World of Hyatt Credit Card Review
By John Ta - January 18, 2024
Hotel cards are oftentimes swept aside and not taken seriously. However, for Hyatt loyalists or newcomers and for those who frequent hotels in general, the World of Hyatt card is inarguably indispensable to many people’s card strategy. In summary, this card provides tremendous value for its annual fee, making it a keeper card for years.
In this article, we’ll review what exactly makes this card so powerful.
Free Category 1-4 Hyatt Hotel Night Every Year
Active World of Hyatt cardholders receive a free night at any Category 1-4 Hyatt hotel or resort every year after their cardmember anniversary. This benefit alone can easily help breakeven on the annual fee of the card.
For context, Category 4 Hyatt hotels are all listed here, but include some awesome options like the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, Grand Hyatt Washington, or Hyatt Regency Seattle, which all start at roughly $250/night. Basically, it’s super easy to come out on top with this free night benefit.
Photos from the Hyatt Regency Seattle—a category 4 hotel with awesome benefits for Globalist members
Spend $15,000 In A Calendar Year To Get Another Free Night
Cardholders who spend $15,000 on their card in a calendar year get an additional free night at any Category 1-4 Hyatt hotel or resort. This can help generate significant return on card spend, especially considering some of the other benefits cardholders get for putting spend on this card.
Get 5 Elite Qualifying Nights For Having The Card
Active cardholders get an automatic 5 elite qualifying nights annually. This is a helpful accelerator to push you towards Hyatt Explorist or Globalist status, with the former requiring 30 elite nights and the latter requiring 60.
Earn 2 Additional Qualifying Night Credits Every $5,000 Spent On This Card
This card just keeps rewarding spend doesn’t it? For every $5,000 you spend on this card, you get an additional 2 Elite Qualifying Nights. In theory, this means you could spend your way all the way to Hyatt Globalist status, except that would require putting about $140,000 in spend on this card (after factoring in the 5 elite nights you get from just having the card).
Notably, this is not tracked by calendar year—for every $5,000 spend put on the card, the nights are rewarded and then the tracker resets.
Complimentary Discoverist Status
For the time in which you have an active World of Hyatt card, cardholders automatically receive Hyatt’s lowest level status: Discoverist. This status provides the following benefits:
- Premium internet
- Daily bottle water
- Room upgrades (to preferred room within type booked)
- Elite check-in
- 2 PM late checkout
Unfortunately, just having the card won’t immediately put you at the 10 nights required to normally obtain Discoverist. Rather, you start at 5 nights (with the 5 provided just by having the card).
Earn 4x Points For Spending At Hyatt Hotels & Resorts
For any eligible Hyatt spending, this card will give 4x points per $. This trumps out a lot of great alternatives, such as the Chase Sapphire Reserve ® (3x points per $ on hotels) or the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card (2x miles per $ on hotels).
4x is a fantastic earn rate, and stacks ontop of any points you’d earn just by staying at a Hyatt property under an eligible rate. For example, if you spend $100 for your eligible Hyatt reservation as a standard Hyatt member, you’d earn:
- $100 x 5 base points per eligible $1 USD spent: 500 points
- $100 x 4 points per $1 spent on the WoH credit card: 400 points
- Totaling 900 points (or up to 9x Hyatt points per $1)
Hyatt points are generally valued pretty highly, meaning those 900 points can be worth (conservatively) around $15. A 15% return on your stay is not a bad outcome by any means! With higher status tiers like Globalist, you earn even more out of your stay.
Notably, both the CSR and the C1VX earn up to 10x pts/miles on hotel purchases made through their respective travel portals. However, anecdotally, experiences vary for stays booked through travel portals. You may not be eligible to earn hotel loyalty point for the stay nor receive your standard elite benefits, since to the hotel, this is just a third party booking.
Hyatt Regency Westlake: Free upgrade to the California Suite
Other Bonused Spending Categories
The World of Hyatt card also encourages spend elsewhere:
- 2x points per $1 spent at restaurants
- 2x on airline tickets purchased directly from the airlines
- 2x on local transit and commuting
- 2x on fitness club and gym memberships
- 1x points per $1 spent on all other purchases
A bonus spend on fitness clubs is actually pretty rare and helps this card stand out even more. Generally, I wouldn’t use this card for spend elsewhere, unless I wanted to use it to pay my taxes so that I could hit some of the spend awards.
No Foreign Transaction Fees
Simply put, given this card has no foreign transaction fees, it’s an excellent card to use when traveling outside of the United States.
Other Pros/Cons Of This Card
While this is generally a very strong credit card (one I consider a long term keeper), there are small things to be wary about.
BRAND
Pros
Cons
- Purchase Protection: Cover your new purchases for 120 days against damage or theft up to $500 per claim and $50,000 per account
- Extended warranty protection: Extend the time period of the U.S. manufacturer's warranty by an additional year, on eligible warranties of three years or less
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver: Secondary coverage
- Baggage Delay Insurance
- Lost Luggage Reimbursement
- Trip Cancellation/Interruption Insurance
- No bonus categorical earnings on groceries
- World of Hyatt is incrementally moving some of its hotels an additional category up, making them more expensive
Make sure to check your cardmember agreement for further details on these benefits—terms & conditions do apply.
Are World Of Hyatt Points Valuable?
Yes. Very much yes. Hyatt has an awesome award chart as shown below:
There is so much opportunity to get outsized value out of your Hyatt stays. Even Park Hyatts that sometimes run for thousands of dollars a night are attainable with points. World of Hyatt has an incredible loyalty program that provides significant value for its loyal customers. Furthermore, award nights count towards elite qualifying nights, making it easier to obtain status.
Conclusion
The World of Hyatt card is simply a no-brainer for almost anyone who stays at a hotel at least once per year. The free hotel night/year is already enough to offset the annual fee, but the card’s ancillary benefits help propel you through the levels of World of Hyatt status.
