Hyatt Gift Card Discount Sale
Earlier today I posted a roundup of a ton of gift card deals available on eBay. Among them was a deal for Hyatt gift cards. I did mention the 22% savings as a passing comment, but thought it deserves a bit more attention since I know this level of discount is hard to find a lot of the time. Let’s take a look at the deal, the breakdown and how to make it even better than 22%!
Discounted Hyatt Gift Cards Background
Up until the end of 2015, you can purchase Hyatt gift cards and receive a 5% rebate by using an American Express business card to pay. There are codes floating around that will give you 10% more off for a total of 15%. These codes are generally given to attendees of FTU and thus I don’t have one to post here, but you might know someone who knows one. So 15% off is good, but you can do better. (Note: You also get rewards for the spend on your credit card.)
You can also save 16.5% right now on Hyatt gift cards through a variety of resellers and earn credit card rewards too. That is better than the 15% off option directly through Hyatt, but you are dealing with 3rd party cards. Not the best solution in my opinion.
eBay Deal 22% Off
Then there is today’s eBay deal. It comes at a time where some people have been targeted for 3X eBay Bucks and when you can get a decent return from a portal.
Here is a breakdown:
- The Sale: $200 Hyatt gift card for $170 – Limit 2
- eBay Bucks: Normally 2%, but targeted members get 3X or 6%.
- Portal: Splender (I covered this new portal earlier) and ShopAtHome both offer 2%.
So if we do the basic math, then here is how it looks:
- 2 X $200 Hyatt gift cards = $340
- 6% in eBay Bucks: -$20.40
- 2% in portal cashback: -$6.80
- Total cost: $312.80
- Discount on face value: 21.8%
You Can Do Better – Up to 26% Off Face Value
The one thing to keep in mind is that you also get credit card rewards for the spend. Most cards pay 1X at eBay but what about the Chase Ink? If you purchase eBay eGift cards through PayPal Digital Gifts and then use those to purchase the Hyatt Cards then you’ll earn 1,700 points for the purchase. (Note: You can combine a $200, $100, $25 & $15 to get to $340.)
Most people will use their Ultimate Rewards for travel partners, but you can cash them in at $.01 so I’ll assign that value to them. If we subtract out the $17 value of the points, then your cost is $295.80. That amounts to a 26.05% discount on face value! If you value the points even higher then it is a better deal!
There is one sort of drawback to this method. eBay eGift cards from PayPal Digital gifts normally take an hour or two to activate and the Hyatt cards could sell out by then. I don’t think that will happen but it is something to keep in mind.
Conclusion
Whether you consider this 22% or 26% off is up to you, but either way this is the best way to lock-in savings on Hyatt hotels. With the 5% Amex OPEN rebate going away at the end of the year, it will be harder to find discounts and I suspect the value of these cards will increase and the frequency of deals will decrease. I always keep a nice stock of Hyatt cards since it helps me requalify for Diamond at a nice discount.
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[…] the past couple of years I have written about different deals for saving on Hyatt gift cards. For me, the best deals came about a year ago when I was able to combine deals on eBay to save […]
I ended up using a few Amex card staples offers to buy 3 $100 eBay GCs for $240, then used them via portal with a $40 from PP Digital. Ended up with $400 of Hyatt for $280 out of pocket – nice haul. These are the best offers as there’s plenty of ways to get the math to work.
Or you can buy Hyatt GC through Amazon using the Amex offer and get 25% off
Very true, but I would rather get them here so I can use the Amex Offer at Amazon for another type of gift card I can’t normally get at a discount.
Or you can get the ebay gift cards at 12.5% off if you bought them from newegg stacked with Amex Offer…depending on how much you value URs relative to whatever you’re earning at newegg with your Amex card of choice, this could be better or worse.
Very good point. You can also stack other discounts on eBay gift cards such as fuel points at grocery stores, etc. There are a lot of possibilities.
Don’t think Newegg has had any of the ebay gift cards available for days now. Looks like they shut that down shortly after the Amex offer.
I did what you suggested earlier today except I used 5% discounted ebay gift cards I bought off ebay earlier. I also instead used an airlines shopping portal. It only paid 1/2 mile but it helped me to fulfill the promotion for the shopping portal bonus miles I wouldn’t have achieved otherwise.