Each year, Hyatt adjusts the categories of its hotels—many go up, a few go down—and like clockwork, it sparks the same debate: Is the World of Hyatt Credit Card still worth keeping?
While it’s a small number of hotels that change categories, the trend is consistent: it’s getting harder to find good value redemptions with the free night certificate that comes with the World of Hyatt Credit Card.
This year, 151 properties changed categories, with 118 increasing in price and 33 moving down to a lower category. Back in 2024, 183 hotels changed categories. Of those, 137 became more expensive to book with points, and only 46 dropped to a lower category. And while that’s only a small portion of the Hyatt portfolio, what matters to cardholders is when a hotel goes from Category 4 to 5, making it no longer bookable with the free night certs that come either as a cardmember benefit or through the Brand Explorer bonus. Several of the hotels we’ve stayed at have made that jump over the past few years.
- Gild Hall (New York)
- Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport
- Hyatt Place Fort Worth Stockyards
- Grand Hyatt Washington D.C.
What Did I Change?
I’ve always believed that making drastic changes to your loyalty strategy based on a single devaluation is usually an overreaction. That said, I have made one adjustment to my approach with the World of Hyatt Credit Card.
Last year, I didn’t spend $15,000 to earn an additional Category 1–4 free night. Instead, I put our spending on the Hilton Surpass card, which earns a free night that’s good at almost any Hilton property.
With us only getting a single free night with the Hyatt card, I figured it would be easy enough to find at least one use for it during the year. And I did, at a Hyatt Place outside of Buffalo, NY.
Is the Hyatt Card Still Worth It?
As long as I’m able to use the free night each year at a hotel that costs more than $100, it’s worthwhile keeping it. I can always find a solid redemption—like at this Category 2 Hyatt Place—that more than covers the cost. However, it’s more difficult to justify spending $15,000 for an additional free night when those charges could go to another card for different benefits and points.
Other card perks may not be game-changers, but they do add up. Earning Discoverist status automatically isn’t huge, but you do get a bottle of water and a 2 pm late check out. You also receive 5 elite night credits each year and 2X points on select categories, which may work well for some cardholders’ spending habits (though not for me). If you’re looking at getting a higher level of Hyatt status, like the highly coveted Globalist, it’s possible to use credit card spend to help reach that goal. Every time you spend $5,000 on your card, you earn 2 additional qualifying night credits towards your next tier status.
It’s also worth mentioning that it’s generally easier to find good uses for the free night certificate when traveling internationally—especially in places like Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe. That said, don’t expect to use it in major cities like Tokyo, Paris, or London, where most hotels are Category 5 or higher.
Final Thought
As Hyatt continues to move more desirable hotels out of reach for free night certificates, it’s fair to ask: how much longer will these certs hold their value? Programs like IHG and Marriott now allow you to “top off” free nights with points to book more expensive hotels. If Hyatt did the same, would you pay 5,000 points on top of your cert to unlock a Category 5 property?
For now, the card stays in my wallet, but more as a keeper for the cert than a card I actively spend on.
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1 comment
There’s an awful lot of YMMV. I’m a Globalist so I get more benefits from staying at a Hyatt overall. I also travel internationally a lot which makes using the free night certificate easier, which helps justify the $15K spend to get the second certificate. Another consideration is the two elite nights towards the 60 needed to maintain my status for every $5K spent on the card. I generally stay in a Hyatt around 40 nights a year so I have to figure how to get another 20 or so to requalify for Globalist. Just keeping the credit card gives me 5 and spending the $15K for a second certificate gives me another 6. That goes a long way towards the 60 night threshold.
Is the Hilton certificate technically more valuable? Absolutely. Is Hyatt on a tear in making their loyalty program worse every year? Without a doubt. But for me, for now, Hyatt Globalist status is the most compelling and Hyatt has done a good job of keeping me invested in their program. If they leave my status benefits alone and adjust the certificates to category 1-5 soon rather than 1-4 then I foresee continuing to invest my time, money, and loyalty with them for quite some time.