Years ago I completed a Hyatt Diamond Status challenge and it turned about to be well worth the 60,000 Hyatt points and $650 I spent on a 12 night mattress run.  My family received over $4000 worth of free breakfasts plus numerous room upgrades – you can read about it here.

Hyatt made some changes to their program in the past few years which has made it harder to achieve their top tier status (now called Globalist instead of Diamond).

I spent a lot of time digesting Greg’s post on whether Hyatt’s latest promotion to earn Globalist status easier was a deal or not.  I’ve come to the conclusion taking advantage of this is a no brainer and well worth it if you can handle the spending requirement.  Let me show you why:

Hyatt Globalist Requirements

There are a few different ways to earn Hyatt’s top tier Globalist status, but I’m going to focus on the 60 elite nights requirement since you can earn all of these just with the World of Hyatt Credit card.

Chase World of Hyatt Visa Benefits

First just holding the World of Hyatt Visa you automatically get 5 elite qualifying nights.

Next, after you spend $15,000 on the card, you earn a free night award in a category 1-4.

You also earn 2 elite night credit for every $5000 in spending on the card.

But Hyatt has come out with a promotion where you can earn 3 elite night credits for every $5000 in spending on the World of Hyatt card between April 15th & June 30th.

Total Spend Required

Assuming you haven’t had any Hyatt stays this year and don’t have any planned the rest of the year (which is the worst case scenario), you would need to earn 55 nights since you should already have 5 from holding the World of Hyatt Visa.

Since $5000 gets you 3 elite nights with this promotion, $90,000 in spending will get you 54 elite nights, just one shy of the 55 more required.

To get that last night, let’s assume you use the free category 1-4 night you get when you spend $15,000 on the World of Hyatt Visa.

5 + 54 + 1 = 60 Nights

$90,000 in spending is the worst case scenario assuming you have NO Hyatt stays at all.  There are some suggestions below to decrease this value even further.

What Do I Get?

So what do you get after spending $90,000 on your World of Hyatt card?  Actually a lot since Hyatt’s loyalty programs gives you a bunch of extras at certain milestones.  Let’s take a look:

Since you automatically get Club Lounge Access once you become a Globalists, I’m going to ignore those awards.  Here are the estimated values of the awards earned (I used ThePointsGuy’s 1.7¢ per point Hyatt point value):

$2,380 in value + a whole lot of more benefits which are hard to put a specific value on.   Globalist members also get:

• Free breakfast (or club access) – probably my favorite perk – look at our breakfast at the Park Hyatt Paris
• Four confirmed at booking suite upgrades
• No resort fees when paying cash (resort fees are waived on award nights for all members)
• 4pm late checkout
• Room upgrades as available (including suites)
• Free parking on free night awards
• Share your in-hotel benefits with your Guest of Honor
• Access to My Hyatt Concierge

Reducing the Spend Requirement

$90,000 in spend is not only A LOT of spend but to do it by June 30th is a lot harder.  Fortunately there are some things you can do to reduce the $90,000 spending requirement such as:

• Use the free Category 1-4 night you will receive at the 30 night mark (in addition to the free night earned at $15,000 spend on World of Hyatt Visa) to count towards your 60 nights
• Use the 5,000 points award at the 40 night mark to stay at a Category 1 Hyatt
• For every $5000 you spend with the promotion, you are also earning 5,000 Hyatt points.  Use those 5,000 Hyatt points at a Category 1 Hyatt for another free night.

Using these 3 techniques would lower the spending requirement to $65,000 (see below calculation).

It also still doesn’t take into account any of your past or upcoming Hyatt or MGM Resort stays.  Don’t forget stays at MGM resorts (Aria, Bellagio, MGM, etc) in Las Vegas which count towards Hyatt status due to Hyatt’s partnership with MGM.

Meeting the Spend Requirement

Whether you calculated your spending requirement to be $90,000, $65,000, or something less, for some this won’t be possible.  But this might be easy for others who might own a business, have a large purchase coming up, or just naturally have high spending.

Here are a few ways you can put large amounts of spend on a credit card:

• Use Plastiq to pay for things that typically can’t be paid with a credit card such as a mortgage, contractors, etc (here’s how we bought a card using a credit card)
• Pay your taxes (including quarterly estimated) at pay1040.com with a credit card for a 1.87% fee
• Loan money at Kiva.org using a credit card for no fee
• Loan money at Kickfurther.com using a credit card for no fee
• I know some people that purchase Visa and Mastercard gift debit cards at malls, grocery stores, and online using credit cards then use those debit cards at restaurants, gas stations, and stores.

Don’t Already Have World of Hyatt Visa – No Problem

While the 3 nights per $5000 spend promotion is for existing World of Hyatt Visa holders, don’t worry there is an offer for new card holders too.

Through June 30th, you will automatically receive 10 elite qualifying nights instead of the usual 5 just for holding the card.

In addition to the 10 elite qualifying nights, if you spend $3000 in the first 3 months of account opening you will get 25,000 Hyatt points.   You will also get another 25,000 Hyatt points after spending a total of $6000 in the first 6 months.  That’s 56,000 Hyatt points which you can use for 11 free nights at a Category 1 Hyatt.

Don’t forget that first $6000 in spend also gives you 2 elite qualifying nights!

So after meeting the $6000 spending requirement and using the points earned, you could potentially already have 23 of the 60 nights accounted for.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot you get a free category 1-4 each year on your anniversary just for holding the card too.

Thanks if you use my referral link to sign up – I’ll get some extra Hyatt points!

Need to Knows

• Hyatt’s latest promotion makes it easier to earn elite qualifying nights toward status in their program using Chase’s World of Hyatt Visa.  $5000 spent = 3 elite qualifying nights instead of 2.
• Chase’s World of Hyatt Visa gives you 5 elite qualifying nights for having the card (or 10 elite qualifying nights if you sign up before June 30th)
• 60 elite qualifying nights = Hyatt’s top Globalist status
• It’s possible (and IMO highly worth it) to spend your way to Hyatt’s top Globalist status
• On your way to earning Globalist status, you will rack up numerous awards including free nights, suite upgrades, gift cards, extra points, etc worth at the very least $2,360.

So did I convince you to go for Hyatt Globalist status this year with this promotion?