Credit Card Review: World of Hyatt Card

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I’ll admit that Hyatt was a hotel chain I didn’t pay much attention to before I started earning Chase Ultimate Rewards. When I could transfer points from Chase to Hyatt, I noticed that they had hotels with award space in locations I wanted to stay like Hollywood, Sedona, Key West, and Raleigh. N.C.

Once I found out the usefulness of Hyatt points, I wanted to earn more of them. Here’s a look at the World of Hyatt Card.

World of Hyatt Card from Chase

Annual Fee

$95 per year

Sign Up Benefits

This card currently has a 30,000 point bonus if you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening. You can earn an additional 30,000 points by earning 2 points per dollar in the first 6 months of account opening, which is a good offer but not your best use of $15,000 of spending.

Spending Bonus Categories

The World of Hyatt card earns 4X points per $1 spent with Hyatt, including participating restaurants and Exhale locations.

The card also earns 2X bonus points on the following categories:

• Local transit and commuting, including taxis, mass transit, tolls and ride-share services
• Restaurants, cafes and coffee shops
• Airline tickets purchased directly from the airline
• Fitness club and gym memberships

This may be the only card that counts gym memberships as a bonus category. You can now earn bonus points when you go (or don’t go) to the gym. 🙂

I can confirm that the restaurant category bonus category counts charges from outside the U.S. I’d imagine the same counts for transit and commuting (I can’t confirm this because I used my Sapphire Reserve for all of these charges).

No Foreign Transaction Fees

As you would hope a card marketed to travelers would, the World of Hyatt card doesn’t charge any foreign transaction fees.

Free Nights

With the World of Hyatt card, you receive a free night certificate good at any category 1-4 hotel every year after your cardmember anniversary.

You can also earn an additional free night at any category 1-4 hotel if you spend $15,000 during your cardmember anniversary year.

Automatic Status

World of Hyatt cardholders are upgraded to Hyatt Discoverist status for as long as they keep the card. I’m not sure, but this looks to be one of the least rewarding status levels available of any hotel chain. I don’t put much value into this benefit besides giving free premium internet over the standard internet offered to all World of Hyatt members.

Fast Track To Status

One of the perks that some people love about this card is its ability to help you achieve high-level Hyatt status. Just being a cardholder provides 5 qualifying night credits towards your next tier status every year.

Plus, you can earn 2 additional qualifying night credits towards your next tier status every time you spend $5,000 on your card.

Contactless Technology

Chase advertises the fact that the World of Hyatt card is contactless as a cardholder benefit. Remember that Chase was one of the last U.S. banks to issue contactless cards and tried to play it off like they were ahead of the curve when they were behind almost every other bank in offering the technology in their cards.

Limitations

Like almost all other Chase cards, the World of Hyatt card is subject to the Chase 5/24 rule. That means if you have applied for more than 5 or more cards in the past 24 months, you won’t be approved for this card.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The World of Hyatt card has a decent sign-up bonus which is worth several nights at a base-level Hyatt hotel or 1-2 nights at a top-tier Hyatt hotel. It’s also worth keeping for the free night certificate good at up to a category 4 hotel and additional spending might be worth it for the additional free night and credits towards status if that’s important to you.

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary