Hyatt Free Night: How to Use Hyatt Free Night Awards

About Hyatt Free Night Awards

A free night award, as the name suggests, lets you stay for free in an eligible room type at a hotel. The nicer and more expensive the hotel, the more value you can get from using one well. Chase and Hyatt co-branded hotel credit cards now offer free night awards every year, and you may also earn additional certificates through spending or by reaching certain Hyatt stay milestones. This article gives a general overview of how to earn, redeem, and maximize Hyatt free night awards.

If you want to have a free night certificate every year, keeping a Chase Hyatt card long term is one of the best-value options. For just $95, you can get a certificate that can easily be worth $200+. Ideally, both spouses should have one, since two nights are much more practical. If that still is not enough, you can add points for more award stays.

How to Earn Hyatt Free Night Awards

Hyatt currently has two main types of free night awards: Cat 1-4 certificates and Cat 7 certificates, which can be used for Hyatt hotels costing up to 18,000 and 30,000 points, respectively. Common ways to earn them include:

• Chase World of Hyatt: as a welcome bonus (it previously offered a Cat 7 certificate), one Cat 1-4 certificate starting in your second cardmember year, and one additional Cat 1-4 certificate after $15,000 in annual spending
• Unfortunately, the Hyatt Business card does not offer free night certificates.

Free night awards from credit cards generally expire one year after they are issued. In special situations, such as the pandemic, Hyatt has extended them. You can also try calling customer service to see whether a manual extension is possible. Once issued, the certificate will appear in your account, where you can view its details.

In addition, if you stay enough nights with Hyatt in a calendar year, you can earn milestone rewards.

• 30 nights or 50,000 base points (meaning $50,000 in eligible spending): 1 Cat 1-4 free night award
• 60 nights or 100,000 base points (meaning $100,000 in eligible spending): 1 Cat 7 free night award

How to Use Hyatt Free Night Awards

Where They Can Be Used

Hyatt now uses peak and off-peak award pricing, meaning the same hotel category may cost different numbers of points depending on the date. For free night awards:

• A Cat 1-4 certificate can be used for rooms costing up to 18,000 points, which covers a peak-night Category 4 hotel. However, it cannot be used for an off-peak Category 5 hotel, even if that room costs only 17,000 points.
• A Cat 7 certificate can be used for rooms costing up to 35,000 points, which covers a peak-night Category 7 hotel. It still cannot be used for an off-peak Category 8 hotel, even if that also costs 35,000 points.

As for eligible room types, Hyatt Cat 1-4 certificates can only be used for the most basic standard room at properties up to Category 4. They cannot be used at all-inclusive properties listed outside the regular cat 1-8 chart. However, if the hotel’s standard entry-level room happens to be a suite, then the certificate can still be used.

• Free Night Award is valid for one (1) night in any available standard room at a Hyatt hotel or resort, Small Luxury Hotels of the World hotel or MGM Rewards destinations hotel designated as Category one (1) through four (4) at worldofhyatt.com.
• Not valid at any property classified by Hyatt as category 5 or higher or not included in the category 1-8 award chart (e.g., those properties covered by the all-inclusive award chart) or any of the Standard-room Award Ineligible Properties.
• Free Night Award applies only to available standard rooms as defined by each hotel or resort and is not subject to blackout dates at Hyatt hotels and resorts.

Cat 7 certificates work similarly, so I will not go into them separately here.

How to Redeem

You can redeem a free night award either by phone or directly online. Just search for rooms on hyatt.com and check the Use Points box. Here I will use a Cat 1-4 certificate as the example.

In the search results, hotels pricing below 18,000 points are often eligible, but it is still best to click through and verify. Sometimes the search results do not match the actual room types available.

If you see “Free Night,” that means you can book it directly with your certificate. If you only see a points price below 18,000, it may be an off-peak Category 5 hotel, which is not eligible. It could also mean the available room is not a standard room.

When booking, the site will show which certificates you can use. Aside from certain resort destinations that may charge a resort fee, these bookings generally do not require additional taxes or fees.

Booking Multiple Nights

Previously, if you wanted to book multiple nights or combine points, cash, and certificates, you had to make separate reservations. Hyatt now offers a Use Pay My Way feature that makes it much easier to combine different payment methods.

• If you search using points, you will not see this option. You need to switch to View Rates, and then you will see the option for the room type you want.

• After clicking it, a very user-friendly interface appears. You can allocate certificates, points, and cash based on your needs. For example, you may want to use your certificate on peak dates and cover off-peak nights with points.

Hidden Award Space

There is also an online rumor that Hyatt sometimes hides award nights. A one-night search may show nothing, while a three-night consecutive search may reveal availability. In that case, you can use the Pay My Way feature to book three nights and apply the certificate only to the night you want. After booking, call customer service to cancel the other two nights, and the points should be refunded.

Canceling a Reservation

One major advantage of booking with a free night award is that cancellations are usually easy. You generally only need to cancel at least 48 hours before check-in, with no cancellation fee. After canceling, the certificate should go right back into your account for future use.

Certificate Extensions and Converting to Points

If your certificate is about to expire, you can call customer service and there is some chance they will extend it, though this is definitely YMMV. If you already have an upcoming reservation that falls just after the expiration date, the agent may be more willing to help.

Hyatt free night awards also reportedly have an internal policy under which unused certificates may sometimes be converted into points after expiration. The exact number of points depends on your elite status. A C1-C4 certificate may be converted into 10,000-20,000 Hyatt points. However, this requires a manual request through customer service. Some people say certificates earned from the annual credit card anniversary cannot be converted, while those from other sources can. So my recommendation is simple: use them if you can, and do not let them go to waste.

Other Things to Know

• If you want to book for someone else, you can book online first and then call the hotel front desk to add a guest. It is best to let them know that the guest will arrive first to check in. This usually is not a problem in North America, but enforcement can be stricter within mainland China, where the front desk may refuse check-in.
• If you are a Hyatt Globalist member, you can directly gift free night awards to someone else. You will need to contact customer service. Some agents may even allow non-Globalist members to gift them, so it may be worth trying more than once.

Good Places to Use Hyatt Free Night Awards

Hyatt credit cards used to issue unrestricted free night awards. I once used one at the Park Hyatt in New York, where rates averaged $700 per night. That benefit was later cut back, and today’s Cat1-4 certificates have a much narrower range of uses. Still, redeeming one for a $150+ hotel is very easy. In general, the best value today tends to come from using them in major U.S. cities or popular vacation destinations.

• For example, Hawaii often offers excellent value. If you factor in the extra taxes and fees on paid stays, the redemption value can reach $300.

• Paid stays can come with substantial taxes and fees.

Related Articles

• How to Redeem the Free Night Award from the Chase IHG Credit Card
• Hilton Weekend Free Night: How to Use It
• Marriott Free Night: How to Use Marriott Free Night Awards