Chase Hyatt Card Sign up Bonus Changed

As of today the Chase Hyatt Card Sign up Bonus Changed from two free nights to 40,000 points. The Hyatt card is one of my favorite hotel cards for many reasons. Here are the two main reasons why I applied for the card:

• Earn 2 free nights at Hyatt hotels, worldwide after you make $1,000 in purchases in the first 3 months after account opening (old bonus).
  • This is a great bonus since you can use these nights at ANY Hyatt hotel in the world. I just used my 2 free nights to book an upcoming stay at the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme (a category 7 hotel). Otherwise these two nights would’ve cost me $610/night (that’s $1,220 savings)
• Earn 1 free night every year after your card member anniversary at any Category 1-4 hotel.
  • This will cover way more than the $75 annual fee depending where you use your free night.

A few months after I applied for the card the minimum spend required to earn the bonus increased from $1,000 to $2,000; which is still not bad. However, now the bonus changed from the two free nights at any Hyatt hotel no matter the category to 40,000 points.

Why I don’t think this is a negative change:

• You don’t have to redeem your points within one year from account opening as was the case with the two free nights.
  • This makes it more flexible to use your points whenever you want.
• The 40,000 points can be worth many more nights depending what Hyatt category hotel you choose to redeem them at. This is Hyatt’s award chart:

As you can see, you can technically redeem the 40,000 points for 8 nights at a category 1 hotel. Obviously this would be a rare situation but I do appreciate the flexibility the points bonus gives over the two free nights which have to be used in 1 year.

The only negative aspect of this change:

• The one downside of this change is if you were planning to stay at a category 6 hotel (25,000 points/night) or a category 7 hotel (30,000 points/night) in the next year. The 40,000 points will not get you two free nights at those hotels.

Bottom Line:

The world of points and miles is always changing; sometimes for the worse and sometimes (rarely) for the better. I’d like to think this change can be better or worse depending on your redemption goals.

Remember, if you need more points to book a higher category hotel; you can always supplement your Hyatt account with points transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards at a 1:1 ratio.

What do you think of this bonus change?

If you have any questions comment below or tweet me @pointspointers or email me at pointspointers@gmail.com