Hyatt Brand Explorer – It’s Why My Wife And I Make Separate Bookings
The Hyatt Brand Explorer is THE most user-friendly hotel perk. Hyatt has a bunch of other cool promotions happening right now, as well. Despite all of that, my wife and I will continue to make back-to-back /separate bookings for our nights at Hyatt hotels. Why? Why would we intentionally both get a low number of nights, rather than one of us getting all the credits to work on status / perks? Here’s why.
Hyatt Brand Explorer Recap
We previously covered what the Hyatt Brand Explorer is in another article. We even outlined the cheapest hotels for earning your credits in this article. Hyatt Brand Explorer is a cool perk where you get “credit” for each different type of Hyatt hotel you stay at. After staying at 5 of them, you get a certificate for a free night. Awesome! Even award stays count for this perk.
Enter The Separate Bookings
Because of this, whenever we are staying at a Hyatt property from a brand neither of us has stayed at before, we make 2 separate bookings. The first half of our stay is in my name, and the 2nd half is in my wife’s name. That way, we both get “credit” for staying at this brand. Hyatt’s Twitter team and front desk staff are cool with this and won’t make you check out / check back in.
The Positives
The positives are many. It’s easy. You can both work on earning that free night certificate faster this way. You check off the brands sooner and earn free stays. It requires very minimal work (make bookings, message Hyatt on Twitter). You don’t have to pack/unpack or check out/check in again. You can even pay for everything on one bill when you check out. Since Hyatt lets you easily share points with one another, it doesn’t matter who has more points.
The Negatives
However, there are negatives here. The most obvious is that you have 2 separate things to keep track of. That’s easily taken care of, though. The most important is probably status. Status and elite perks only come when you are racking up lots of nights in one person’s name. If you stay 30 nights with Hyatt this year, that’s enough for mid-level Explorist status. However, if you divide those with your spouse, you each have 15. That’s enough for just Discoverist status, a status you can have automatically from the World of Hyatt Credit Card. Essentially, you’re forfeiting moving up in Hyatt status and earning perks (suite upgrades, free night awards, etc.) that you could earn by putting all the nights in 1 name. So why do this?
Why This Makes Sense For Us
This makes sense for us. If we add up all the nights we stay with Hyatt in an average year, it’s still not enough for one person to reach higher status. We would likely hit 20 nights for one of us. That’s enough for 2 Club Lounge Access Awards. These give you access to the Club Lounge (free food and drinks) at the hotel (when there is one) on stays up to 7 days. However, most Hyatt properties we’ve stayed at in the past didn’t have them. Strike 1.
Strike 2 is that we often stay at lower-end Hyatt properties that offer free breakfast anyway. And strike 3 is that a lot of the higher-end properties also don’t have these lounges. We don’t run into them often, so it’s not even a perk we feel like we’re “missing out” on. Also, I don’t really see much benefit in Hyatt’s Explorist status that sets it apart from Discoverist status. Instead, we’d rather move through the Brand Explorer Perk faster and earn the free night certificates that way (you can each earn 3 free nights from Brand Explorer).
Other Times It Might Make Sense
Making separate / back-to-back bookings might make sense for you, also. Even if you’re not looking at the Brand Explorer perk for this, there are times where you can save money this way. If you have the Chase offer for 10% off at Hyatt, you could make a booking in your name and a booking in the 2nd guest’s name. You could maximize your return this way, since the 10% rebate is capped at $25. 2 separate bookings for $250 give you $50 back, but 1 booking for $500 only gives you $25 back.
if you run into a promotion that is based on “stays”, you and your partner could participate this way without checking out of hotels. Hotels count stays as the same guest name staying at the hotel back-to-back nights. You can’t make 2 reservations in your own name and get credit for 2 stays unless you leave for a night. Enter the spouse booking! I’m sure there are other times when this could come into play, but you get the idea.
Final Thoughts
Elite status with Hyatt just isn’t on the horizon for us in the near future. Since we won’t earn status, it makes sense to earn the free night certificates via the Hyatt Brand Explorer perk. A free night at a Category 1-4 hotel has real value to me. If we didn’t do this thing with separate bookings, we’d earn…nada. Do the math and see what works for you, but you might be surprised to see that making separate bookings for back-to-back nights makes sense for your family when staying at a Hyatt brand of hotel you’ve never stayed at before.
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Hubs & I drained both 2x Brand Explorer awards, hoping they add a 3rd!
And there I’d forgotten all about the Explorer benefit. Thanks.
I don’t know if you’re overflowing with ideas for posts since you tend to put up really good stuff but something occurred to me: since you live abroad, how do you get and use cards to get good value when you live outside the US? I mean how do you show income as well as actually receive the cards, for example? Do you use the cards mostly while in the US or while in Brazil? Things like that. If that’s too personal, I apologize for prying but I’m interested out of general curiosity as well as because I’m considering whether to retire abroad at some point, and current expats might get some good pointers.
Christian – check out this post https://milestomemories.com/travel-hacking-overseas/
Nice. What do you do if about proof of income? Also, I pretty much avoid and am fairly ignorant about MS since I’m fortunate enough to have a business that generates a fair number of miles and points in non-pandemic times. How do you generate spend from abroad? I’m not asking for state secrets but I thought that pretty much all methods required a physical presence in the US these days.
I participate in some buying groups. There are also bills we pay online where the card doesn’t have to be physically here (buying a flight ticket, paying my wife’s school bill, etc.).
Proof of income – I can show 1099s and bank statements from my USAA account I’ve had since 2010.
What “he said” https://www.pointsprofessor.co/buying-groups-for-credit-card-points-reviews/