Hyatt Points Value to Me

While many blogs have complicated formulas to determine how much Hyatt points are worth, the real answer is… IT DEPENDS!

Instead of coming up with another confusing average, here’s my personal story on Hyatt points value based on how Zuzu & I actually redeem our Hyatt points!

tl:dr

On average, I’ve gotten 3.8 cents per point value from Hyatt points. We’ve redeemed nearly 3 million Hyatt points. With those points, we’ve had (mostly) luxury hotel stays that would have cost $106,850.

Starting in 2021, we used those Hyatt points across 59 hotels & resorts in places like Nassau, Hawaii, Switzerland, Cancun, St Martin, Panama City Beach, New York City, Denver and Key West.

Here’s the actual Hyatt points value that we got from our free stay redemptions, broken down by year:

• 2024: 3.8 cents across 17 properties
• 2023: 4.1 cents across 16 properties
• 2022: 3.8 cents across 17 properties
• 2021: 3.1 cents across 8 properties

How Much are Hyatt Points Worth?

Based on actual stays, Hyatt points are worth 3.8 cents to me. Here’s how to get much more than the 1.5-2 cents per point that most travel blogs say you’ll get.

Read our comprehensive Guide to Earning Hyatt Points!

Why’s it hard to say how much they’re worth?

There are 3 main variables that make a Hyatt point value so difficult to determine:

1. It depends on which hotel you book.
2. It depends on when you stay at a hotel.
3. You may get extra perks like free drinks or an upgraded room.

Hyatt Points are More Valuable at More Expensive Hotels

In general, we’ve gotten more value for our Hyatt points at nicer properties. For us, the best use of Hyatt points has definitely been at luxury hotels and resorts. Fortunately, we love All Inclusive Resorts and we love staying at hotels that we could never afford.

Since Hyatt uses an award chart with a limited number of categories, you can find sweet spots.

Two Hyatt hotels in the same category will require the same number of points but the cash price of one might be much more or less than the other.

For example, both The Driskill in Austin, TX and the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar in Nassau are Category 5 hotels and require 20k Hyatt points per night. But the cash price of the Baha Mar was MUCH HIGHER than the Driskill!

Learn how we saved $6000 on our Baha Mar vacation!

So our Hyatt points were worth 6.7 cents in The Bahamas & only 1.2 cents in Austin.

Hyatt Points are More Valuable at Peak Times

When there is increased demand for hotel rooms, it’s typical that hotel cash prices rise to meet the demand. If there’s a major event that draws lots of people to an area, or the weather is particularly appealing, prices go up.

This can be one of the best times to get outsized value from Hyatt points!

If you stay during desirable dates, the cash price of a room may rise while the point price mostly stays the same. In that case, the value of points is higher during peak times.

Cash prices at Hyatt Hotels and Resorts can vary wildly during different times of the year. However, the points price will only vary by a small percentage. For example, point changes of +/-15% are pretty common.

This is exactly what happened to us when we booked the shockingly fancy Hyatt Place in Knoxville on a busy UT Knoxville graduation weekend.

While cash prices at the Knoxville Hyatt Place can be as low as $200 per night, they can be as high as $1000/night for busy football weekends. On graduation weekend, our room was selling for $585 per night.

In this case, Hyatt points were worth 6.2 cents each.

Free Room Upgrades Can Drive the Value Up

As a Hyatt Globalist, I usually get a better (more expensive) room than guests who do not have elite Hyatt status. But if there’s availability, anyone can get a room upgrade at a Hyatt.

You’re just more likely to get a free upgrade with higher World of Hyatt elite status.

When you book a free room on Hyatt points, you’re usually booking the least expensive standard room at the hotel or resort. It’s pretty common for Zuzu & me to get a higher floor, or a more desirable view, or a larger room than what we booked. All that leads to a higher than expected value for your Hyatt points.

On our stay at the brand new Hyatt Place Panama City Beach, the base room we booked would have worked out to be 2.2 cents per point.

But we were upgraded (for free) to a Ocean Front Suite which kicked our points value up to 3.6 cents.

And get this… if we had gotten the same free upgrade room during the peak summer months, our points would have been worth 5.1 cents!

But it depends because Hyatt does not directly tie their points to cash. Each hotel requires a certain number of points for their standard rooms. And the cash price of the room can vary due to seasonality and demand.

For our free stays since 2021, Hyatt points were actually worth:

• 6.7 cents at the Andaz Maui
• 2.5 cents at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach
• 3.6 cents at the Panama City Beach Hyatt Place
• 4.3 cents at the Park Hyatt NYC
• 2.8 cents at the Andaz Fifth Avenue in NYC
• 3.4 cents at the Secrets Bahia Mita
• 2.5 cents at Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall in Jamaica
• 3.4 cents at the Hyatt Place Honolulu
• 3.3 cents at the Hyatt Centric Key West
• 3.0 cents at the Hyatt Centric Downtown Nashville
• 6.2 cents at the Hyatt Place Knoxville Downtown
• 15.0 cents (WOW!) at the Grand Hyatt Denver
• 2.7 cents at the Grayson NYC
• 3.9 cents at the Hyatt Regency Pittsburgh Airport
• 1.5 cents at the Hyatt Place Pittsburgh North Shore
• 2.5 cents at Secrets St Martin
• 3.9 cents at the Hyatt Regency Grand Reserve Puerto Rico
• 2.8 cents at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham
• 4.5 cents Hyatt Regency Suites Atlanta
• 1.8 cents at Hyatt Place Daytona Beach
• 5.0 cents at the Hyatt Regency Clearwater
• 1.2 cents at The Driskill in Austin
• 2.1 cents at the Grand Hyatt Nashville
• 3.2 cents at Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun
• 3.8 cents at Secrets Maroma (Zuzu’s favorite resort!)
• 5.7 cents at Impression Moxche by Secrets (Ross’s favorite resort!)
• 3.7 cents at the Thompson Nashville
• 6.9 cents at Grand Hyatt Baha Mar in Nassau
• 2.7 cents at Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor
• 2.2 cents at Hyatt Place Portland Maine
• 3.7 cents at Secrets Cap Cana
• 3.0 cents at Hyatt Zilara Cap Cana
• 4.0 cents at Hyatt Ziva Cancun
• 1.7 cents at Hyatt Place St George Utah
• 3.8 cents at Grand Hyatt Washington DC
• 3.2 cents at Hyatt Centric French Quarter
• 4.2 cents at Point Grace Resort in Turks and Caicos
• 4.1 cents at Grand Hyatt Washington DC
• 3.2 cents at the Hyatt Centric French Quarter in New Orleans
• 2.8 cents at the Andaz Munich in Germany
• 3.7 cents at the Park Hyatt Zurich in Switzerland

For our recent trips, we’ve averaged more like 3-4 cents value for each Hyatt point.

Best Hyatt Redemptions

A few of our trips have stood out as the best redemptions for us.

Hyatt Place Knoxville. High demand for this hotel on a home game weekend jacked the cash prices up to $1700 per night! No way we’d ever pay that much but it worked out to be 15.1 cents per point!

Grand Hyatt Denver. It was only 1 night we but got upgraded to the enormous Presidential Suite here. How big was it? We had 3 separate thermostats! 15.0 cents per point!

Secrets Moxche Playa del Carmen. While this was only 5.7 cents per point, Secrets Moxche was the best Hyatt All Inclusive resort that we’ve visited.

Other Factors that Impact Hyatt Point Value

While I don’t try to incorporate these into my valuation, some additional factors might be important to what you think a Hyatt point is worth.

Newness to Travel & Award Travel

Zuzu & I didn’t travel much for the last 20 years so every trip is new & exiting to us! If you already travel alot for business or leisure, you might not value your points as highly as we do.

Points Balance

As Gary at View from the Wing says, “the balance you have affects what incremental points are worth to you.” If you have more than enough points, the incremental value of points is lower than if you don’t have as many as you’d like. I don’t account for this in my value.

Disposable Income

If you were literally planning to spend $10,000 cash on a vacation and you use points instead, most would agree that those points were worth exactly $10k cash. Not many people have the disposable income to pay cash for as many trips as we take. We’re certainly not in that position.

Some would say that what we get with points is not worth as much as the cash equivalent because we can’t afford to pay cash for all these trips.

Enjoyment

But have you every gotten more value out of something than what you expected for the cost? Of course you have. Zuzu and I get tremendous enjoyment from the (almost) free travel that we’ve gotten from award travel.

Let me assure you. When we got upgraded to the $1800 Presidential Suite at the Grand Hyatt in Denver, we absolutely enjoyed it 6x more than if we were in the standard $300 room that we expected!

So I’m comfortable in using a simple methodology to determine what Hyatt points are worth TO ME.

Point Value Methodology

As opposed to other blogs where you’ll find the cash value of Hyatt points in the 1.5-2.2 cents per point range, I have a totally different methodology.

All I’m looking at is the standard cost of what Zuzu & I got when we used our Hyatt points.

My math is pretty straightforward.

Hyatt Points Value = (How Much the Hotel Would Have Charged) / (# of Points Used)

How Much It Would Have Cost

In addition to the cost of the room that we get, I also consider anything that we get that would normally be a charge (for most people) at the property. Those extras can include:

• Room Upgrade: If we booked a $300 room with points and actually got a $500 suite, I use $500 as the room cost for How Much Would Have Been Charged.
• Taxes: If a normal person paying with cash would get hit with an extra 10% or 40% in taxes, it’s included in How Much Would Have Been Charged.
• Resort Fees: Ugh, hate resort fees! But more and more hotels charge them. If we got it waived, I include it in How Much Would Have Been Charged.
• Parking: If we got our Parking Fees waived, I include it in How Much Would Have Been Charged.
• Food & Drink: We love the Globalist free breakfast perk and Lounge access to free food & drinks. We include the value of this in How Much Would Have Been Charged.

Example of Point Valuation: Hawaii

On our 10 night trip to Hawaii in February, we spent 100,000 Hyatt points for 5 nights at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki. Here’s how I came up with the value per point that we received.

• Base room we booked: $216/night (including taxes)
• Upgraded room we received: $411/night (including taxes & Lounge)
• Resort Fee Waived: $42/night
• Free Food/Drinks: Club Access already included in Room Upgrade
• Free Parking: $50/night

What we got would have cost most people $503/night. The math is $503/20,000=$0.02515.

So 20,000 Hyatt points were worth 2.5 cents each to us for this stay at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki.

Example of Point Valuation: NYC

On our holiday trip to NYC, we spent 69,000 Hyatt points for 3 nights at the Grayson Hotel NYC. Here’s how I came up with the World of Hyatt points value that we received.

• Base room we booked: $400/night
• Taxes for room we booked: $97/night
• Free Breakfast: $56/day
• Free Parking: N/A

What we got would have cost most people $553/night. The math is $553/23,000=$0.024.

That means that, for our Grayson NYC stay, Hyatt points were worth 2.4 cents each.

Based on our actual experiences, 100,000 Hyatt points are worth nearly $4000 because I know that I’ll get 3, 4 or 5 nights at a VERY nice Hyatt. The value might be lower or higher for you.

What do Others Say Hyatt Points Are Worth?

Like I said, this info is about my PERSONAL Hyatt Points Value. They WILL be worth more or less to you. Here are how some other points and miles bloggers value Hyatt points.

As opposed to my valuation of what Hyatt points actually got for us, most of these bloggers attempt to find an average value that most people should get in most situations. Not surprisingly, it’s almost always lower than my valuation but it’s useful if you just want a rule of thumb.

Travel Blogs with Lower Valuation

Recognized travel expert, Gary at View From the Wing, values Hyatt points at 1.4 cents apiece.

One of my favorite points and miles bloggers, Gilbert at GSTP considers Hyatt points to be worth 1.5 cents each.

While Leana at Miles For Families shoots for a redemption value of 1.5 cents per point, she wisely points out that “it comes down to your preferences” wrt how you use your Hyatt points.

Leana’s family example (her late FIL would rather eat 50 ramen noodle meals vs 1 expensive Carrabba’s dinner) reminded me of my brother’s preference. He’d rather stay 5 nights at a decent Hyatt Place to visit his daughter vs my preference to spend 40k points on 1 night at a wonderful All Inclusive like Hyatt Zilara Cap Cana!

OMAT blogger Ben says 1.5 cents. I think he makes an excellent point that “The truth is that there’s no valuation for these currencies that everyone will agree on.”

Miles the Monkey at Monkey Miles values World of Hyatt points between 1.7 and 2 cents.

As the 800 pound gorilla in the travel blog space, The Points Guy uses their vast resources to derive a crazy sophisticated methodology that (at time of this update) says Hyatt points are worth 1.7 cents each.

Travel Blogs with Higher Valuation

Greg the Frequent Miler (who has one of my favorite travel podcasts) says most people should expect to get about 1.7 cents from each Hyatt Point. However, Frequent Miler’s methodology does a good job of explaining how Globalists (like me) could value Hyatt points at more like 3-4 cents per point.

Travel On Points has the highest valuation that I’ve seen at 4 cents per point. Derrick Dye’s valuation process at ToP looks similar to mine, showing how many points he actually used and showing an average Cents Per Point for each year.

But he doesn’t show much details on the math & he comes up with his overall average differently than I do. For example, it looks like he treats a year where he only used 12k Hyatt points with the same weight as a year when he used 450k Hyatt points. That wouldn’t make a huge difference since both years had high cents per point value (5.56 and 4.49 respectively), but I’m curious about the rest of his methodology.

Hyatt Points Value to My Daughter

My 25 year old recently made her 1st Hyatt award bookings for a road trip. Unlike Zuzu & me, she booked a couple of cheap Hyatt properties instead of the luxury resorts that we like so much.

She booked these 2 properties for 1 night each:

• Hyatt Place Savannah Airport
• Hyatt House Raleigh / RDU / Brier Creek

In total, she used 11,500 Hyatt points (transferred from Chase points) to get 2 nights where the Member rates totaled $335.69. In this very real world situation, she scored a Hyatt points value of 2.92 cents per point.

As I tell everyone who uses our free credit card consultation service, you should expect to get about 1.5-2 cents from a Hyatt point. But you’ll get more or less depending on the specific situation.

Chase Points Value (Ultimate Rewards)

As I discuss in our Complete Guide to Hyatt Points, Zuzu & I get most of our Hyatt Points by earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points (aka Chase UR points).

Even though we transfer almost all of our Chase points to Hyatt points, Chase points are worth slightly more to me than 3.7 cents each.

Chase points transfer instantly at a 1:1 ratio to Hyatt and we almost always transfer all of our Chase points to Hyatt.

Hang on, Ross…

You get 3.7 cents per point out of Hyatt points, and you transfer almost all Chase points to Hyatt, why did you say: “Chase points are worth slightly MORE than Hyatt points?”

The reason that Chase points are worth slightly more than Hyatt points is because Chase points are transferrable points.

Chase Points are Transferrable

Since you can’t use Hyatt points for anything except Hyatt redemptions, I find a little extra value in having Chase points since I can (& occasionally do) use them for other things.

As long as I can transfer 1 Chase point instantly and it’s worth 1 Hyatt point, I’d actually rather have a Chase point than a Hyatt point. In practice, Zuzu & I hoard all of our Chase points and only transfer them to Hyatt when we’re ready to make an award redemption.

Transfer Chase Points to Hyatt Points

If you don’t have enough points in your World of Hyatt account to cover the total, you can move points from your Chase Ultimate Rewards account to Hyatt.

Like I said, points transfer from Chase to Hyatt instantly so we almost always wait until we’re literally ready to book before moving points.

btw, there’s an interesting points valuation chart at Seat 31B that says Chase points should usually be worth around 1.3 cents but could be worth as much as 4 cents for aspirational redemptions.

Is it Worth It?

If you’ve read this far, some of you may be thinking:

“Even if these numbers are real, I’d NEVER spend $2,009 for a night in a hotel. Ross, would you have spent $90,000 since 2021 on hotels if it weren’t for points?“

To answer your question, no. We would not have spent $90,000 on those stays if not for points. But 4 things:

1. The points weren’t worth $90k cash. I had the option to cash out many of these points for 1-1.5 cents each. So theoretically, I could have cashed these points out for ~$20k cash.
2. $20k cash vs $90k travel is a false comparison. While I am passionate about earning points for travel, earning points for cash would just be a job. My lower level of motivation would have cut my points earnings by 50% or more. So a more realistic comparison would be $90k in free travel vs $5-10k in cash.
3. We’ve gotten WAAAAY more enjoyment out of the points than $5-10k in cash would have brought.
4. If we really could have gotten $90k cash for 2M Chase/Hyatt points, we would have taken the cash but Zuzu & I would not be as happy & healthy as we are today.

Is Cashback Better Than Points?

In our free eBook about travel, I run through the math of getting cashback from credit cards vs what we do: earning & redeeming points.

For us, points are about 5 times better than cashback.

The best cash back cards will give you back about 2% on what you spend. That’s not bad.

When we earn points and redeem them for travel, we get back around 10% of what we spend. Download our free eBook to learn more.

Why Hyatt Points are Better than Cashback for Us

Everybody has different priorities for earning and redeeming credit card rewards. For us, we kinda enjoy the fun/challenge of the points & miles travel game.

But by far, our biggest reason to earn credit card rewards is so we can travel in a way that we would never, ever consider doing without points.

Prior to 2021 , Zuzu & I had not traveled for 2 decades (other than the obligatory beach trip every year with 2-20 family members).

Since then, we’ve had about 10 trips each year that were just for us. Our trips have all been fun and 3-4 trips each year have been what I would have previously considered once-in-a-lifetime type trips.

Spending $10-15k for a week in an island paradise is something we have never done & would never do without points. We’re not going to ever have the disposable income to justify that in cash.

But at this point in our lives, Zuzu & I are more interested in making memories and enjoying life vs having a little more in the bank.

Just wish we started this sooner so we could have enjoyed this earlier in life 😉

How to Earn Hyatt Points

Looking to boost your Hyatt points balance? The best way to get alot of points quickly is with a Chase Sapphire card.

Chase Sapphire Reserve® for Frequent Travelers

If you’re a frequent traveler, you should consider my favorite card: the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. It’s the 1st rewards credit card that I ever got and it’s the main card I use every day.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® for Everybody Else

If you travel fewer than about 5 times per year, the best option is probably the Chase Sapphire Preferred® card. This is the card that Zuzu uses alot. She uses it for most expenses including groceries and dining.

Both the Sapphire Reserve and the Sapphire Preferred earn Chase points which you can transfer directly to Hyatt points. And if you get either Sapphire card, it usually comes with a boatload of points as a welcome bonus.

Check out our Ultimate Guide to Hyatt Points if you want to learn more!

Why We Write About Points and Miles

Discovering points and miles has been life changing for us. And now we want everyone to know what’s possible.

If you have at least $1500/month in expenses AND you will pay off your credit cards in full, on time every month, then you can get at least one (almost) free vacation every year.

btw, if you apply for a credit card though one of our links, we may get a commission or (even better) we may earn some Refer-A-Friend points. Either way, there’s no extra cost for you and you’ll help us get even more free travel!

So please Contact Us if you’d like help earning more points or getting the most value out of your Hyatt points!