60,000 |
Examples and Analysis
Category 7: Park Hyatt NY
I took two different dates at different ends of the price range to give you an idea of how your calculations would differ.
- Points Per Night: 30,000
- Premium Suite: 60,000
- Points Plus Cash: 30,000 + $850
- Premium Suite Upgrade on Paid Stay: 9,000
- December: Standard Room Cash Rate with Taxes = $1260
- Suite (Standard) = $1606
- Suite (Premium) = $1719
Analysis: This is an example where all of the rates are high and paying with points generally represents your best value because you’re getting outsized value for your points. I’d say 60k Hyatt points is more than fair to save over $1700. The baseline Premium Suite is about $500 more per night over the Standard Room price. You can instead upgrade the cash rate with 9,000 points to a premium suite. At full price, 9,000 Hyatt Points would cost you about $215, so you would be saving about $285 and your out of pocket cost would be $1475. You could also purchase the 60,000 points required for a Premium Suite at the bargain price of $1440.
I think you’d have to be a little crazy to pay those prices when you could just purchase the 30,000 points for $720 for the Standard Room rate or transfer them from Ultimate Rewards.
Let’s look at an example where the prices are much lower for the same hotel. (This is in January)
- Cash Rate : $686
- Standard Suite: $973
- Premium Suite $1030
- Cash Plus Points: 30k Plus $500
Analysis: Here, the baseline Premium Suite is about $345 more per night over the Standard Room price. However, you can instead upgrade the cash rate with 9,000 points to a premium suite. At full price 9,000 Hyatt Points would cost you about $215, so you would be saving about $130 and your out of pocket cost would be $900. Obviously, you would never pay the full points rate of 60k because you would only be getting .015 cents of value per point and that’s no good.
The Confidante Miami Beach: Category 4
- Points Per Night: 15,000
- Premium Suite: 30,000
- Premium Suite Upgrade on Paid Stay: 9,000
- Cash Plus Points: 15,000 + $190
- Standard Room Cash Rate with Taxes = $250
- Standard Suite: $357
- Premium Suite: $397
Analysis: Transferring from Chase UR is a decent play here because you only have to transfer 30,000 UR points to Hyatt. Even better, you could pay the cash rate at $250 and transfer 9,000 UR points or buy them from Hyatt for $215. If you are only looking for a Premium Suite and don’t have the points available, you should probably just pay cash on this one or do points plus cash.
Category 1: Hyatt Regency Kathmandu
- Points Per Night: 5,000
- Premium Suite: 10,000
- Premium Suite Upgrade on Paid Stay: 9,000
- Cash Plus Points: 5,000 + $470
- Standard Room Cash Rate with Taxes: $180
- Standard Suite: $633
- Premium Suite: $957
Analysis: Here’s an interesting example where you’d actually want to pay double the Hyatt points because 5k WOH points for almost $800 (difference between standard room price and premium suite) is an insane value per point (15.5 cents each to be exact.) Of course you would never do cash plus points or the 9k upgrade in this situation.
Related: My Hyatt Globalist Requalification Journey, Program Changes & Was It Worth It?
Takeaways
The best value you’ll receive from the new options is the Premium Suite Upgrades with only 9,000 Points in the higher categories where the price of the Premium suite is greater than either $215, the amount you are able to purchase the points for or the value of 9k UR points to you. Of course, this means you’ll have to pay cash for the room which no one wants to do. On the flip side, you’re probably never going to upgrade to premium suites using the 9k Hyatt points in categories 1 and 2 because it’s more points than you need to pay for the suite with all points.
Cash plus points is devalued for hotels with high taxes and or resort fees because both are waived on stays booked with all points.
The new points and cash model for booking suites can actually help you save money under the right conditions. There are times when the rate for a Premium suite is not that much more than the rate for the standard rooms. In these scenarios you’ll want to look at the cash plus points option or the 9,000 Point upgrade.
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Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
