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It's exceptionally difficult to stay at these World of Hyatt 'unicorns' on points — here’s how to book them
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Quick summary
Hyatt's loyalty program is valued for its strong elite benefits, valuable points and the use of an award chart for redemptions.
Some luxury Hyatt properties are notoriously difficult to book with points due to limited or manipulated award availability, especially at high-demand resorts and Small Luxury Hotels of the World partners.
Techniques to improve your chances include searching for longer stays, using mixed cash and points bookings, and monitoring availability frequently.
Tools like the SLH website and Google Hotels can help identify possible dates with standard room availability.
What to consider
Certain hotels may only show award availability for longer stays or have seasonal closures and minimum night requirements.
Award inventory can be released unpredictably, so checking daily may increase your chances at popular properties.
Some strategies, such as booking mixed cash and points stays and then adjusting with hotel support, may not always be successful.
What you'll miss from the article
Detailed step-by-step tactics for uncovering hidden award nights and navigating booking restrictions at sought-after Hyatt properties.
Generated by AI with support from our editorial team.
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Hyatt is one of the TPG staff's favorite hotel loyalty programs for a few reasons:
Hyatt elite status benefits are extremely potent; the highest tier offers suite upgrades, free breakfast, dedicated concierges, free parking on award stays and more.
It’s the only U.S. hotel chain that still uses an award chart.
And still, there are some Hyatt hotels that live in infamy among the award travel community – luxury bucket list properties that are the bane of points collectors due to their elusive reward availability.
Let’s look at some of the most popular offenders and tips on how to book them.
Some hotels play with award inventory
One of the only infuriating things about Hyatt is that it can’t seem to honor one specific promise. It guarantees that you can book standard rooms with Hyatt points if available.
Here’s how some hotels get around that: They won’t show you any standard rooms unless you book a specific number of nights. In my experience, I’ve seen hotels hide standard rooms until you’ve amended your search for a stay of nine nights or more.
Hawaiian hotels are notorious for monkeying with award inventory, namely:
The Andaz Maui is a bucket list item for many points and miles collectors. It’s exceptionally beautiful, and it consistently sells for $1,000 or more per night. In other words, you’re competing for award availability with an exceptionally large number of Hyatt customers and Hyatt itself.
Possible trick
I’ve done this myself at the Andaz Maui and a handful of other Hyatt hotels. You can often find award availability at hotels like these by simply extending your search dates. For example, below, the Andaz Maui has no award availability from Nov. 7 to 9. According to Hyatt, this means there are no standard rooms available.
(Screenshot courtesy of hyatt.com)
However, by extending this hypothetical stay by one night, standard rooms suddenly appear for all three nights. Hyatt was holding out on you.
(Screenshot courtesy of hyatt.com)
If the hotel you’re after demands that you stay more nights than you’d like, here’s what you can do:
Sign in to your Hyatt account.
Find availability, no matter how many consecutive nights you have to book.
Click to view the standard rates instead of award nights.
Click “Pay My Way,” which allows you to book a stay with a mix of Hyatt points and cash.
Book the entire stay, choosing to pay cash for all the nights you don’t plan to stay.
Direct message @HyattConcierge on Twitter with your confirmation number and ask them to cancel all the paid nights and leave the award nights.
Again, I’ve done this more than once, and it works like a charm.
Small Luxury Hotels of the World inked a deal with Hyatt to allow customers to redeem Hyatt points at its hotels.
There are many instances in which some hotels appear nearly impossible to book — some hotels are seasonal, some require a minimum number of nights per stay, etc. Examples of difficult-to-book hotels are:
Properties like Hotel Schweizerhof Zermatt are in chef’s-kiss locations and are closed nearly half the year.
Possible trick
To help you find award availability at SLH properties, you can begin your search at the SLH website. (Each hotel has a landing page both with SLH and Hyatt.)
You can easily view which dates the hotel is closed and which dates have restrictions (such as no check-in, no checkout, minimum night requirement, etc.).
(Screenshot courtesy of SLH.com)
This isn’t always a foolproof method to immediately find Hyatt award inventory, but it can help you narrow your search and save lots of time.
Some hotels may legitimately be out of award availability
Alila Ventana Big Sur. (Photo courtesy of Hyatt)
In rare cases, a hotel might simply be so popular that no award inventory exists.
A great example of this is Alila Ventana Big Sur, an all-inclusive five-star resort guarded by California redwoods. Many of us check frequently for availability but rarely find anything. I’ve even invoked my Hyatt Globalist concierge to help me find availability with no results.
Possible trick
The only sound advice at this point is to check daily for properties like this. Occasionally, a big chunk of award nights will magically appear that weren’t there the day before.
One tip that has worked for me in the past (though not with this particular resort) is using Google Hotels to view large swaths of room rates at once. Because Alila Ventana Big Sur appears to be out of standard rooms, you can use Google Hotels to help you make an educated guess as to where availability might be.
Take a look below at the price for Feb. 18, 2023. It’s a good $500 or more cheaper than the dates surrounding it. This indicates a cheaper room is available, and therefore a standard room may exist.
(Screenshot courtesy of google.com)
Upon investigating this date, I found a “1 King Bed” room category available — which appears to be one category lower than a “1 King Bed with Fireplace” room, which is the category you can book with points. So again, the method isn’t perfect.
World of Hyatt Credit Card: Earn 30,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first three months from account opening. Plus, up to 30,000 More Bonus Points by earning 2 Bonus Points total per $1 spent in the first six months from account opening on purchases that normally earn 1 Bonus Point, on up to $15,000 spent.
World of Hyatt Business Credit Card: Earn 60,000 Bonus Points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in your first three months from account opening.
Another easy way to rack up Hyatt points is by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points at a 1:1 ratio. You can transfer points to Hyatt if you have one of the cards below:
Chase Sapphire Preferred Card: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
Chase Sapphire Reserve: Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first three months from account opening.
Ink Business Preferred Credit Card: Earn 100,000 bonus Chase points after you spend $8,000 in the first three months from account opening.
There are many great Hyatt hotels to choose from, but some of the most aspirational are nearly impossible to book.
Whether your hotel of choice likes to play with award inventory, requires a minimum number of nights or is just maddeningly popular, there are a few strategies you can implement to try and find award availability.
Let us know which Hyatt hotels you’re having a hard time booking. We’d love to have a comprehensive list of Hyatt unicorns with awards we can try to decrypt together.
Comments
By commenting, you agree to our Community Guidelines to help create a positive space for conversation. The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser, our partners, or The Points Guy (“TPG”). They have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these parties. All responses are submitted by individual contributors, and neither the bank advertiser, our partners, nor TPG are responsible for ensuring that all posts and/or questions are answered.
