World of Hyatt members have the opportunity to earn free night award certificates, both through the World of Hyatt Credit Card (review), and through the Milestone Rewards program, including when earning elite status, whether it’s World of Hyatt Explorist status or World of Hyatt Globalist 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
- An expired Category 1-7 free night award may get you 20,000 bonus points
For context on World of Hyatt award free night pricing, a Category 4 property costs up to 18,000 points per night, while a Category 7 property costs up to 35,000 points per night. So as you can see, you’re basically getting a bit over half of the maximum value of the certificate, except points get you a lot more flexibility.
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
- Generally only expired free night certificates issued through the Milestone Rewards program are eligible for points, and not those issued through Hyatt’s credit card
- The points courtesy is generally only offered for expired free night awards, and not for expired club access awards, suite upgrade awards, or Guest of Honor awards
My recent experience with an expired Hyatt award
I recently had a Category 1-7 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 1-7 free night award expire yesterday, 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 know this was something that was offered in the past, so I was wondering if it’s still a possibility. 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:
It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t utilize your Category 1-7 award. We always encourage our members to redeem their awards for their full value, but we recognize that sometimes circumstances may prevent this. As a result, we have credited 20,000 points to your account as a replacement for the award. These points are immediately available for your use.
Sure enough, the points posted to my account right away. Woot! 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. Also keep in mind that this generally isn’t offered for free night awards earned with credit cards.
Any OMAAT readers have recent experience with getting points for expired World of Hyatt awards?
How about points for unused TSUs?
Ouch ! that photo of a Hyatt room titled SCORE, is so bland, nothing on the walls except paint.
Some Hyatts are too far out without decorations and just plain, bland, breathless rooms and hallways.
I knew about this and 2 yrs ago, I had attempted to get some compensation or extension for my annual free night provided by the Hyatt credit card.
I was not able to travel for the previous year due to health issues and offered to provide medical proof of sureries/PT appts, etc to prove I was unable to travel.
A big FAT DONUT. I suspect that Ben & Ford have a bit of clout...
I knew about this and 2 yrs ago, I had attempted to get some compensation or extension for my annual free night provided by the Hyatt credit card.
I was not able to travel for the previous year due to health issues and offered to provide medical proof of sureries/PT appts, etc to prove I was unable to travel.
A big FAT DONUT. I suspect that Ben & Ford have a bit of clout or lots of spend with Hyatt which I do not and did not. This is evidenced by his reporting of a CAT 7!!! award expiration. I had a measly credit card cat 4 expiration.
Anyway, I called more than once and got the same answer and in fact, they noted in my acct that I had previously tried as the 2nd time I called they pointed out that the policy had not changed since I previously called and that the previous agent was correct telling me there was no recourse.
YMMV - so best of luck to others.
That was very unfortunate but Ben’s category 7 expired certificate was earned as a milestone award which is not the same as the category 4 earned from the credit card.
I had the same problem last month. My Chase Cat 1-4 expired before I had a chance to use it and my Hyatt Concierge said I could not get any points for the credit card free night. Ugh.
Now that it’s announced here it will assure that it’s never offered to anyone again. This is why I struggle with these blogs. Great information on one hand but the second there is a workaround with certain issues it’s announced to million of readers and the quiet exceptions will then go away. At least at Flyer Talk these loopholes are kept a bit more under the wraps and less a billboard to gaming a system....
Now that it’s announced here it will assure that it’s never offered to anyone again. This is why I struggle with these blogs. Great information on one hand but the second there is a workaround with certain issues it’s announced to million of readers and the quiet exceptions will then go away. At least at Flyer Talk these loopholes are kept a bit more under the wraps and less a billboard to gaming a system.
Mark my words….in a few months this will be gone after thousands flood Hyatt with point conversions requests.
I don’t think that it will have a huge impact. Companies will still decide what their own policies will be. If I would have to guess, I am sure the board members do not have a list of bloggers and say “should we get rid of converting points for expired certificates (not earned from CC) because OMATT or TPG wrote about it. I am sure Mr. Hoplamazian has better things to do. Companies will make decisions based on the board members and not based on the bloggers’ boards.
I am so thankful that Ben does actually write about it because I may not have known about certain things otherwise.
@Stanley. I agree with you from that angle. But I’ll bet in the next few months many will start requesting it and telling their concierge that, “I read where a blogger got it done so why not me?” That’s when it gets escalated upstairs and the plug is pulled for everyone.
I am old enough to recall the pre blogger days when these things were quiet in the loyalty circles. The best you had...
@Stanley. I agree with you from that angle. But I’ll bet in the next few months many will start requesting it and telling their concierge that, “I read where a blogger got it done so why not me?” That’s when it gets escalated upstairs and the plug is pulled for everyone.
I am old enough to recall the pre blogger days when these things were quiet in the loyalty circles. The best you had were quiet convos in Flyer Talk. We knew better than to tell everyone how good we had it.
Of course, there is no going back. And I am not criticizing anyone here….it’s just how things have changed.
I can understand where you are coming from as well and hope that Hyatt will not undo this courtesy change of point conversion from expired and unused certificates in the future.
They told me they don’t offer points for the expired nights earned thru Chase credit cards either the anniversary night or the extra night you get with 15K spend. They redeemed expired nights earned thru Hyatt Milestone awards.
FWIW I’m a Globalist.
I'm 1 for 2 trying this as a Globalist. They were much more lenient during COVID.