World of Hyatt Globalist Status 2019
This past week I “accomplished” something in a time I never would have previously thought possible! I completed my World of Hyatt Globalist status 2019 qualification journey with 55 nights (actually 48 but more on that later) over the course of less than 3 months. I’ll have a rundown of each hotel in a separate post, but I thought it would also be good to discuss exactly how and why I accomplished this.
What Is Hyatt Globalist?
Before I get into the how and why I requalified for Hyatt Globalist status in less than five months, let me quickly discuss what the program and status is. Here is a quick recap of why I value Hyatt Globalist status:
- Hyatt Globalist gives free lounge access or breakfast if no lounge
- Hyatt Globalist gives unlimited upgrades at check-in time up to standard suites if available
- Earning status through Hyatt also unlocks free night awards, suite upgrades and more
There are a ton of other benefits of Hyatt Globalist status, but the free lounge access and nice room upgrades are what motivates me.
My Hyatt Globalist Journey
I started my journey with Hyatt many years ago when anyone could get a fast track towards the then top-tier Diamond status. After obtaining the status via fast track, I decided it was worth keeping. Back in those days you could also qualify with just 25 stays, so my first couple of years involved a lot of one night paid stays. I would even move hotels in the same city in order to rack up more stays.
With World of Hyatt came two big changes. First, the “stays” way of qualifying was gone. This meant I didn’t need to switch hotels any longer, but it also meant I needed 60 nights to qualify for status. The other change that helped with qualifying was that award stays now counted. So, I needed many more nights, but could use points to get them.
Family Travel Is My Thing
During the first couple of years of World of Hyatt I managed to requalify for top-tier Globalist status without too much trouble. It took a great deal of planning and almost the entire year, however I did it while only needing the occasional Excalibur or Luxor mattress run to get me there. Fortunately, this year was a bit different.
Starting in early March (I had no stays in Jan/Feb), my wife, daughter and I embarked on a mish-mash of trips that resulted in us spending 2 1/2 months on the road in various places around the globe. As part of that trip we traveled to every Disney resort worldwide, but we also stayed in a lot of Hyatt hotels. For the most part the hotels and my Globalist status paid off big time.
How Did I Earn the Points
We cover a lot of deals on Miles to Memories for gift cards and reselling. The reason for this is my thirst for points. With award stays counting, the easiest way to fund my Hyatt Globalist needs is to use points. During this trip I burned a lot of my Chase Ultimate Rewards points by transferring them to Hyatt.
How did I earn these points? Well, a lot of them were earned on Chase Freedom cards utilizing their bonus categories and on Chase Sapphire Reserve when booking travel, but the vast majority of my points were earned in 5X categories on the Chase Ink Cash/Plus. Some of these methods for earning are dead, but some live (look for us to cover these deals). At this point my Ultimate Rewards stash almost entirely gets moved over to Hyatt.
Challenge: Limited Footprint
One other way I was lucky on this trip is location. Hyatt’s footprint is very limited (although it has expanded recently with acquisitions and partnerships), however almost all of the places we visited have convenient and desirable Hyatt hotels. Had we been traveling to more exotic locales this year I probably would have shifted stays into other programs. Thankfully through matches and credit cards I have some status with almost every other hotel program around.
Hotel Breakdown
While I will fully breakdown and talk about the actual hotels in another post, here are the brands I stayed at during my 2019 55 night trek to Globalist:
- Hyatt Place – 3 stays – 3 nights
- Hyatt House – 4 stays – 7 nights
- Hyatt Regency – 8 stays – 24 nights
- Grand Hyatt – 7 stays – 12 nights
- Park Hyatt – 1 stay – 1 night
- Thompson Hotels – 1 stay – 1 night
If you added those up then you’ll notice I actually only had 48 nights in Hyatt hotels. So how did I get to 55? The answer is the Hyatt credit card! The Chase World of Hyatt credit card gives me 5 qualifying nights each year automatically plus I earn 2 qualifying nights per $5K in spend on the card.
Additionally, that card gives a free category 1-4 night after $15K in spend so I try to spend $15K each year. This earns me the free night plus a total of 11 qualifying nights towards status. So far I have received 7 of the 11, but I’ll hit that spend later this year and get the other four.
Worth It?
The easiest way to tell whether this pursuit of Globalist is worth it is to see whether I am getting value out of the status. If you look above, out of my 48 Hyatt nights year to date, only 10 of them or 20.8% were at limited service hotels. This means I am staying at full service hotels most of the time! That is great since Globalist benefits work the best at their upper-tier brands.
While I would have loved to stay in more Grand and Park Hyatt properties, many of the Hyatt Regency hotels I stayed in gave us very nice suites and had decent lounges. Overall, I have to say I got a tremendous value out of my World of Hyatt Globalist status in 2019!
Thoughts on the Value of Hyatt Points
Over the course of this trip I changed the way I value Hyatt points. It quickly became evident to me that there are less and less sweet spots than ever before. There were simply too many times when I wasn’t able to get 2 cents value from Hyatt points and where I didn’t want to pay cash.
In the end I had to lower my personal valuation of Hyatt points to about 1.5 cents each. Why? Well, I have a decent number of points to start. If I had only a few I would hold out for better redemptions. Also, the norm I found was about 1.5 cents per point on normal days at normal hotels (including taxes + fees). I decided if it was 1.5 cents per point or more then I was good to use points.
Keep in mind I’m not saying homerun redemptions don’t exist. For example, the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong was going for almost $700 plus tax for the nights we redeemed 25K points at the hotel! That was fantastic, but is now more the exception as opposed to the rule.
Conclusion
So yeah I’m kind of a big deal when I walk into a Hyatt hotel. Okay that’s not true, but I do get some awesome perks that make my stays more comfortable and enjoyable. For that reason I think I’ll continue this little pursuit of Globalist status as long as I’m receiving great value back.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the old king of travel rewards cards. Right now
bonus_miles_full
Learn more about this card and its features!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Congrats Shawn. Globalist in 2.5 months is insane! I barely cracked the halfway point so far last week.
Just wondering, what was the average room rate that you paid for your stays? I’m seeing increased prices across the board for Hyatt properties this year. And because I’m a leisure customer, this is all coming out of pocket.
Thanks!
Now if only they would have a fast track challenge or status match. Nothing in 2019 thus far
Shawn-Love your site and the work you guys do. I have been able to get 2 cents or more value on the vast majority of my bookings. I see your point. There are hotels however that for one reason or another are going for more money than normal and the points work out pretty good. Hong Kong definitely. IS there still huge construction around that Grand Hyatt? I have stayed at the Hyatt Regency Tsim Tha Shui many times. Upgrades are super tough there however even with certs they are nothing special. I am a former DIEHARD SPG guy and as you figure I am super pissed. Hyatt is still in many cases a far better value than Marriott.
Mat-Marriott can work a little better with 4 nights 5th free, but the value is still significantly diminished. For Hyatts that are not a great point value than you could use the Barclay Arrival card.
The footprint is a big problem as well. I’m heading to Cleveland in a couple of days and the HR is just terrible so I debating between the Ritz thru Amex FHR or the Westin. My trip to Rome in July has almost no options with Hyatt and the SLH hotels aren’t great either.Likewise, going to BKK in 3 months and I really want to use the pool at 163 Pillar rather than any of the Hyatts. I’ve stayed at the PH BKK, the pool is definitely oversold by the pictures. Looks like I’ll end up with around 40 nights so will have to put about at least 30k on the Hyatt card.
The HR is a little different but I have never thought is was terrible. I think they tried to work with a old hotel there. The location is superb though and at 8K per night (unless it has changed) the deal is pretty good. I have stayed in the Ritz which is nice but the location is not quite as good and it is a little run down. One of my favorite Hyatt Places anywhere is 30 mins outside of Cleveland but it is surrounded by an outdoor mall (Westlake area I believe). Not sure if you have to be downtown though. The Westin is one of the few hotels in Cleveland I have not stayed in.
So I never use points for the HR cleveland. The rates are always SO LOW. $110-150.
I do have to be downtown, but thanks for the tip on the Ritz. My other thought was the Kimpton, that looked pretty nice.
I have never stayed at the Kimpton either 🙁 – you found the two in Cleveland lol. I think that or the Westin would most likely do the trick.
I wish I had Globalist with Hyatt to avoid the parking fees in big cities.
A major challenge is getting that card!
I’m definitely glad that I grabbed it before it was subject to 5/24.
You could see about doing a product change from another Chase card.
I don’t think it is possible to do it to co-branded cards.
Congrats Shawn!
I agree with you and Hyatt Globalist is well worth it. I go for it each year and the years I can’t do it with stays, I just spend a lot on my Hyatt card those years (each $5,000 spend gets you 2 nights stay credits). I prequalified last month for Globalist again and got the 4 guaranteed suite upgrades. I’m using them later this fall in Asia (Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore).
But another benefit that I’m enjoying is having the dedicated Globalist concierge. Mine is really great. I didn’t get her contact email until about 3 weeks after making Globalist. But she has been really great and even has managed to score me Suite upgrade with connecting room for an upcoming trip to Vienna. I didn’t even have to use a Suite upgrade award. She asked the hotel if they could accommodate that since I’m traveling with my kids.
Like you, I mostly travel with my kids and we always have to get two rooms so this is really great with Hyatt and the free breakfast, suite upgrades, etc.