ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE: The Frugal Tourist is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as MileValue.com and Cardratings. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. All information about the American Express Schwab Platinum has been collected independently by The Frugal Tourist.
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE: Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
Undoubtedly, Hyatt is one of my favorite hotel brands because of how inexpensive their award nights are compared to other hotels.
A Hyatt top-tier Category 8 hotel costs 40,000 points per night, whereas a Marriott or Hilton will cost at least 70,000 points for the same level of accommodation.
Indeed, the World of Hyatt’s award chart is incredibly generous, as they consistently charge far fewer points on average across all of their properties.
Even though Hyatt does not have as expansive a footprint as some of its competitors, I sometimes find myself going to places where there are Hyatt hotels to take advantage of free rooms and save money on accommodations.
In this blog article, I’ll guide you through the World of Hyatt’s new off-peak and peak award chart so that you can plan your getaways around the time that rooms are inexpensive.
That way, you can save those valuable World of Hyatt points for future redemptions.
The World of Hyatt’s Off-Peak/Peak Award Chart
Effective March 2022, Hyatt will start charging fewer or more points at their properties, depending on the time of your visit.
For example, a standard room redemption for a Category 8 hotel typically costs 40,000 World of Hyatt points.
With Hyatt’s new off-peak/peak award charts, when you book a visit at a Category 8 property on peak dates, you will have to fork out an extra 5,000 World of Hyatt points (Category 8 peak night awards cost 45,000).
Conversely, if you book your stay during off-peak days, you can reserve a night for 5,000 World of Hyatt points cheaper, subject to availability.
The off-peak/peak award charts below illustrate the new rates for standard rooms, standard suites, premium suites, etc.
Screenshots were obtained from the World of Hyatt website.
Standard Room
Standard Suite
Premium Suite
Regency / Grand Club
Points and Cash (Standard Room)
All-Inclusive Resorts
Miraval
Steps on How To Search for Hyatt Off-Peak Night Awards
Before we proceed with the steps on how to search for World of Hyatt off-peak night awards, I want to underscore that the new award calendar will not show “real-time” award availability.
The calendar will provide helpful data on when off-peak and peak night awards are assigned at each property, thus making the hunt for award availability slightly less laborious.
Nonetheless, the World of Hyatt’s new Points Calendar is an excellent starting point for our award searches.
It takes the guesswork out of finding off-peak nights, ultimately saving us time and energy.
Step 1:
Log on to your World of Hyatt account on the computer.
Step 2:
Type in your destination, dates, number of rooms, and number of guests, and then check “Use Points”.
Step 3:
Once you have completed plugging in your information, click “Find Hotels”.
Step 4:
Next, click “Points Calendar”
Step 5:
Go through the calendar and find off-peak pricing compatible with your vacation schedule.
In my example, I was searching for off-peak night awards at Ventana Big Sur.
At the time of this writing, Ventana Big Sur was a Category 7 property, which means it requires 30,000 World of Hyatt points if you wish to redeem a Standard Room award, but only 25,000 World of Hyatt points if you find off-peak pricing.
Conversely, if you visit during peak times, Ventana Big Sur will require 35,000 World of Hyatt points for their standard rooms.
Rooms in this property typically cost over $1,500 per night, making it extremely popular among points enthusiasts who want to get the best bang for their World of Hyatt points.
Finding off-peak pricing at this property is tantamount to searching for a needle in a haystack.
Not only is there more competition among Hyatt loyalists, but the property does not have many rooms, which affects its award inventory.
That said, if you ever stumble upon bookable 25,000 Hyatt night awards at this property, then by all means, quickly grab them, as you have just struck gold.
The property did not reveal any matches during my search for off-peak pricing for January 2022.
2024 Update: Ventana Big Sur is now a Category 8 property requiring at least 35,000 Hyatt points.
February did not have any off-peak awards either, but March 2022 saw four days of off-peak night awards, from March 14 to March 17.
Those World of Hyatt off-peak dates will typically be highlighted with a light green shade.
Step 6:
Choose one of the off-peak dates as your check-in date, and then select your check-out date.
Click “Check Availability” and cross your fingers.
I selected March 14th as check-in and March 17th as check-out and then had the site run a search for award nights.
Sadly, the message below appeared after I clicked “Check Availability”, indicating that all off-peak award nights have already been sold out.
| “Unfortunately, this hotel is not accepting World of Hyatt points or awards during those dates. Explore our other rates or modify your search.“ |
Step 7:
Repeat the search process until you find the off-peak night award suitable for your dates.
Having flexible dates will be more favorable as it is difficult to predict when off-peak awards will be assigned and when they will be available.
Returning to my quest for off-peak standard room awards at Ventana, the Points Calendar revealed that the property has off-peak nights at the end of August.
However, when I checked for availability, they were also sold out.
I also appreciate the Points Calendar’s drop-down menu, which allows you to switch room types.
For example, if standard rooms are not available for off-peak pricing, you can press the drop-down arrow to reveal the other room options for the property.
Step 8:
If your first attempts to find off-peak pricing were unsuccessful, I suggest you keep trying, searching month after month until you find off-peak night awards that work for your schedule and are bookable.
Pro-Tip: Hyatt opens their award calendar about 13 months out. Hence, your chances of finding off-peak award space increase the farther out you look.
Back to my Ventana award search – after painstakingly searching, I finally found bookable off-peak night awards at Alila Ventana Big Sur for January 2023- a lot of them!
Step 9:
When you see available off-peak award nights at aspirational properties like Alila Ventana Big Sur, book them immediately before they sell out. You can always cancel if your plans change.
Step 10:
Since I did not have sufficient points on my World of Hyatt account, I immediately transferred some of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to my World of Hyatt account to secure those off-peak spots.
Pro-Tip: Do not transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards Points unless you have verified that there is bookable award availability. Once you’ve confirmed that the room can be booked using points, go ahead and start the transfer and grab your free night. However, remember that once your Chase points are in your Hyatt account, you can no longer reverse the process.
The Chase to World of Hyatt transfer process was instant, so I just refreshed the Hyatt page and booked the off-peak award nights when my points showed up.
How Much Will I Save When Using Points?
Let’s look at the paid rates for this property: $3,726.24
How To Calculate The Cent Per Point Value of Hyatt Redemptions
How To Earn World of Hyatt Points
Even though you can earn World of Hyatt points by staying at Hyatt properties, it will take years and cost an enormous amount of money before you can accumulate enough to stay at their bucket-list properties.
Thankfully, there is a faster way to generate those valuable points, and that is through earning welcome bonuses from two types of credit cards:
a. The World of Hyatt Credit Cards
b. Chase Credit Cards that earn Ultimate Rewards Points that can be transferred to the World of Hyatt program
Credit Cards that Earn World of Hyatt Points
| Credit Cards | Details |
|---|---|
| Credit Cards that earn Ultimate Rewards (UR) Points | Steps to Transfer |
| Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card | Welcome Offer |
| Chase Sapphire Reserve® | Welcome Offer |
| Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card | Welcome Offer |
| Credit Cards that earn World of Hyatt Points | |
| The World of Hyatt Credit Card | Welcome Offer |
| World of Hyatt Business Credit Card | Welcome Offer |
| Credit Cards that can convert into Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) Points | Steps to Convert |
| Chase Freedom Flex® | Welcome Offer |
| Chase Freedom Unlimited® | Welcome Offer |
| Ink Business Cash® Credit Card | Welcome Offer |
| Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card | Welcome Offer |
Final Thoughts
The World of Hyatt has recently introduced off-peak/peak pricing, which makes award redemptions cheaper or more expensive depending on the demand and time of your visit.
They also added a “Points Calendar” feature that makes it easier to find the exact dates when a particular property is considered peak, standard, and off-peak.
Although it does not reflect real award availability, I still find this feature extremely helpful as it genuinely makes the award search process less confusing and overwhelming.
I hope that this blog article has helped you navigate the World of Hyatt’s new off-peak and peak award calendar so that you can plan your trips based on when rooms are inexpensive.
After all, those World of Hyatt points are incredibly valuable, so the more we save now, the more points we’ll have available.
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE: The Frugal Tourist is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as MileValue.com and Cardratings. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. All information about the American Express Schwab Platinum has been collected independently by The Frugal Tourist.
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE: Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
USER-GENERATED CONTENT DISCLOSURE: The comments section below is not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all questions are answered.
So useful, thanks for sharing this guide!
thank you for reading.
When I search for hotels, it doesn’t show an “points calendar”. Does that mean there are no off peak rooms available
Hi Nancy. Thanks for reaching out. You will have to perform your search on the desktop as the Points Calendar feature will not show up on the app. I just searched a minute ago and saw that the Points Calendar function is still working.