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Hyatt Regency Maui
A Guide to MaxMyPoint
A couple of days ago, I discovered a tool on FlyerTalk called MaxMyPoint. This tool makes it easy to check award availability across Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott hotels. Although it is helpful for all three brands, it is particularly helpful for Hyatt. In this guide I’ll discuss the ins and outs of MaxMyPoint and why it is really helpful for Hyatt searches. Nothing is more annoying than pulling up the Hyatt search map, clicking through a hotel and seeing there are no standard awards available.
Why is MaxMyPoint helpful?
Hyatt’s policy is quite straightforward for using points or free night certificates. As long as there is a standard room available, you will be able to book a room using points. But, some hotels have taken advantage of this policy. Because of this, they “play games” by adding minimum stay requirements to use points, and they also get rid of standard rooms over peak dates. But, MaxMyPoint shows the award availability for the entire year, so you can see when it is possible to use points even if games are afoot.
How to Use MaxMyPoint:
Once on MaxMyPoint’s site there is a number of ways to filter hotels. Plus, it is also where you can search for a specific hotel. I really enjoy being able to see the Hyatt hotel award availability from low to high, as you are able to see what hotels are playing games with standard room availability. It makes it fun to poke around even if I don’t have plans to book anything at this moment in time.
But, once you have a specific hotel in mind, click on the __%. You will then be taken to another tab where you can see the entire calendar of award availability. One of my favorite hotels in the San Diego area is the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay. In the past I have noticed that they seem to play games with award availability though. This is proven when you look at their calendar. Also, notice that there are only 2(!!) weekends for the next 13 months where there is award availability. And the weekends are around Christmas time, which is the low season in San Diego. Plus, there are entire months where there is no availability.
The situation is also similar at the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile. There is only one day for the next 13 months where there is standard room availability. That is insane. But, on the other hand, there are some hotels where there is legitimately no award availability at times. An example of this is the Alila Ventana Big Sur. This has become such a popular hotel, so hence the lack of award availability.
What Hyatt Hotels Play Games with Points Availability?
There is a number of Hyatt hotels that play availability. Almost all of the hotels that play games with award availability are in the US, and Hawaii has the most hotels that play with award availability. Here is a list of hotels that do play games with availability. There are some Hyatt properties, like the Hyatt Regency Chantilly, that I will not include. This is because it is about to be deflagged. I will also not include Destination Hotel properties, as they are subject to capacity controls.
MaxMyPoint Guide – Is This Tool Useful for Hilton and Marriott Hotels?
I think this tool is best for Hyatt hotels, but it is still helpful for some high-demand Hilton properties, and it could be useful in the future when Marriott goes fully dynamic.
An example of a good use of MaxMyPoint for Hilton properties is the Waldorf Astoria Maldives. There is only availability for 13% of the next year, so this tool makes it easy to see when there is award space. This isn’t due to them playing games, but rather there is just such high demand that points availability is hard to come by.
Does MaxMyPoint check for minimum stay requirements?
Unfortunately, it does not. This is by far the biggest drawback of this site. This means that hotels such as the Andaz Wailea or the Tommie Austin might make you book 3 nights over the weekend if you want to use points. But, this site doesn’t check for this requirement.
How to Set Email Alerts?
It is also possible to set email alerts with MaxMyPoint. To do this, simply click the bell next to the hotel you are interested in, choose the days you want to check, along with if you want to see availability for the full stay or specific nights of your stay. Then, enter your desired email, and maximum point budget.
MaxMyPoint Guide – Final Thoughts
Overall, MaxMyPoint is an excellent tool. It can be helpful for Hilton properties, but it is a spectacular tool for Hyatt properties. It is definitely something I will check next time I have a specific hotel redemption in mind.
What are your thoughts on MaxMyAward? Let me know in the comments below!
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20 COMMENTS
Alila Ventana Big Sur is notorious for no standard room availability.
Hyatt Centric Waikiki – 0% — possibly one of the worst Hyatts when it comes to allowing any awards in the WoH program. Can’t even use an upgrade cert here.
Some properties — such as the NY Central Park Ritz Carlton — only offer entry-level rooms for award inventory. Any way to add a “suite” filter to screen out such properties? Thanks.
Thank you very much for sharing https://maxmypoint.com! As a follower of this blog, I am very excited to see my website is shared here. Just want to add a few information for the readers here to better use maxmypoint to book your hotel stays.
1. For all three brands, the standard rewards availability of a number of selected hotels are tracked on daily basis. The criteria is considering the availability, value and popularity of the hotels. Those hotels are listed on the homepage by default for each brand. If there’s other hotels worth to track on daily basis, I am happy to add them. For other hotels, they are refreshed on monthly basis so far and it’s being improved/enhanced in the future. On the hotel rewards availability detail page, there’s a last updated timestamp at the bottom of the page to indicate when it’s last refreshed.
2. Minimum stay support is on the way as it’s not easy to find out what hotel has such requirements and how long it is. If you have more data of that, please kindly share and it’d be supported shortly.
3. The alert feature is running on hourly basis. So when you have a hotel and dates in mind, it’s better to set an alert to get the timely notification when the standard rewards is available. Furthermore, it will help you to save points as the points needed can go lower, especially for Hilton and Marriott which has dynamic pricing policy today. There are numerous users of maxmypoint has booked hotels with very low availability like Alila Big Sur through the alert feature in the past.
Thank you for sharing again and if you have any other suggestions, please kindly contact us.
Hadn’t heard about MaxMyPoint, but can see that it can be a very useful tool for certain tough-to-book award properties like Alila Ventana Big Sur. Thanks =)
This will be very helpful. A few months ago I wanted to book an award at Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego. They have to be one of the worst offenders for phantom award space.
Nice post, but…
“A lot of them are in Hawaii, and many of them are in the US.”
I’ll cut you some slack because you’re 15 and may have missed that day at school. 🙂
The sentence is actually fine. It probably would not have drawn your attention if the clauses were reversed, more like this: “Many of them are in the US, and specifically a lot are in Hawaii.”
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Alila Ventana Big Sur is notorious for no standard room availability.
I think although VBS doesn’t have a lot of standard availability, it is more due to high demand rather than them trying to be stingy on availability.
Hyatt Centric Waikiki – 0% — possibly one of the worst Hyatts when it comes to allowing any awards in the WoH program. Can’t even use an upgrade cert here.
Yeah Hawaii is definitely a bad place for using Hyatt points, as many of the hotels don’t want to offer award space.
Maybe I’m blind, but I don’t see a way to perform a search of ALL hotels of a certain chain. The search box does absolutely nothing.
I see the sample hotels listed for each brand, but that’s it. Is there’s some trick to it?
Ok apparently the Search All function doesn’t work on Firefox. Was ok on IE.
Some properties — such as the NY Central Park Ritz Carlton — only offer entry-level rooms for award inventory. Any way to add a “suite” filter to screen out such properties? Thanks.
Am I blind… . I swear your post said 2 years ago. Not 2 days ago ha. Sorry,Disregard my other posts.
Fire (emoji) is missing *
Hi John,
Thank you very much for sharing https://maxmypoint.com! As a follower of this blog, I am very excited to see my website is shared here. Just want to add a few information for the readers here to better use maxmypoint to book your hotel stays.
1. For all three brands, the standard rewards availability of a number of selected hotels are tracked on daily basis. The criteria is considering the availability, value and popularity of the hotels. Those hotels are listed on the homepage by default for each brand. If there’s other hotels worth to track on daily basis, I am happy to add them. For other hotels, they are refreshed on monthly basis so far and it’s being improved/enhanced in the future. On the hotel rewards availability detail page, there’s a last updated timestamp at the bottom of the page to indicate when it’s last refreshed.
2. Minimum stay support is on the way as it’s not easy to find out what hotel has such requirements and how long it is. If you have more data of that, please kindly share and it’d be supported shortly.
3. The alert feature is running on hourly basis. So when you have a hotel and dates in mind, it’s better to set an alert to get the timely notification when the standard rewards is available. Furthermore, it will help you to save points as the points needed can go lower, especially for Hilton and Marriott which has dynamic pricing policy today. There are numerous users of maxmypoint has booked hotels with very low availability like Alila Big Sur through the alert feature in the past.
Thank you for sharing again and if you have any other suggestions, please kindly contact us.
Sincerely,
MaxMyPoint
Hi! Thanks so much for commenting and I’m glad you found some of my feedback helpful.
As far as minimum stay requirements, I don’t have any data, because as you said, it’s tough to know what the actual minimum stay requirement is.
I didn’t think about the price changes with Hilton and Marriott, so this tool will definitely be my go to when using points for hotel stays.
Thanks again!
Hadn’t heard about MaxMyPoint, but can see that it can be a very useful tool for certain tough-to-book award properties like Alila Ventana Big Sur. Thanks =)
This will be very helpful. A few months ago I wanted to book an award at Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego. They have to be one of the worst offenders for phantom award space.
Nice post, but…
“A lot of them are in Hawaii, and many of them are in the US.”
I’ll cut you some slack because you’re 15 and may have missed that day at school. 🙂
The sentence is actually fine. It probably would not have drawn your attention if the clauses were reversed, more like this: “Many of them are in the US, and specifically a lot are in Hawaii.”
It’s fixed, thanks!
This is so awesome!
Thank you for all you do.
My pleasure! Glad you found the article helpful.
Any particular reason it took 2 years to post about this site?
Because it’s . Thank you. Ha