My Cost Of Earning Hyatt Globalist Status: 1,362 Points & $24.70 Per Night

Hyatt’s Globalist status is possibly the most sought after status in any of the main hotel chains’ loyalty schemes thanks to its generous benefits.

You get room upgrades including standard suites, a free night at any Hyatt hotel worldwide, club lounge access, waived resort fees, complimentary parking on award stays, access to a personal concierge, the ability to make ‘Guest of Honor’ bookings so that friends or family can enjoy your benefits and more.

Earning Globalist Status

Hyatt made it a little easier to earn Globalist status in 2018 thanks to a couple of changes. First, award stays started counting as qualifying elite nights; in the past only paid stays and Points + Cash stays were classed as qualifying nights.

Secondly, they introduced a revamped credit card which offers five elite night credits each year, plus two additional night credits for every $5,000 you spend on the card.

You need to stay 60 nights to earn Globalist status, or 55 once you already hold that status. We’ve been living in hotels and Airbnbs since setting off on our 5 year, 50 state road trip on January 1, 2018 and ended up staying in a lot of Hyatt properties – mainly Hyatt Places – throughout the year. As a result, I managed to earn Globalist status quite easily this year.

In fact, I’m due to end the year having earned 81 elite night credits – 72 from actual stays and 9 from their credit card. By maximizing some of Hyatt’s promotions throughout the year, my net cost of earning Globalist status came to an average of 1,362 points and $24.70 per night.

That’s incredibly good value considering the lowest number of points required for a free night is 5,000, so here’s a breakdown of how I did it. Warning – it’s gonna get nerdy up in here, so feel free to give this a miss if you’re not interested in hotel points / status earning!

Caveats

Three quick caveats before we start:

• Mattress Running – I don’t personally think it would be worth mattress running at this expense in order to earn Globalist status. It simply worked out well for us seeing as we’re traveling full-time and so needed the rooms, but to each their own.
• Pet Fees – we’re traveling with our dog and so we frequently have to pay a pet fee. I’ve stripped out those costs from my calculations – along with the points earned on the pet fee – seeing as the fees weren’t actually involved in earning the status.
• Chase Ultimate Rewards – Most of the award stays were made using points transferred from my Chase Ultimate Rewards balance. Check out this guide at Frequent Miler for more on how Ultimate Rewards works.

1) 5 Night Stay On Points

The very first hotel we stayed at on our 50 state road trip was the Hyatt Place Columbia/Harbison in South Carolina (check out our review here). It’s a category 1 property, so it cost 5,000 points per night for a total of 25,000 points.

2) 5 Night Stay Using Points + Cash

When visiting Charleston SC, we stayed at the Hyatt Place Charleston Airport/Convention Center (review here). Hyatt was offering a lower cash element at some properties at the start of the year and this was one of them. We took advantage of that by booking five nights at a total cost of 20,000 points and $175 cash.

The cash element earned us 1,715 points, plus I earned 525 points by paying with my Hyatt credit card.

3) 5 Night Stay On Points

Our next stay at a Hyatt brand came at the end of March when we stayed at the Hyatt Place Birmingham/Inverness in Alabama (review here). This was also a category 1 property and so five nights cost a total of 25,000 points.

At the time, Hyatt had a promotion offering 1,000 bonus points per night at most of their brands, although Hyatt Place and Hyatt House properties only earned 500 points per night. A great feature of the promotion was that you earned the bonus regardless of whether it was a paid or award stay. That meant our five night award stay earned 2,500 points.

4) 6 Night Stay On Points

Most of June and July was spent in Wisconsin, my favorite state of the road trip so far. Our first stop was Milwaukee and we stayed at the Hyatt Place Milwaukee Airport (review here). Once again, this was a category 1 property and so cost 5,000 points per night. Our six night stay therefore cost 30,000 points.

5) 5 Nights From Their Credit Card

During our time in Wisconsin, I upgraded my credit card from the old Hyatt card to the new World of Hyatt card which has a $95 annual fee. That came with two new benefits – five elite night credits plus 2,000 bonus points for upgrading.

6) 5 Night Stay On Points

After Wisconsin, we made our way to Illinois for about two months. One of the places we stayed was the Hyatt House Chicago/Schaumburg for five nights (review here). Once again, we stayed there for five nights and, as it’s a category 1 property, it cost us a total of 25,000 points.

7) 2 Nights From Their Credit Card

I mentioned earlier in the post that you earn two qualifying night credits for every $5,000 you spend on the new World of Hyatt credit card. I’d spent $5,000+ by August/September, so earned two nights from that, plus 5,000 points by putting that spend on the credit card.

8) 5 Night Stay On Points

September brought us to Oklahoma and we spent nine nights in Tulsa during our time there. Five of those nights were spent at the Hyatt Regency Tulsa which is a category 1 property (review here). Our five nights cost us 25,000 points, but we also earned 5,000 bonus points.

2,500 came from the promotion they were running at the time, while 2,500 came by declining housekeeping during our stay. The latter was only supposed to earn a total of 1,000 points, but those points weren’t awarded despite a few follow up emails to World of Hyatt. Once I earned Globalist status, I emailed my concierge hoping that she could sort it out. We not only earned the points we should have, but also got some more on top (presumably for the inconvenience).

9) 12 Night Stay Paid For With Cash

We arrived in Texas at the beginning of October, with our first stop being Dallas. Even though it’s a category 1 property, we booked a paid stay at the Hyatt Place Dallas/Garland/Richardson (review here). The reason we booked a paid stay is because the hotel had a fairly low nightly rate, plus I had some discounted gift cards to use up.

Our 12 nights cost – in theory – $1,025.16. However, we managed to reduce that by $440 thanks to some discounted gift cards, an unexpected bonus on one of those gift cards and an Amex Offer which coincided perfectly with our stay – see the review for more on all those.

The stay earned us 5,610 points, as well as 5,000 bonus points from the same promotion that earned us a bonus in Tulsa.

10) 11 Night Stay On Points

After Dallas, we headed to Austin so that we could attend the Formula 1 US Grand Prix. Hotels were expensive, so we booked an 11 night stay at the Hyatt Place Austin/Round Rock as this property only cost 5,000 points per night too (review here).

That means our 11 nights cost us 55,000 points. That same Hyatt promotion was still running and so we earned an 10,000 points back.

Globalist Status Earned!

If you’ve been keeping track so far, you’ll have noticed that by this stage we’d stayed 61 nights – enough for Globalist status. When taking into account the points used, cash paid, points earned, discounted gift cards and Amex Offers, the net cost up to this point was 167,650 points used and $855.16 cash paid. Spread across 61 nights, that comes to an average of 2,748 points and $14.02 per night.

That’s a completely different amount to the figures I gave at the start of the post. That’s because we’ve had several stays since then that have substantially changed the average of the points used and cash paid.

11) 7 Night Stay Paid For With Cash

We stayed a week at the Hyatt Place Houston-North at the beginning of November (review here). This is a category 1 property, but we booked a paid stay as the nightly rate was fairly low. This cost us $581.49 but we earned quite a lot of points off the back of it.

First off, there was 3,231 points for the stay itself, then there was 17,500 bonus points thanks to that same promotion I’ve mentioned several times already. I also paid for the stay on my Hyatt credit card, earning 1,744 points (three bonus points per dollar).

12) 5 Night Stay Paid For With Cash

After Houston, we moved on to the Hyatt Place Corpus Christi for five nights (review here). This is a category 2 property and so costs 8,000 points per night. By comparison, the cash rate was pretty reasonable and so we booked a paid stay costing us $564.05.

We earned a lot of points from this stay too. 3,188 points for the stay itself, 25,000 bonus points from the same promotion mentioned several times already and 1,692 bonus points for paying with the Hyatt credit card. On top of all those, I earned a further 10,000 bonus points – for every 10 nights you stay beyond 60 nights, you can choose either 10,000 bonus points or a suite night award. As you can see from our stays so far, we usually stay at category 1 Hyatt Places. They don’t have suites you can upgrade to, so it made more sense choosing 10,000 points as that’ll get us two free nights.

13) 2 Night Stay Using Free Night Certificates

We stayed 10 nights in San Antonio over Thanksgiving, with the first three at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio (review here). Two of those nights were booked in my name, with the third being booked in Shae’s name.

The reason we did this was to use our three certificates for a free night at a category 1-4 hotel. One of mine came from my Hyatt credit card, with the other coming when I earned Explorist status.

This stay therefore didn’t cost anything (other than the credit card annual fee which has already been accounted for), nor did it earn any points. The only thing I earned was two elite night credits.

14) 4 Night Stay On Points

Our final stay at a Hyatt property in 2018 was at the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport for four nights (review here). This is a category 1 hotel, so it cost us a total of 20,000 points.

15) 2 Nights From Their Credit Card

We’ve put more than $5,000 of spend on my Hyatt credit card in recent months. As a result, I’ve earned two more elite night credits from that, plus 5,000 points for the spend. This moves me from 79 nights to 81 nights, so I could once again choose between 10,000 bonus points or a suite night award. I went for 10,000 bonus points this time as well.

It’s The Final Countdown Total

Once again taking into account all the points redeemed, cash paid, points earned, discounted gift cards and Amex Offers, the net cost of earning 81 elite night credits is 110,295 points and $2,000.70. Spread out across 81 nights, that’s an average of 1,362 points and $24.70 per night. That’s about half the number of points required for the 61 nights, but almost 75% more cash per night than at that same point. Still, if we could pay an average 1,362 points per night and $24.70 per night throughout our five year road trip, I’d be a happy man!

In addition to that, I earned a certificate for a free night at any category 1-4 property. That was received upon earning Explorist status earlier in the year (and used for our Grand Hyatt San Antonio stay). I also received a certificate for a free night at any Hyatt hotel when earning Globalist status. We’ll hopefully use it at an amazing hotel where we can maximize its value. Update: we used it at the Park Hyatt New York which was a great use of the free night certificate. Check out my full review of the Park Hyatt New York here.

Bonus Miles

During the year, World of Hyatt ran a couple of promotions in conjunction with American Airlines. When staying at Hyatt Place or Hyatt House properties, you’d earn 1,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles per stay. Many of our stays coincided with these promotions, so I also earned 7,000 bonus miles which are worth $100+.

Our Plans For Using Globalist Status

Earning Globalist status was sort of earned by accident. At the beginning of 2018, I figured we’d stay enough nights to earn Explorist status. However, when Hyatt announced their fall promotion it made sense to book a lot of Hyatt stays. That’s due to all the bonus points we’d earn, even on award stays. That meant we ended up with Globalist status by default, even though it wasn’t our intention.

So how will we take advantage of the status? Shae and I have a ten night stay booked at the Hyatt Regency Bali for our 15th anniversary next year. We’ll be using two suite night awards for that, as each award is only good for up to seven nights. That should give us a great upgrade seeing as we’re only booked in a standard king room at the moment.

Other than that though, we don’t have any immediate plans for using my Globalist status. We’ve pretty much decided which states we’ll visit in 2019, but haven’t booked hotels yet. Globalist status doesn’t count for much at Hyatt Place properties as they don’t have club lounges or suites. Hyatt Places account for most of our stays, but hopefully we’ll end up at some Hyatt Regency hotels.

If nothing else, Globalist status will earn us 30% bonus points during stays. We’ll also get free parking during award stays – very helpful when staying in cities with expensive parking. This already saved us almost $100 when staying in San Antonio last month.

Finally, I now only need to stay 55 nights in 2019 to retain the status through early 2021. The credit card gives me five nights and we have ten nights booked for our Bali vacation. That leaves us needing 40 nights which is less than four nights per month. There are several category 1 Hyatt Places in the states we’re visiting in 2019, so that should be easily doable.