30 Percent Hyatt Bonus Points-Buy Points or Use Hyatt Stay Certificates?

You can get up to 30% Hyatt bonus points through tomorrow, March 15, if you buy Gold Passport points, so I've been getting some questions on whether it's worth it or not.

The short answer is: no, unless you have a *very* specific use for them, namely, you want to stay at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, or other Hyatt that doesn't accept Hyatt Stay Certificates, and you don't have any free nights you can use there.

Let's first address the Hyatt bonus points offer, then evaluate the alternatives.

30% Hyatt Bonus Points When You Buy Hyatt Gold Passport Points

Buy 1000-9000 Hyatt points – 10% bonus points

Buy 10,000-29,000 Hyatt points – 20% bonus points

Buy 30,000-40,000 Hyatt points – 30% bonus points

Example 1: You buy 10,000 Hyatt points for $240 and receive a 2000 point bonus

Normally this would equate to 2.4 cents per point, which is very high. Even with the bonus, it's 2 cents per point, which is still pretty high. Not a good deal for most, unless you're topping up your account because you're just about to redeem for an award and don't have *any* points you can transfer to Hyatt.

Example 2: You buy 40,000 Hyatt points for $960 and receive a 12,000 point bonus

As with the first example, normally this would be 2.4 cents per point, but with the 30% bonus it goes to 1.85 cents per point. Not bad, although you'll need to be using your points for Hyatt's top properties, such as Park Hyatts, for this to make sense.

Ok, now time to look at alternatives, free and paid.

Free Hyatt award stays

1. Using existing Hyatt points for award stays

If you're even reading this you probably don't have a ton of Hyatt points, but if you do, then you'll probably want to use those instead of buying and stockpiling more Hyatt points, given the ever present risk of program devaluation. Only you know how much you spent to acquire those points–hopefully most were through stays paid for by work, but if you're mattress running at cheap Hyatt properties, you should be keeping track of what you've paid to get those points.

2. Transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt

You can sign up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold with Ultimate Rewards which each offer a 50,000 point sign up bonus (that's 100,000 points if you get both!), then transfer the points 1:1 to Hyatt points. Points transfer almost instantly.

3. Getting the Chase Hyatt Visa for the 2 free night certificate

The Hyatt Visa comes with 2 free nights at any Hyatt in the world, including Category 6 hotels such as the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome, Park Hyatt Maldives, etc. Existing Hyatt Platinum members get the 2 free nights plus 2 confirmed upgrade certificates for paid stays, and existing Hyatt Diamond members get their 2 free nights in a suite.

Additional benefits include:

• Platinum status (15% point bonus on stays, complimentary Internet access, best room available for the room category you booked)
• 1 Award night in a Category 1-4 hotel every year as a cardholder
• No foreign transaction fees
• 3 Hyatt Gold Passport points for every $1 spent