Quick Points: Use Hyatt's Pay My Way to combine free night awards, cash and points

As I write this, I am sitting in the Kimpton De Witt in Amsterdam on a three-night stay that I had to book as three separate reservations. Of course, Kimpton is an IHG brand, not a Hyatt brand. But IHG Rewards only allows some anniversary nights to be used together and there's no way to book some nights with anniversary nights and some nights with cash or points within the same reservation.

Luckily, World of Hyatt makes it much easier to use free night awards, book paid nights and redeem Hyatt points on a single reservation through its Pay My Way feature. Today, I'll explain how and why you might want to use Hyatt's Pay My Way feature.

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How to use Hyatt's Pay My Way

To use Hyatt's Pay My Way, log in to your Hyatt account and search for a stay of two nights or longer. Don't check the "Use Points" box before clicking "Find hotels."

The results page will show all of the Hyatt properties available at your destination on your travel dates. Click "View rates" for the property you want to book.

Not all rates are eligible for Hyatt's Pay My Way. For example, when I searched for a stay at the Alila Fort Bishangarh in India, I found no rates eligible for Pay My Way. And when I searched for a stay at the Andaz Bali, the member and standard rates were eligible, while the members advance purchase, bed and breakfast and double your points rates weren't eligible.

Click through rates until you find a rate that's eligible for Pay My Way (as indicated by the blue "Use Pay My Way" text under the orange "Book now" button).

Note that you may not be able to use Pay My Way for all room types. For example, at the Andaz Bali, you can use Pay My Way to book the base-level rooms and select suites.

Once you find a room you want to book, click on the blue "Use Pay My Way" text below the orange "Book now" button. You'll end up on the following page:

You can select any combination of points, cash, points and cash or free night awards. But, when calculating redemption rates, consider that the cash rates shown in the table don't include taxes and fees. So, click through a few combinations and see how the taxes and fees in the "Cash total" box at the bottom change.

For example, here's a combination of a night on points, a paid night and a night using a free night award.

Click "Select this combination" to move forward with the booking process. Once you do so, you'll be on the final booking page, where you can confirm your details before clicking the "Book my stay" button at the bottom of the page.

Related: The 12 hotels where you'll get the most out of your Hyatt reward night certificate

Why use Hyatt's Pay My Way

Now that you know how to use Hyatt's Pay My Way, you may be wondering when and why to use this feature. The most obvious use case is when you don't have enough free night awards to cover all the nights of your stay.

But it can also make sense to redeem World of Hyatt points for nights that carry expensive cash rates and pay cash for nights that carry low cash rates. After all, you can benefit from World of Hyatt still offering an award chart on the nights with expensive paid rates.

In short, it comes down to the redemption rate you can get each night and how you value Hyatt points. TPG's valuations peg the value of Hyatt points at 1.7 cents per point. So, based on these valuations, you'd want to redeem points when you can get a redemption value of at least 1.7 cents per point. And you'd want to book a paid rate when your redemption rate would be lower.

However, remember that you can't access all available rates when using Pay My Way. So, it's worth considering whether you'd get a better deal by booking multiple reservations. After all, most hotels will try to keep you in the same room for your entire stay if you call or email before your stay.

It's easier to book one reservation, though. So if the rates are similar, you'll probably want to use Pay My Way instead of booking multiple back-to-back reservations.

Related: 6 ways World of Hyatt should improve its loyalty program