How to Navigate Hyatt Hotel Categories for Awards

The World of Hyatt loyalty program provides lots of opportunities to redeem points for stays at more than 1,150 hotels and resorts across the globe. Properties ranging from convenient airport locations to five-star Park Hyatt hotels are divided into categories that determine how many points you need for an award night.

Navigating Hyatt hotel categories can be challenging; however, Hyatt allows you to search for a hotel by category so that you only see properties that cost the number of points in your budget. Here are some tips to keep in mind when embarking on your journey into World of Hyatt redemption categories.

Every World of Hyatt property falls into a category, from 1 through 8. The higher the category, the more points needed to redeem an award night.

Generally, a hotel’s category is determined by variables like location, type of property and demand. Upscale Hyatt brands like Park Hyatt and Hyatt Regency, as well as hotels in desirable locations, are usually in categories 5 through 8.

If you’re planning a trip to Miami, for example, you could choose a Category 2 property like Hyatt Place Miami Airport-East, located across from the airport. If a glamorous boutique hotel in Miami’s South Beach is more your style, a Category 5 property such as The Plymouth South Beach could be your choice.

Although Hyatt provides award charts for its hotels, Hyatt has introduced dynamic pricing by including off-peak, standard and peak rates for its room rates. This dynamic pricing applies across room offerings including standard rooms, standard suites, premium suites, Regency/Grand Club, all Points + Cash rooms, all-inclusive resorts and Miraval resorts.

• Standard: Rates start at 5,000 points per night.

• Peak: More points are required when hotels are busiest, starting at 6,500 per night.

• Off-peak: Fewer points are needed when hotels are less busy, offering the best value, starting at 3,500 points per night.

To browse the number of points you need for rooms of every type and in every category, see the charts here.

» Learn more: Your guide to the World of Hyatt award chart

With some hotel loyalty programs, it can be difficult to find properties where you’ll have enough points for an award stay. You have to keep searching for different dates or cities in a hit-or-miss strategy to find a room in your points budget.

But Hyatt has a better way — if you know where to look. Starting at the "Use Your Rewards" page, a tool lets you search for hotels by category. Click "Explore the Map" and you’ll see "Filters" in the top right-hand corner of the page. Click on it to sort properties by hotel brand, amenities, and most helpful for award night searches: categories with the number of points you need for a stay in each category clearly displayed.

Search Hyatt categories

Let’s say, for example, you have 20,000 points and you’re looking to put them to use for a free hotel stay. You could get five nights at a Category 1, three nights at a Category 2 or two nights at a Category 3 hotel.

To find results that fit into your points budget, select hotel Categories 1, 2 and 3 from the filter and you will see the number of results in the specific area. In our example, the results dropped from 841 to 378.

Click on the “378 results” and you will see a map showing all the hotels that fall into your search criteria. If, for example, you’ve decided to go to Philadelphia, zoom into the Philadelphia area and select the “points” option from the menu bar to see your options.

The search results reveal properties scattered across the map, along with each hotel’s nightly price in points, allowing you to quickly see what hotels fit into your budget.

Beyond qualifying hotel stays, another way to amass a large number of points is to earn a sign-up bonus for a Hyatt credit card. There are currently two available: one personal or consumer card, and one business card.

If you seek more flexibility in redeeming miles for hotel stays, consider applying for a more general travel credit card instead. A more general travel credit card differs from a hotel card in that you can book lodging at multiple hotel chains, rather than reaping the benefits of staying loyal to a single brand.

The more high-end the travel credit card, the more benefits you can enjoy, including airport lounge access or automatic elite status in certain programs. That said, a brand-specific hotel card can net you benefits like late check-out or free breakfast, which can have meaningful dollar value.

» Learn more: The best Hyatt credit card offers

Although Hyatt has shifted to somewhat of a dynamic pricing award chart, you can still search for a hotel based on the hotel category, allowing you to view properties that fall into your points budget only.

Photo courtesy of Hyatt.