Friendly reminder that this is still possible.
Contents
Introduction
A few weeks ago there was a post on /r/churning discussing turning Hyatt free night certificates earned from the Chase Hyatt card into points after the free night certificates expired (for the purposes of this post we are referring to the free night certificates earned from the sign up bonus with no category restriction, not the annual free night certificate). Frequent Miler also had a post on this in 2016, but since then World of Hyatt has been introduced.
I asked Hyatt directly about this and received the following response:
As always, our colleagues work to help our members make the most of their benefits. Colleagues evaluate requests like this on a case by case basis – there is no formal policy. That said, achieving tier status is almost always a consideration when evaluating these kinds of requests.
Reddit user pkchihuahuas spoke to three different reps and the most knowledgable seemed to say that you’ll be able to get 10,000 points per certificate with no status and 20,000 points per night with Discoverist status (from 10 stays, not the status that comes with the card). If anybody has any additional data points then please share them in the comments – although hopefully people don’t as you should be using these before they expire!
Datapoints
Now that this post has gone live, we are getting a lot of different data points in the comments. I thought I’d collate them below.
- You have 90 days after the expiration of your free nights to call in
- Free night certificates from sign up bonus:
- 20,000 points per certificate with earned Discoverist status (e.g 25,000 base points or 10 qualifying nights): 1
- Anniversary free night certificates (category 1-4):
- Refusal to award points: 1
- Extended for 30 days and then given 10,000 points: 1
Annual free cat 1-4 from old Hyatt card expired last week. Called a few days after expiration, asked for either extension or points and easily got 10k points. Discoverist status solely from credit card.
Same exact experience here including status. Tried twitter first and they claimed there was nothing they could do.
Got the Discoverist status from matching with MGM Gold. Was able to exchange my Category 1-4 certificate (from staying at 5 different Hyatt brands) for 15,000 points. The agent said the standard policy is 10,000 points, but she’s giving me extra 5,000 points because that’s the value of a Category 4 hotel. Also quoted some people having success with 20,000 points, the representative said it may be because they had a Category 1-7 certificate, but reiterated their standard policy is 10,000 points per certificate.
William, you will have to amend this post — there are no longer any free night certificates when one signs up for the Hyatt card — it is only a points bonus.
What has been distilled recently from the posts on twitter and the like is that if you were to contact Hyatt about your expiring annual credit card free night certificates that are good for up to a Category 4 property which is equal to 15,000 points, Hyatt will give you 10,000 in points in exchange for same, but you must be near to the certificate’s expiration date for them to do so.
If you have an expired certificate, they MAY also give you 10,000 points, but if your certificate expires in the future — likely 3 or more weeks in the future, they will ask you to contact them closer to the time of expiration, leaving them time to evaluate the pandemic at that time and whether they will be amenable to letting you make the exchange.
In addition, those who have earned a Category 1 – 7 certificate that is likewise near its expiration they have given 20,000 points in exchange.
Therefore, it seems that at present they are willing to make such an exchange if you are near your expiration date, but they are keeping their options open for the future whether they will continue to do so……
@Hadley not true. I have 2 FN certificates that I received from signing up for the WOH card that expire June 2020. Today, the sign up bonus does not exists but it did for a while in 2019.
I took my chance and it worked. I call CS and tell them I called about ~1 month ago and received the information about transferring the certificate to point(which is obviously fake). The CS took my info, put on hold for a min or so, and give me the 10000 points! And she said it is a one time courtesy, which I am definitely ok with. Overall smooth conversation, YMMV though.
DP: Discoverist with the old Chase Hyatt card. 2 years on the membership. Cert expired 1 week ago.
Mine expired five days ago. I just called Hyatt three times as was told that this is no longer done (I did it last year with no problem). One CSR said that Chase had told them not to do it anymore.
Same for me
Called 1-800-323-7249 and requested points for anniversary night that expired 2 days ago. Got 10k. Have Explorist status.
I called 1-800-323-7249 today. I was able to get 10000 points for the expired Chase Annual certificate. No status. Rep was very nie. It took less than 2 minutes.
Got 40,000 points after letting the 2 nights expire and calling the number posted here. I had a genuine reason for not being able to use the nights. First try, the lady wanted me to send in some medical records to process the request. On second try, I got the points without any problem. I am a Globalist-lite (thru Globalist promotion last year).
Are these 1-4 cate ones?
Got the Chase card last year (before the switch) with the 2 free unrestricted nights. 1 of my nights just expired and when I called I was given 20k points with no earned status. I had only 2 stays in the last 12 months. My brother on the other hand was given no points for his 2 expired nights, but he cancelled his card last month to avoid the annual fee and has not stayed at a Hyatt in the last year.
Thank you for this post. I just called the 1800-323-7249 number and was able to convert my expired two nights into 40k points
Sometimes life happens and family issues come up, so you can’t travel as expected. It was nice of Hyatt to do this for us who expired out the free nights!
Do you have any status?