How Quickly Do World of Hyatt Brand Explorer Free Nights Post?
I am a Hyatt fan boy I won’t deny it. I love their points system, their partnership with Chase, the World of Hyatt credit card plus all of the perks their rewards system offers. World of Hyatt gives great perks in their milestones program but they also have fun perks like the Brand Explorer Perk. But how quickly do World of Hyatt Brand Explorer free nights post to your account? A lot quicker than I expected!
Update 12/20/22: I just finished my 10th brand on our trip to Europe last week (Andaz in Munich). We checked out on the 15th and the free night certificate was in my account on the 16th and good for the next year. So they still post lightning quick it appears.
What Is The Brand Explorer Perk?
I may be getting ahead of myself here, you may not know what the Brand Explorer Perk is. Hyatt has many brands (soon it will be 17) and they reward you for trying all of the different ones out. Once you stay at 5 unique brands you get a category 1-4 free night. That is a bonus worth between $200-$300 to me!
And the cool thing is you can earn this more than once. The total haul can be up to 3 times now, we were the first to break that info 😉. That is an extra $600-$900 in value for staying at different Hyatt hotels, not too shabby.
My Experience Earning A Brand Explorer Free Night
I have been stuck on 4 brands for forever! As you know I almost exclusively use points when I travel and Hyatt didn’t count award nights towards elite status in the past. That meant award stays didn’t count towards the Brand Explorer perk either. So a few of the brands I hit earlier in my travels I need to knock off once again, hello Park Hyatt NYC.
I have been stuck at 4 but on our recent trip to Atlantic City we decided to cut the trip short and head into Philadelphia for a night. There was a category 4 Unbound Collection Hyatt hotel in Philly, the Bellevue Hotel. That is one of the brands I had not stayed at and using 15,000 points would get me a night in a $300+ room. It would also earn me a category 1-4 free night cert for checking out that 5th brand. It is almost like I got the stay for free!
The cool thing is I plan on using the category 1-4 certificate at Gild Hall in NYC. That is a Thompson Hotel which is another brand I have yet to check out. I will go from being stuck on 4 brands for forever to 6 brands in a matter of weeks. My only issue is the trip is in September so I need the cert ASAP so I can lock up the best redemption in Manhattan.
I stayed in at the Bellevue Hotel on the 17th of August and checked out the 18th. The category 1-4 certificate was placed into my account on the 19th. Now that is fast! I have already secured my stay at Gild Hall, thank you Hyatt for making it completely free too.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoy little bonuses like this that I can get from being a member of a program. It is something fun and fairly easy to accomplish when you travel as much as we do. I have brand 6 and 7 already lined up. I will be knocking on the door of my second free night in no time. My wife’s account is already at 4 brands as well, another plus of having a two player system.
The really cool thing is how quickly the World of Hyatt Brand Explorer free night posted. It allowed me to lock up a valuable redemption just days after I had actually earned it. Now if only my credit card anniversary night would properly post, it has been weeks since the annual fee was billed.
This year I will have earned 3 category 1-4 free night certs. One is from putting $15,000 on my World of Hyatt credit card, one from the brand explorer and another one from hitting 30 elite nights. That doesn’t include the fourth one I should get for a bargain price of $95 from the credit card. I will take $1000 in value (the 4 nights added up) for an out of pocket cost of $95 any day!
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Mark- I don’t see a brand badge listed for HYATT VACATION CLUB, only Hyatt Residence Club. Do you know if they are treating HVC in the similar way as they do MGM properties…you can book and earn/redeem points but they don’t count as a brand affiliate/badge? I constantly get promos for an stay there and would consider it but not if it’s not a true brand that counts. Thanks.
That would be my guess. If there is no badge for it then they don’t consider it a true Hyatt brand.
You cancel it every 2 years and reapply to get the bonus! This, of course, is after your spouse refers you. Then, you cancel theirs, refer them, and have 2 new sign up bonuses to work with!
Mark,
Thanks for reminding me of the brand explorer (still stuck on 4), but also the benefits of having 2 Hyatt memberships in the family.
Last year, my $15k spend night on the Chase card posted the day after the statement closed, but this year the Chase annual free night took 2 statement closings to post. Maybe they’re wising up to people cancelling the card, but if you can still travel, why would you cancel this card?
I think that is the case – that they noticed people closing it after getting the free night. If you are outside of 24 months I could see people closing it to get another welcome offer but outside of that it is a keeper in my book.
I am also waiting for my FNC from the 15k spend to post on both my account and my wifes account. I assumed it would post just after the last statement date closed, but 2 weeks later, it still hasn’t posted. Not sure why the delay this year. Last year it was just a couple of days after the statement date. I agree about the card being a keeper, although I have been thinking about cancelling and re-signing up to grab the bonus again
Wow, that is fast! I’m stuck on 4 brands as well, but I’ll get my 5th when we stay at the Andaz in Costa Rica early next year.
Nice! I hope you got it at 15K a night before it went up.
The $15k spend night took 2 months to post!
It took mine a few days after the statement cut where I spent the $15K. About a month overall since I finished it right after the previous month’s statement cut. Maybe they are just taking longer on the credit card stuff these days?
Yes, the Brand Explorer post almost instantaneously however, the Free Nights from Chase take FOREVER! I emailed them about this recently, and got the canned response that it can take up to 10 weeks to post. (This was from Chase). It used to be much quicker, not sure what’s going on here.
Same thing with me. I think they finally wised up to people getting the free night and cancelling the card so they are pushing it out so people can’t do it.
While I love the brand explorer, I do wish that it would reset every couple of years.
That is the stuff dreams are made of Christian! That would be amazing. Let’s just hope they keep adding brands to give us a chance at #4!