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Without a doubt, Hyatt is one of my favorite hotel brands because of how inexpensive their award nights are when compared to other hotels.
Case in point, a Hyatt top-tier Category 7 hotel will set you back 30,000 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 7 hotel typically costs 30,000 World of Hyatt points.
With Hyatt’s new off-peak/peak award charts, when you book a visit at a Category 7 property on peak dates, you will have to fork out an extra 5,000 World of Hyatt points (Category 7 peak night awards cost 35,000).
Conversely, if you book your stay during off-peak days, you will be able to reserve a night for 5,000 World of Hyatt points cheaper, subject to availability, of course.
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 off-peak night awards, I want to underscore that the new award calendar will actually not show “real-time” award availability.
But rather, the calendar will provide us with helpful data as to when off-peak and peak night awards are assigned at each property, thus making the hunt for award availability a little less laborious.
Nonetheless, the World of Hyatt’s new Points Calendar is an excellent jumping-off point to launch our award searches as it takes the guesswork out when we look for off-peak nights, thus 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, 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 that is compatible with your vacation schedule.
In my example, I was searching for off-peak night awards at Ventana Big Sur.
This is 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, therefore making it extremely popular among customers who want to get the best bang for their World of Hyatt points.
It goes without saying that 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 a lot of rooms, which affects their award inventory.
That said, if ever you stumble upon bookable 25,000 Hyatt night awards at this property, then by all means, quickly grab them as you have just struck gold.
During my search for off-peak pricing for January 2022, the property did not reveal any matches.
February did not have any off-peak awards either but March 2022 had 4 days of off-peak night awards show up, from March 14-March 17. Those 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 that is suitable for your dates.
By and large, having flexible dates will be more favorable as it is difficult to predict when off-peak awards are assigned and when they will be available.
Going back to my quest for off-peak standard room awards at Ventana, the Points Calendar then revealed that the property has off-peak nights at the end of August. However, when I checked for availability, they were also, unfortunately, sold out.
By the way, another feature of the Points Calendar that I appreciate is its drop-down menu that gives you the ability 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 that you keep on trying by searching month after month until you find off-peak night awards that will work for your schedule and are actually 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 Hyatt account to secure those off-peak spots.
Pro-Tip: Do not transfer your Chase 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, keep in mind that once your Chase points are in your Hyatt account, you will no longer be able to 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 sign-up bonuses from two types of credit cards:
a. The World of Hyatt Credit Cards
b. Chase Credit Cards that earn Ultimate Rewards Points
The World of Hyatt Credit Cards
Presently, there are two World of Hyatt credit cards that are currently offered by Chase bank. Both are viable ways to earn World of Hyatt points.
THE WORLD OF HYATT CREDIT CARD: Earn 30,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. Plus, up to 30,000 More Bonus Points by earning 2 Bonus Points total per $1 spent in the first 6 months from account opening on purchases that normally earn 1 Bonus Point, on up to $15,000 spent. Read more about the World of Hyatt Credit Card here.
THE WORLD OF HYATT BUSINESS CARD: Earn up to 75,000 points after spending $7,500 on purchases within the first three months from account opening. Read more about the World of Hyatt Business Credit Card here.
Credit Cards That Earn Chase Ultimate Rewards
Personal Credit Cards That Earn Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED® CREDIT CARD: Earn 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points after spending $4,000 within 3 months. Points can be redeemed for cash back or travel. Learn more about the Chase Sapphire Preferred here.
CHASE SAPPHIRE RESERVE® CREDIT CARD: Earn 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Read more about the Chase Sapphire Reserve here.
Pro-Tip: If you have Chase Ultimate Rewards Points generated from no-annual-fee cards like the Chase Freedom Flex, Chase Freedom Unlimited, Chase Ink Business Cash, and Chase Ink Business Unlimited, you can convert them into transferrable Ultimate Rewards Points if you own any of the Chase premium cards above by following the steps in this tutorial. Once your Chase Ultimate Rewards Points are saved under a Chase premium card, then you will now have the ability to move it to the World of Hyatt Program.
Business Credit Cards that Earn Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
INK BUSINESS PREFERRED® CREDIT CARD: Earn 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Learn more about the Ink Business Preferred here.
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 was able to walk you through how to 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 in the future.
EDITORIAL DISCLOSURE – Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. The content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
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