Tag Archives: Hyatt Hotels

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How Many Transferrable Points Did I Earn & Spend with AMEX, Chase and Citi in 2020?

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I don’t know about you, but 2020 was the year I earned a lot more transferrable points than I spent.  I am hoping that in 2021, I will be able to spend a lot more points than I did in 2020.  For this post, I looked at my 3 favorite transferrable points programs (American Express Membership Rewards Points, Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, and Citi ThankYou Points).  I looked at my starting balances on January 1, the number of points I earned in 2020, miscellaneous point transfers in/out, the number of points I redeemed in 2020, and the ending balance on December 31 (I don’t have any plans on redeeming any points in the next few days).  For a quick calculation, I earned 350K points across the 3 programs and spent a total of 211K points (most were with Chase’s Pay Yourself Back feature).

American Express Membership Rewards Points

  • Starting Balance on Jan 1: 240K
  • Points Earned in 2020: 201K
  • Points Redeemed in 2020: 4K
  • Ending Balance on Dec 31: 438K

With American Express, I earned 201K AMEX MRs with 3 cards (American Express Business Platinum Card, American Express Gold Card, and American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card).  The Biz Plat had many pandemic bonus categories like wireless phones, shipping charges, and Dell purchases.  The Gold Card had bonus categories for restaurants and grocery stores, along with high referral bonuses.  And the Blue Biz Plus offered 2x everywhere and was my go to card when I wasn’t working on meeting minimum spending requirements on new CCs.  Across all 3 CCs, I received a total of 65K AMEX MRs from referral bonuses.  To view your points summary, click here.  To view your redemption history, click the View Redemption History link.

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My Rock Solid 2021 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

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Good morning everyone, I hope you got a good laugh out of my post from yesterday: Reviewing my Embarrassingly Wrong 2020 Travel Predictions.  Long story short, my 2020 predictions were terrible (I had 3 correct and 12 wrong predictions).  I am hoping to redeem myself today with my super-solid, 100% guaranteed-to-happen predictions for 2021.  My crystal ball just got back from the crystal ball repair store and here are my airline, hotel, and credit card predictions for 2021.

My 2021 Airline Predictions

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will make their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature a permanent feature on their site.
  • American Airlines will finally become a Citi ThankYou Points airline transfer partner.
  • Delta Airlines or United Airlines will introduce a “Cash and Miles” payment option for award tickets (pay 10,000 miles or pay 8,000 miles + $40).

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Keep, Cancel or Convert? Old Chase Hyatt Credit Card ($75 Annual Fee)

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Good evening everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I was just checking my Chase credit card accounts and saw that the $75 annual fee posted on my old Chase Hyatt Credit Card.  Effective January 11, 2021, Chase will convert all cardmembers who have the old Chase Hyatt Credit Card to the new $95 annual fee Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card.  Since I have never had the new card, I am planning on closing the old card and then applying for the new card to get the sign up bonus.  I decided to call Chase to see if they could waive the $75 annual fee anyway, but the rep said no.  I told the rep that I would think about it and call back later if I decide to close the card.  I plan on calling back in a few days to close the card and transfer my credit limit over to one of my other Chase cards.

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Listen to Grant on the Miles to Memories Podcast

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Good morning everyone.  Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of being a guest / co-host on the Miles to Memories Podcast.  I spoke with Shawn Coomer (MtM Founder) and Mark Ostermann (MtM Managing Editor), while Joe Cheung took the day/night off.  We talked about my British Airways / Match.com love story, our pre-honeymoon to Moorea, and our upcoming road trip to Carmel / Monterey.  Subscribe to the podcast here or click the play button below to stream the podcast.  Have a great day everyone.

P.S. If you want to listen to more podcasts where I was a guest / co-host, check out my new Podcasts & Interviews page.

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Hyatt Credit Card 25% Awards Rebate: Points Posted 8 Days After Completing Stay

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Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Last week, I wrote My 1 Year Wedding Anniversary Trip to Carmel, Monterey, and Big Sur and I mentioned 2 Hyatt promos that stacked:

For the first 2 nights, we stayed at the Hyatt Regency Monterey using a free night certificate from Laura’s Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card and 15,000 World of Hyatt Points (category 4 Hyatt).  Thanks to 2 current Hyatt promos, Laura received 2,500 World of Hyatt Points from the Elite Member Bonus and she should receive another 3,750 World of Hyatt Points as part of the 25% rebate on award stays (15,000 x 25% = 3,750).  

At the time, I was still waiting for the 25% rebate on award stays to post to Laura’s Hyatt account.  After ~8 days, the rebated points posted to her Hyatt account.  The points came in 2 increments:

  • 15% x 15,000 = 2,250 (standard 15% bonus that all Hyatt members get)
  • 10% x 15,000 = 1,500 (extra 10% bonus that Hyatt credit card members get)

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