GrayAnderson

Largely what it says on the tin. I'm trying to sort out whether, on a stay of more than one night, this ever makes sense vs. doing a stock-and-convert. For example, if I took miles at a recent stay at Orlando, I effectively had a choice between 2600 points from Hyatt or 500-750 miles from an airline. For the most part, the 2600 points would convert into somewhere between 1300-2000 miles. Granted, it was a three-night stay, but the 500-750 is per stay, not per night (this is the same goofiness that has led to me switching hotels every night while on trips at times, even if I'm in the same city all nights).

In this context, on some level I'm wondering why the straight receipt of miles even exists as an option. Maybe it makes sense if it's a cheap stay for one night...but beyond that it seems like a spectacularly horrid deal.

craigthemif

Generally speaking it costs a hotel loyalty programme more to buy airline miles from a third party than it does to reimburse their own franchisees for hotel nights.

So logic suggests you'll get more value out of hotel points (= free hotel nights) than airline miles.

But as always YMMV and it all depends on each individual's behaviour (i.e. orphaned points from a 1-off stay are worthless if you're never going to return to that chain...)

GrayAnderson

Point taken (no pun intended...well, this time at least). As near I can tell, going for points on an airline makes sense if:
(1) I'm staying one night (since I assume nights that cost less than $200 are hard to come by); and
(2) The night would cost less than somewhere around $173-186 and there are no bonuses attached to picking points.

Why that oddly-specific amount, I hear you ask? Well, the conversion ratio of Hyatt points to VS points in a block of 50,000 is 1:0.7 (i.e. 35k points). Put another way, I'd need 1071 Hyatt points to convert to 750 VS points, and I get 5.75 Hyatt points per dollar spent with platinum status...1071/5.75=$186.34.

Re-running the calculation for Singapore, I would get 500 miles for a stay. I would need 1000 Hyatt points for those 500 miles, and 1000/5.75=$173.91. Basically...at most lower-end properties (i.e. not a Park Hyatt, for example), a one-night stay goes better with miles while a two-night stay or more (or a one-night stay with some sort of miles bonus) goes better with points. Why this is the case...I have no idea.

skywalkerLAX

I think a huge part of the argument here is if someone has status or not.

Diamond Status with Hyatt gives 1000 Points per stay which are (almost always) more valuable than the F&B Amenity, usually a mediocre cheeseplate etc. I value 1000 points with 14-17$ based on the way I utilize them. Unless you are at a Park Hyatt where the amenity would be a really nice bottle of wine or the like I always choose the points. I can't remember ever taking miles except the 1 or 2 promotions Hyatt had with AA in the past and you could earn a substantial amount of AA Miles.

If you do not carry status at a hotel chain (any) and don't anticipate/desire obtaining one it's almost always better to go for a third party channel and book it there. Either the hotel is outright cheaper by a large margin or you can at least apply instant codes for 10-15% off like they are readily available for Orbitz, hotels.com etc.

peteropny

You are entitled to the welcome amenity points regardless of whether you choose points or miles. So the only difference status makes is the 15% for Platinums and 30% for Diamonds bonuses.

nineworldseries

Your title confuses me - since you recognize (correctly) that choosing miles on any Hyatt stay over one night is a terrible deal, shouldn't it read "(. . .does going for miles ever make sense?)"