World of Hyatt members have the opportunity to earn free night award certificates, both through the World of Hyatt Credit Card (review), and through earning elite status.
While World of Hyatt will almost never extend the expiration date of these certificates, it might be possible to get some bonus points in exchange for expired certificates. In this post I wanted to share my recent experience with this.
In this post:
Hyatt may offer points for expired free night awards
World of Hyatt issues both Category 1-4 and Category 1-7 free night awards. The expiration dates vary based on how they’re issued. Historically Hyatt has sometimes offered bonus points upon request if you have an expired free night award:
- An expired Category 1-4 free night award may get you 10,000 bonus points; for context, a Category 4 property in peak season would cost you 18,000 points per night
- An expired Category 1-7 free night award may get you 20,000 bonus points; for context, a Category 7 property in peak season would cost you 35,000 points per night
Now, a few important points to clarify:
- This is not a published policy, but rather a courtesy, so you can’t count on this being offered
- The certificate needs to expire before you can request the points; Hyatt almost never commits to offering points in advance, so you generally won’t even get an assurance that you’ll be offered this, meaning it’s a big gamble
- When it comes to Category 1-4 free night awards, historically those issued through the Hyatt Milestone Rewards program are eligible for this courtesy, while those issued with a Hyatt credit card aren’t eligible for this courtesy
- The points courtesy is generally only offered for expired free night awards, and not for expired club access awards or expired suite upgrade awards; in 2021 we saw some people issued points for those, but I haven’t otherwise seen many successful data points on that
My recent experience with an expired Hyatt award
I recently had a Category 1-4 free night award expire. It was totally my fault, but by the time I realized that it was about to expire, I didn’t have a good use for it anymore. So after it expired, I shot off an email to My Hyatt Concierge. I wrote the following:
I had a Category 1-4 free night award expire recently, that I forgot to use. I know Hyatt isn’t doing extensions on these nowadays, but is there any way to get a points conversion offer? I’ve heard that has been possible in the past, but it’s not something I’ve ever requested. Thanks in advance if there’s anything you can do!
Someone responded in place of my usual representative within a couple of days, and wrote the following:
The Terms and Conditions does not include any compensation for expired awards. However, as a Globalist we do value your membership and after reviewing the award and your account I have issued 10,000 World of Hyatt points in lieu of the award.
Sure enough the points posted to my account right away. Woot!
So this seems to still be working, at least for some, which is great. If you aren’t part of the My Hyatt Concierge program but have an expired award, you can alternatively call World of Hyatt customer service, use the live chat feature in the World of Hyatt app, or contact Hyatt on Twitter.
Bottom line
While World of Hyatt generally won’t extend free night awards, the program seems to continue to be offering 10,000 to 20,000 bonus points for expired free night awards. Again, this isn’t a published policy, so don’t count on it always working, but I figured I’d share my recent data point, for anyone else who may find themselves in a similar situation.
If you do want to see if you can get points, just keep in mind you can only make the request after the certificate has been expired. That’s obviously risky if you could otherwise find a use for the certificate.
Any OMAAT readers have recent experience with getting points for expired World of Hyatt awards?
How about Cat 1-4 free night award earned from 5 brand explorer, can it covert to points upon expiration?
Is there any way to know if the night award is Chase or not? I have 3 (one expires soon) and all 3 are listed as: "Category 1-4 Promotion Award" Thanks.
I got this message from the chat:
I'm finding the unused award is a co-branded Chase award. Unfortunately we are unable to offer compensation for those unused awards due to our agreement with Chase. Was there anything else I may assist with today?
Only a Discoverist and upon asking the rep they said they couldn't offer anything (no extensions, no points, nothing). Burned it at a local hotel. Thinking about canceling my Hyatt card frankly since I'm 2yrs from lifetime Plat w/ Marriott and won't need this card for a while
Can't use my Category 7 free night and got 20K points, which was pretty disappointing, especially since best Hyatt are all C8 now. But gonna take it.
In addition, it seems Hyatt's bad IT prevent them from actually invalidate your points for an extenuation. So if you got a rep to exchange award to points *before* expiration (highly YMMV), you can potentially double dip it.
Had an expiring Cat 1-4 award converted to 10k points end of last year that I could not use award due to COVID. They really need to convert the Lounge access awards because most have been closed in the US and Hyatt keeps giving pathetic 'safety' reasons when you know they're just cutting costs. Any luck getting free breakfast for those? (explorists)
Was recently told the same when I asked for an extension. They said they would possibly extend the 1-4 free night from status but not from the credit card. I needed to contact them within 7 days of expiration to request again - being proactive doesn't help.
I had an interesting experience recently with a Hyatt Free Night Award that was about to expire in 10 days. I rushed to use it to book a hotel near the Fort Lauderdale airport to bridge between a cruise ending in FLL in April 2023 and a flight back to Hawaii, leaving a day later. A day or two after I booked the hotel, I realized that my return flight was not out of FLL...
I had an interesting experience recently with a Hyatt Free Night Award that was about to expire in 10 days. I rushed to use it to book a hotel near the Fort Lauderdale airport to bridge between a cruise ending in FLL in April 2023 and a flight back to Hawaii, leaving a day later. A day or two after I booked the hotel, I realized that my return flight was not out of FLL but rather MIA. Getting from my FLL hotel to MIA would have been costly and required getting up really early in the morning. So I checked to see if I canceled the hotel, would I get the free night award back, and then quickly apply it to a hotel near the MIA airport. The website said I would get the reward returned.
I found a hotel near MIA that was within the 35,000 point limit, and when I went to use the free award night to book the hotel, I noticed that the expiration date was not in 8 days but in October 2023. They had reinstated my free night award and added a whole year to the expiration date. I’m not sure if this was a computer hiccup or a new policy, but it was nice to know that if I wanted to, I could have used the award for another year.
Really wish they would offer something for the club access awards since there are barely any clubs available anywhere.
10k points is arguably more valuable than a 15k cert given flexibility (no expiration plus can use the points toward a more expensive award unlike the very). Very generous by Hyatt.
Just as you mentioned, they do not convert to points for a credit card free night. Tried just last week and she told me that is the reason. Bummer. At the end of last year, I did successfully convert my club access awards to points. I can’t remember how much they gave me, but it was several thousand each. Done over chat. That could have been covid related though.
Oops. Didn’t mean to add this comment as a reply.
Lol could have used this article two days earlier. Just burned it at a local Hyatt place to get the stay credit.
Any chance this working for Expiring Suite upgrades?
No.
Worked for me a few months ago for category 1-7 certificate.
Doubtful this will work. It worked during COVID, but last time I tried to do it they wouldn't offer anything. I have been a Globalist for 5+ years.
He literally wrote of a recent attempt, so what exactly are you doubtful about? YMMV