Both Rob and I have Chase World Of Hyatt Cards. I got mine back in early 2018. And Rob got his in the summer of 2018 with a higher bonus than me. The comes with 1 free night every year after your cardmember anniversary at any Category 1-4 property.
In addition, you get an extra free night at any Category 1–4 Hyatt hotel or resort if you spend $15,000 during your cardmember anniversary year.
Normally, you have a year to use these free nights, but because of covid, World Of Hyatt extended all unused Free Nights with expiration dates between March 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020, till December 31, 2021. Also, they made it so all unused Free Night awards that were earned in 2020 with 2021 expiration dates were extended to December 31, 2021.
Normally, in a regular year, I would never spend $15k on my Hyatt card for an extra free night at a Category 1-4 property. But because of all of the concessions that many of the loyalty programs made for their members, I pounced on a World Of Hyatt offer and I am proud to announce I am now a World Of Hyatt Globalist member.
You see, I took advantage of the 50% reduced Status requirements in 2021 because of covid. Specifically, in 2021, they changed the requirements to earn World Of Hyatt status as follows:
Discoverist status will require five Tier-Qualifying Nights or 12,500 Base Points
Explorist status will require 15 Tier-Qualifying Nights or 25,000 Base Points
Globalist status will require 30 Tier-Qualifying Nights or 50,000 Base Points
And, as I have written about extensively, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO ACHIEVE WORLD OF HYATT TOP TIER ELITE STATUS strictly based on spending on your Chase World Of Hyatt Credit card…
Normally, for Globalist, you need 60 nights and you start with 5 for having the World Of Hyatt card, so you need 55 more. That spend requirement is IMO a prohibitive $137,500 in spend. (55/2*5,000). BUT! with the new guidelines, I only needed 30 nights (25 more) to reach Globalist status. That was a bit easier for me in that my spend needed to be $62,500 on the card. (25/2*5,000). And even less than that because I already had some Hyatt stays in 2021 that contributed to my nights.
So because of the extensions of the Free Night awards on mine and Rob’s cards and because of the extra nights I received using this card like crazy and getting another Free night after every $15k in spend, Rob and I found ourselves loaded with Free World Of Hyatt nights in 2021.
However, it is hard finding a Category 1-4 property. And I also advise trying to stay at the highest category free night available, so in Hyatt’s case, ideally, I would only want to use my award at a Category 4 property. For stays in the past, I had to pull it together at the last minute to try to use them.
But then I discovered Gild Hall, a Thompson Hotel in downtown NYC. Gild Hall is a chic boutique hotel right in between Wall Street and the South Street Seaport. And Gild Hall is currently a World Of Hyatt Category 4 property (although that can change next year).
Rob and I have now stayed at Gild Hall using our Free Night Awards a lot over the last six months, and my whole family is staying there for one night over Christmas break. The rooms are small but completely manageable for our outings in NYC. The gym is also small and you need to make an appointment, but we have and that has worked too. As a Globalist member, I get free breakfast, which we have ordered from their online room service menu, Butler. Rob just stayed this past week as he had a meeting in downtown Manhattan. Basically, it has started to feel like a second home in NYC. Now, if I could only get upgraded to a suite with my status, but unfortunately, I think the secret is out about this hotel and what a great use of a WOH Free Night Award it is.
I hope it stays a Category 4!