This is the third installment in a series about the different World of Hyatt status levels. You can check out the other guides here:
- Member
- Discoverist
- Explorist
- Globalist
Once you’ve made your way to the Discoverist level, it’s time to set your sights on World of Hyatt Explorist status. In addition to the benefits you receive as a Discoverist, Explorist status comes with some extra benefits that can prove to be valuable.
We’ve therefore produced a guide below to the Explorist benefits and the different ways to get the status.
Important Note: You’ll only receive these benefits when you book a hotel stay directly with Hyatt, either on their website, mobile app or by phone. If you book a stay using an OTA (Online Travel Agency) like Expedia, you’re not eligible to receive any of these benefits.
World Of Hyatt Explorist Status Benefits
1) 20% Bonus Points
As you receive 5 points per dollar spent at Hyatt hotel brands, this 20% bonus on base points means you’ll earn a total of 6 points per dollar.
2) 4 Club Lounge Awards Per Calendar Year
These awards for Club Lounge access mean that you’ll be able to have free continental breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres during your stay.
3) Best Room Upgrade
When you have Explorist status, you’re eligible for an upgrade to the ‘Best Room.’ This excludes suites and rooms with Club Lounge access, unless you’re using one of your Club Lounge awards.
Unfortunately this benefit isn’t available at Hyatt Place, Hyatt House or Hyatt Residence Club hotels, nor M life resorts.
4) Free Night Award At A Category 1-4 Hotel
If you earn Explorist status by either staying enough nights or earning enough base points (see below for the requirements), you’ll receive a free night award at a category 1-4 hotel in the Hyatt portfolio.
Check out this post for ideas of how to maximize your free night.
5) Gold Status With M life Rewards
Gold status can be pretty useful, especially if you’ll be staying at MGM brand hotels in Vegas. These include the Bellagio, Luxor, Aria and many more.
You get priority check-in which can save a lot of time given how long check-in lines can be in Vegas. You’ll also receive a room upgrade (subject to availability) and complimentary parking – both self-parking and valet.
Another perk is that you have access to a dedicated line at many of their restaurants. We had Gold status during a recent stay at the Bellagio and it was great bypassing the long line for breakfast and being seated immediately.
6) 72 Hour Room Availability
This can be useful if the hotel you want to stay at is fully booked. It ensures you’ll be able to book a room, so long as you make a reservation at least three days in advance of your stay.
You’re only able to reserve one room and it has to be a paid stay, rather than a reward stay using points or a free night certificate.
These benefits are in addition to the benefits you receive with Discoverist status:
- 10% discount
- Premium internet
- Waived resort fees
- Pearl status with M life Rewards (superseded by Gold Status)
- Category 1-4 free night award after staying at five brands
- 10% bonus points (superseded by 20% bonus points)
- Free water
- Room upgrade (superseded by best room upgrade)
- Expedited check-in
- Late check-out
- Exclusive reservation line
How To Get World Of Hyatt Explorist Status
There are a few ways to earn Explorist status with World of Hyatt:
1) 30 Nights In A Calendar Year
These have to be either paid nights or booked using Points & Cash. Nights booked using only points unfortunately aren’t classed by Hyatt as qualifying. (Edit – Since the start of 2018, award stays booked using points are now classed as elite qualifying nights.)
These can be paid nights, award nights or booked using their Points + Cash rate.
2) 50,000 Base Points In A Calendar Year
You earn 5 base points per dollar with the World of Hyatt loyalty scheme. You’d therefore need to spend $10,000 in a year in order to earn Explorist status this way.
3) Hold 10 Qualifying Meetings Or Events In A Calendar Year
A qualifying meeting is a meeting or conference where at least ten guest rooms have been paid for. If you’re a meeting planner, you don’t personally have to pay for the rooms. That’s because it can include rooms where attendees pay for their rooms themselves, so long as they’re linked to your event.
Another option is holding a meeting or conference where you rent a meeting room or conference space and/or purchase catered or banqueted food or beverages from the Hyatt brand hotel.
4) Spend $50,000 On The Hyatt Credit Card In a Calendar Year
Hyatt also offer the opportunity to become an Explorist when spending $50,000 on their credit card. Even if you can find ways to spend $50,000 over the course of the year, it simply isn’t worth putting that amount of spend on this card.
That $50,000 could earn you signup bonuses on many different cards that could easily be worth in excess of $5,000 in travel. Even if you were to put all that spend on a credit card that offers 2% cashback, you’d earn $1,000 cashback. In my opinion, that’s worth more than Explorist status.
5) Gold Status With M life Rewards
If you have Explorist status, you can match that to Gold status with M life Rewards. That works the other way round too – if you have M life Gold status, you can match to Explorist.
Summary
If you’re able to earn Explorist status with World of Hyatt, it’s a great status to have. The Club Lounge awards and room upgrades will provide an amazing experience during your stay, while the 20% bonus points can help you rack up free stays more quickly.
Question
Are you an Explorist? If so, what have your experiences been like? We’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
We have a Marriot Credit Card that earns points for Marriot properties and an American Express card that earns points for Hilton. Now I just signed up for IHG because I just booked a Holiday Inn Express and was offered this card/reward program and thought – what the heck. I’m not sure how to decide when and why to use all these cards to best maximize earning points. Just how many credit cards and reward programs are you enrolled in and how do you keep track of it all?
I’m enrolled in the loyalty schemes of all the major hotel chains – IHG, Hilton, Marriott, SPG (who’ve been bought by Marriott and are being merged in), Hyatt, Club Carlson and La Quinta.
As for credit cards, Shae and I each have about 15 cards – some for hotels, some for airlines plus some others. I have a spreadsheet tracking all our credit card signup bonuses, annual fees, etc. and use a business card holder to store all the credit cards we don’t have in our wallets.
I read a ton of points and miles blogs, so a lot of this stuff I can just remember now, but there’s always a lot more to learn which can definitely seem overwhelming at times.
With the IHG card, that’s definitely worth keeping because of the free night certificate you get at renewal each year. It’s not worth using on a daily basis though once you’ve met the minimum spend requirement for the signup bonus.
The Marriott card is similar – worth keeping for the annual free night certificate (albeit only at category 1-5 hotels), but not worth using day-to-day.
I like the Hilton Amex cards because they can be good for gas and groceries because you earn 5x or 6x points (depending on which of the Hilton Amex cards you have). Also be sure to check out the Amex Offers on your account as they can provide some excellent discounts. If you don’t know much about Amex Offers, this should help: http://www.doctorofcredit.com/things-know-amex-offers/
In most cases, I tend to only use hotel credit cards when paying for stays at their hotels.
Hi, Thanks for the helpful post! I’m wondering if you get the club upgrades when matching to explorist status from M life??
Thanks!
Josh
With Milestone Rewards, Hyatt’s wording made it seem like you’d only earn the club upgrades when staying enough nights. In reality though, data points have been indicating that matching from M life does still get you the club upgrades 🙂