I have no shame admitting I overanalyze things (Note from Sharon: you don’t say…). I’ve gotten better and no longer look for hours to save $10 on a rental car or fret about having 1 extra inch of legroom on a 90-minute domestic flight. I still have my weak spots and spend too much time researching hotels but I rationalize that because I don’t want to spend time away from home in a lousy hotel.
One area where I still get into the weeds is maximizing category bonuses with credit cards. It makes sense to want to the most points with your necessary expenses, such as groceries, restaurants and gas. I go a bit further and try to get the most out of every purchase, down to worrying that I’m losing 1X points on our HBO Max subscription.
So that’s why I’m having a hard time dealing with the concept of moving most of our monthly expenses to the World of Hyatt Visa card for the rest of the year.
When it comes to the World of Hyatt program, I’m making up for lost time. I wanted to learn more about the program in 2019. We’d be losing our Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status and I figured we’d give Hyatt a try. We all know how that worked out. Even when we started to travel like before, my main concern was using up all of our free night certificates.
I’ve finished that task and I’m looking to give Hyatt a try. Our first few stays have been excellent.
At the beginning of 2022, I decided to work on earning an additional category 1-4 free night certificate by spending $15K on the World of Hyatt Visa card. It was a good plan until I signed up for 3 new cards and had $19,000 of minimum spending requirements spread over the following 3-6 months.
We had some larger household expenses and went to Hawaii for 2 weeks so we’ve met the minimum spend for one of the offers, are almost done with the second and have another 3 months to complete the 3rd offer. Putting all our expenses on these new cards limited my use of the World of Hyatt card.
I’d have difficulty meeting the 15K requirement if I only put non-bonused spending on the card. I’d have to move some of the expenses which earn bonuses on other cards to the Hyatt card, which doesn’t feel right.
However, I’d only be losing out on 1X points for most of those expenses. For example, my usual card for restaurant spending is the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which earns 3X points. The WoH card earns 2X points for this category. The same for tolls where I earn 3X on the AMEX Green Card and would earn 2X points with Hyatt.
We’re only talking about $25 here and $100 there, but over 6 months, it will go a long way toward meeting the spending requirement.
An extra benefit of putting 15K of spend on the World of Hyatt card is that you get 2 qualifying night credits for every $5,000 spent. 
I wasn’t trying, but between our upcoming stays and the minimum 2 extra credits, I’ll hit 20 nights and earn 2 club passes as a milestone award.
Occasionally you need to do something which takes you out of your comfort zone. Since we’re not working toward any specific award, putting spending on a card to earn an extra Hyatt free night feels like the right thing to do at the moment. Of course, I felt the same way at the beginning of the year before I signed up for 2 new cards.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
5 comments
You’re not crazy at all! Between my wife and I, we earn the 2 free nights at $15k each year + 2 free nights for paying the annual fee, and if we’re lucky, we can pick up some additional along the way by trying different Hyatt brands. Orlando is a frequent spot for our family and between the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress and the Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport, we’ve been able to get some excellent value out of these certificates over the years.
Timely post, I’m thinking about doing this. I have the sapphire reserve and freedom combo that I use along with the Hyatt. Was planning on using the Hyatt for Hyatt stays and getting 15k spending to get the 1-4 cert. I’m considering moving all my spending to the card. It would help get status which has been pretty nice tbh. Free parking at Gild Hall and Hyatt Grand Central in stays the past year as a Globalist def saved some money. Other than status, you get other perks as you hit qualifying nights such as another 1-4 cert at 30 nights, suite upgrades at 40 nights i think and a 1-7 cert at 60 nights. These perks might offset the less points I get on dining and travel compared to the sapphire reserve. I end up staying 10-20 nights at hyatt on points the last 2 yrs and would continue to do so and benefit from the status.
You know, I had this exact thought myself. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that it isn’t worth dumping most of my spend on my Hyatt card, as I don’t think I’ll spend enough to meet any meaningful tiers. What’s more, while I wanted to stay more with them this year, I found myself booking more with Marriott again simply because there were Hyatts in places I need to be. Oh well! While I won’t be earning any statuses this year, I at least have my Marriott LTP to fall back on!
I did the same earlier this year for the sign up bonus, and the free night@ $15k. The way I saw it the I was missing out on $75 (I only used the Hyatt card for spend that would have been 1.5 ppd on my Freedom Unlimited) but I would received 6 nights of credit, one free night and bonus points for the first year. All things that WAY exceeded what I “missed out” on.
One thing to factor in is that recent Hyatt hotel category changes upgraded several popular America properties higher causing the free cat 4 cert to be possibly hard to find one in your area and/or poor return on spend. Recommend looking up Hyatt cat 4 in your travel targets to see what might apply.