World Of Hyatt Points For Expired Awards?

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World of Hyatt members have the opportunity to earn free night award certificates, both through the World of Hyatt Credit Card (review), and through the Milestone Rewards program, including when earning elite status, whether it’s World of Hyatt Explorist status or World of Hyatt Globalist status.

While World of Hyatt will almost never extend the expiration date of these certificates, it might be possible to get some bonus points in exchange for expired certificates. In this post I wanted to share my recent experience with this.

Hyatt may offer points for expired free night awards

World of Hyatt issues both Category 1-4 and Category 1-7 free night awards. The expiration dates vary based on how they’re issued. Historically Hyatt has sometimes offered bonus points upon request if you have an expired free night award:

An expired Category 1-4 free night award may get you 10,000 bonus points
An expired Category 1-7 free night award may get you 20,000 bonus points

For context on World of Hyatt award free night pricing, a Category 4 property costs up to 18,000 points per night, while a Category 7 property costs up to 35,000 points per night. So as you can see, you’re basically getting a bit over half of the maximum value of the certificate, except points get you a lot more flexibility.

Now, a few important points to clarify:

This is not a published policy, but rather a courtesy, so you can’t count on this being offered
The certificate needs to expire before you can request the points; Hyatt almost never commits to offering points in advance, so you generally won’t even get an assurance that you’ll be offered this, meaning it’s a big gamble
Generally only expired free night certificates issued through the Milestone Rewards program are eligible for points, and not those issued through Hyatt’s credit card
The points courtesy is generally only offered for expired free night awards, and not for expired club access awards, suite upgrade awards, or Guest of Honor awards

Hyatt sometimes offers points for expired awards

My recent experience with an expired Hyatt award

I recently had a Category 1-7 free night award expire. It was totally my fault, but by the time I realized that it was about to expire, I didn’t have a good use for it anymore. So after it expired, I shot off an email to My Hyatt Concierge. I wrote the following:

I had a Category 1-7 free night award expire yesterday, that I forgot to use. I know Hyatt isn’t doing extensions on these nowadays, but is there any way to get a points conversion offer? I know this was something that was offered in the past, so I was wondering if it’s still a possibility. Thanks in advance if there’s anything you can do!

Someone responded in place of my usual representative within a couple of days, and wrote the following:

It’s unfortunate that you couldn’t utilize your Category 1-7 award. We always encourage our members to redeem their awards for their full value, but we recognize that sometimes circumstances may prevent this. As a result, we have credited 20,000 points to your account as a replacement for the award. These points are immediately available for your use.

Sure enough, the points posted to my account right away. Woot! If you aren’t part of the My Hyatt Concierge program but have an expired award, you can alternatively call World of Hyatt customer service, use the live chat feature in the World of Hyatt app, or contact Hyatt on Twitter.

Bottom line

While World of Hyatt generally won’t extend free night awards, the program seems to continue to be offering 10,000 to 20,000 bonus points for expired free night awards. Again, this isn’t a published policy, so don’t count on it always working, but I figured I’d share my recent data point, for anyone else who may find themselves in a similar situation.

If you do want to see if you can get points, just keep in mind you can only make the request after the certificate has been expired. That’s obviously risky if you could otherwise find a use for the certificate. Also keep in mind that this generally isn’t offered for free night awards earned with credit cards.

Any OMAAT readers have recent experience with getting points for expired World of Hyatt awards?

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