Today’s Hyatt Deal
Daily Getaways is a wonderful promotion sponsored by the U.S. Travel Association and American Express which features different travel deals everyday. I wrote about my thoughts on the first two weeks of deals, but decided to back off since they tend to be over-covered on blogs.
The past few days though I have seen plenty of people write about & recommend today’s deal for Hyatt Gold Passport points. Today only, you can purchase Hyatt Gold Passport points in various quantities for slightly less than $.01 each. While there is no doubt that Hyatt points are worth at least that, I tend to think about things a little different.
What Is Being Offered
Before going into my analysis, lets look at what is being offered today starting at 10am PDT.
- 24,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points for $260 ($234 w/Amex). This is listed as “2 Nights In A Hyatt Premium Hotel”. – 95 Available
- 30,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points for $330 ($297 w/Amex). This is listed as “2 Nights In A Elite Hyatt Hotel”. – 35 Available
- 40,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points for $415 ($373.50 w/Amex). This is listed as “2 Nights In A Hyatt Top Hotel”. – 15 Available
- 72,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points for $775 ($697.50 w/Amex). This is listed as “3 Nights In A Hyatt Suite”. – 15 Available
As you can see there are a VERY LIMITED quantity of each available. If you use your Amex card to pay, each deal comes in at just under $.01 per point. (.0098, .0099,.0093,.0097)
Analysis
If you have an immediate use for these points, then this is most likely a great deal depending on the room rates for the hotel you are looking at.
For example, in April we stayed in the Hyatt Regency Tokyo for 12,000 points per night. The hotel was going for around $350 per night. Under this deal, the points will cost around $120, meaning it is about a 65% discount. With that said, this hotel goes for as low as $150 depending on the season.
On that same trip, we also stayed at the Park Hyatt Tokyo which costs 30,000 points per night. Rooms were going for $650 per night there, meaning it would be about a 54% discount. This hotel can go as low as $300 per night though depending on the season.
Buying Hyatt Gold Passport Points For Less Than $.005 Each
So why then do I say it may not be worth buying these points? The truth is Hyatt Gold Passport points can be bought for $.0048 all of the time by utilizing the Chase Ink Bold or Plus Visa cards to buy $200 gift cards at Staples either in-store or online. Let’s take a look at the math.
Cost of the Card – $6.95 (Not Including the $200 Value)
Ultimate Rewards Points Earned – 1035 (206.95 x 5)
Cash back Earned Via Visa Savings Edge (This only works for the Visa versions of the Ink cards) – $2.07
Actual Cost Per Card – $4.88
Cost Per Point – $.0048 ($4.88/1035)
The best way to liquidate these cards is by loading them to your Bluebird either at a Walmart register or via their in-store kiosk. You can load up to $5,000 per month. Since the Ink cards have a $50,000 limit on the 5x category bonus for office supply stores, you won’t be able to do much more than that.
Officemax
While Staples is a good reliable place to get gift cards, Officemax also sells the same cards for a similar price. They also have promotions every once in awhile offering instant rebates on cards.
Twice this year Officemax has offered rebates which resulted in gift cards being purchased for less than face value. Essentially with this deal, you were able to purchase Ultimate Rewards points at a negative cost! (I wrote about the two deals here & here.)
Why Ultimate Rewards
You may be wondering why I am talking about Chase Ultimate Rewards points when the deal is for Hyatt Gold Passport points. Ultimate Rewards points transfer 1:1 to Hyatt and many other partners including several other hotel chains, airlines & even Amtrak. This means that your points aren’t locked into one program and are flexible. For me this is a good thing.
Some people use their Bluebird cards for other things like hitting minimum spend and spending bonuses on other cards. There are other ways to liquidate these gift cards if you hit your monthly Bluebird limit.
Since this isn’t easily explained in a post like this, I highly suggest joining the Travel Codex Forums and/or the Saverocity Forums. There is a lot of great discussion going on about manufactured spend in those two places.
Do note that you will not automatically have access to the manufactured spend information so you will have to contact a moderator to request it. (They may or may not grant your request based on their own criteria.)
Conclusion
The truth is you probably won’t be able to get in on the Hyatt deals today because of the extremely limited quantity of packages available. With that said, I wouldn’t buy them anyway. With the ability to purchase Ultimate Rewards points at half the price, I don’t see the need to speculatively purchase the Hyatt points. (I understand that this makes the assumption that you have a Chase Ink card.)
If you have a lot of upcoming Hyatt stays or a redemption that you need these points for immediately, then this absolutely might be for you. For the average person though, it is best to think first whether it is wise to speculatively spend a lot of money for points without an immediate use.
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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.
