Easy Hyatt Globalist status: Move to Tulsa for a month

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With the recent launch of the new World of Hyatt Credit Card, it’s finally become possible to manufacture top-tier Hyatt Globalist status through spend. By stacking a couple of current promotions, it gets even “easier”. I put that in quotations on purpose — this post is definitely more theoretical than practical. Still, with some spend and a month in Tulsa, you could get yourself Hyatt Globalist status.

a room with a table and chairs
Last year, I used a Hyatt Globalist suite upgrade to spend a few nights in this 2-level suite at the Grand Hyatt Singapore

Spend your way to status

In my review of the new World of Hyatt Credit Card, I noted that one of the most interesting things about the new card is the strong assist it provides in reaching status. While the Discoverist status awarded to cardholders is largely meaningless, the card awards 5 elite nights toward status each year. In order to earn Globalist status, you would need to earn an additional 55 nights for the first year (and 50 nights to re-qualify).

a room with a couch and a glass table
Another Globalist suite upgrade at the Grand Hyatt Melbourne

What’s more is that the card also earns 2 elite qualifying night credits every time you spend $5,000 on the card, with no limit to the number of elite qualifying nights you can earn this way.

That will come in handy when stacked with 2 other current promotions….

Stacking 10% back and 2500 points for 5 nights

Yesterday, Stephen posted a quick deal highlighting the return of a popular Hyatt promotion: a 10% rebate on award stays between August 1st and September 30th (See: Hyatt Offering Cardmembers 10% Points Rebate On Award Stays This Summer). See that post for full details, but essentially cardholders will get 10% of redeemed points back.

In that post, Stephen touched on a really interesting way to stack promotions. There is currently a second promotion running for stays at Hyatt Regency and Grand Hyatt locations: stay 5 nights, get 2,500 points (See: Hyatt Promo: 2,500 Points Every 5 Nights At Hyatt Regency & Grand Hyatt). That’s interesting because that promo works on award stays and the dates overlap somewhat — that promo runs through August 31st — meaning that it is possible to stack the 10% back promo with the 2,500 points back promo.

Stephen also touched on the fact that there just so happen to be 30 Hyatt Regency properties worldwide that are in Category 1 and therefore cost only 5,000 points per night (to find them, click here and change region to “all” and “Hotel Category” to “1 – 5,000 points per night”). When staying at one of those properties, the stacking promotions mean that every 5th night is effectively “free”. That’s because 5 award nights would ordinarily cost you 25,000 points. However, with the promos, this is how it would look:

25,000 points (5 nights x 5K per night)
-2,500 points (10% rebate for credit card holders)
 -2,500 points (Hyatt Regency promo for 5 night stays)
20,000 points = “net” cost for 5 nights

I have the world “net” in quotations because while true, it won’t be quite that simple. The terms of the 10% bonus points rebate for credit card holders state that the points will post 6-8 weeks after check out. I don’t see a timeframe in the terms on the 5-night Hyatt Regency promo. You’ll need to be able to front the 25,000 points for 5 nights — but if you can, your net cost will be 20K for 5 nights once those promo bonuses post.

If you were to book an extended stay, 10 nights would cost you a net 40K points. If you were to stay at the (Category 1) Hyatt Regency Tulsa, Oklahoma from August 1st to August 30th, 2018, it would cost you a net 120,000 points.

a screenshot of a hotel
Lest you think I’m making this stuff up….proof that an award stay is available August 1-30th.

From zero to Globalist in a month

Let’s say you recently signed up for the World of Hyatt Credit Card. The new cardmember bonus on that card is good for 60,000 points after a total of $6,000 in spend in the first 3 months. Let’s further say that you were able to get that entire $6,000 spend done and your statement cuts ahead of August 1st. In that case, you would immediately have more than half the points needed for the month of August (66,000 total points assuming all of your credit card spend were at 1x). You would need an additional 54,000 points to reach the full 120K points required to spend the month in Tulsa.

Let’s further say that you had the ability to spend an additional $54,000 in the near future — a tall order for sure, but this is a theoretical exercise. Let’s further say that you could do it by early August and that you could call or secure message Chase to get your statement closing date changed to cut early enough for the points to post in time for you to book the rest of August in Tulsa (which admittedly might be tough once Tulsa sees the Frequent Miler effect on bookings). Between your initial $6K spend, your new $54K spend, and the 60K points from the signup bonus, you would have 120,000 points (representing your “net” cost of staying in Tulsa for the month). Of course, you would actually need another 30K points to start since 30 nights at 5K per night will initially cost you 150K — remember that the bonus points from the two promotions may not post before the end of August. Hopefully, you have some Chase Ultimate Rewards that you don’t mind moving over to Hyatt. Even if you don’t, I bet you have a friend who would be willing to transfer you 30K Hyatt points as an investment in your bid for Globalist status in the hopes that you’re the sharing type.

Again, your numbers would look like this:

150,000 Hyatt points (30 nights x 5K per night)
– 15,000 Hyatt points (10% cardholder rebate)
– 15,000 Hyatt points (2500 points for every 5 nights x 6)
120,000 Hyatt points (net cost for 30 nights at a Cat 1 Hyatt Regency

And to get that 120K points:

  60,000 Hyatt points (new World of Hyatt CC bonus after spending $6K/3mo)
6,000 Hyatt points (from spending $6K to earn the bonus)
+ 54,000 Hyatt points (spending an additional $54,000 at 1x)
120,000 Hyatt points

So that’s a total of $60,000 spend in order to earn the 120,000 points to cover the net cost of 30 nights in Tulsa (or any Cat 1 Hyatt Regency). Your 30 nights in Tulsa gets you halfway to Globalist status, which requires 60 qualifying nights (and award nights count).

However, your $60,000 spend also helps you make huge progress towards Globalist status. That’s because you earn credit for 2 elite nights for every $5,000 you spend on that card. This means that your $60,000 in spend will earn you an additional 24 elite nights.

$60,000 ÷ $5,000 = 12
12 x 2 elite nights = 24 elite nights

Put together with your 30 nights in Tulsa, that’s 54 elite nights – six short of Globalist status. Good news on that — as mentioned near the beginning of this post, the new World of Hyatt Credit Card automatically gives credit for 5 elite nights, bringing you to 59 nights. After $15,000 in spend on the credit card, you’ll earn a free Cat 1-4 night — which you can use for the night of August 30th (either in Tulsa or at any other Cat 1-4 Hyatt, I’ll let you decide)…bringing you to 60 nights of elite credit in 30 days, otherwise known as enough elite nights for Hyatt Globalist status, earned in 30 days.

And you would even have a couple of free nights to show for your efforts: Hyatt awards a Cat 1-4 free night after you achieve 30 elite nights and a Category 1-7 free night after earning 60 nights, meaning that you would have two free night certificates after completing your month in Tulsa. Or whichever Cat 1 Hyatt Regency / Regencies you choose.

But it’s not very realistic

As mentioned from the outset, that’s a highly theoretical approach. You would need to have the points and the flexibility to spend a month in Tulsa / Category 1 Hyatt Regencies. Further, you’d have to do a lot of spend in a short amount of time, and with the way Chase has been shutting down accounts in recent months (See: Why Chase shutdowns have increased and how to avoid them), I wouldn’t advise you to open a new credit card and spend $54,000 on it in the first month.

That said, if you already have Ultimate Rewards to invest in this and you don’t mind having those points tied up in World of Hyatt (and you probably don’t since you’ll be earning Globalist status and therefore you’ll likely be booking some more award stays once you have status), it’s certainly not unrealistic to meet the spend required by the end of the year (keep in mind that the bonus elite qualifying nights from spend might take a few weeks to post, so I’d want to be done with the spend by early November at the latest).

Unfortunately, you would have needed to have planned ahead on this because the Hyatt Regency promo required registration by July 15th. Since the landing page still works, I tried to register, but to no avail.

a screenshot of a message

Of course, that’s why I always say that you should register for promotions as soon as they are announced, whether you intend to take advantage of them or not. You never know when they might come in handy unexpectedly. Do as I say, not as I do.

10% back stacks with Andaz promo, too

While I wouldn’t suggest trying to manufacture status by staying at Andaz properties, the 10% rebate for credit card holders also overlaps with the current promotion for double elite qualifying credit on Andaz stays (no registration required, runs through August 31st).

a pool with chairs on the beach

The cheapest Andaz hotel in terms of award pricing in the Andaz Ottawa Byward Market. At 12,000 points per night before the rebate, your net cost would be 10,800 points per night. That’s kind of interesting. Since you’d be picking up 2 elite nights per night spent at an Andaz, the net cost to earn 2 elite nights isn’t bad at all. Again, I wouldn’t look to spend 30 nights this way, but it’s always fun to stack 2 promotions on a stay you were already planning.

Bottom line

Practically, this idea would be crazy if not impossible to execute. Of course, the concept of stacking these promotions means it would be much easier for someone with other planned activity (whether nights already earned or to be earned from future planned stays) to earn Hyatt Globalist status. The Hyatt Regency Tulsa is far from the only Hyatt Regency in the US — it’s just the first one where I found August 1-30th available for award stays (Austin and Wichita, you disappointed me). If your travel plans bring you to one of the cities with a low-category Hyatt Regency and you both have the new World of Hyatt Credit Card and had the foresight to register for the 2,500-point promotion, you can fast-track yourself to Hyatt Globalist status with a lower net cost, and that sentence certainly has a nice ring to it.

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