Transfer Speed (Hyatt to Virgin Atlantic...er...Singapore...)
 

Has anyone had any experience with this? I'm in the middle of trying to arrange an (annoyingly complicated) trip and I was wondering if Hyatt tended to transfer points instantaneously/quickly or not. Basically...if an HKG-LON-NYC award pops on Virgin Atlantic I'm hoping to bag it, but if it doesn't I don't want to have an excess pile of Hyatt points (which also transfer to Singapore, which is another part of my trip) dumped into Virgin (where I have a slow stream of CC earning).

Edit: Er...per below, make that Singapore...

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/gb/en...fer-miles.html

Everybody is of course free to do whatever they like with their Hyatt points, but Flying Club currently have a bonus promo on buying miles, which brings the net price within the realms of sensible behavior, saving those precious Hyatt points for a better use.

Just checking my math (which may or may not be accurate), but $2725 for 130,000 miles comes out to 2.096 cents/point?

Considering that this would weigh against a ticket that would, by my math, theoretically run me $12,900? Good call. I saw the bonus promo but the price per 1000 miles sort-of scared me off. In that case I'm going to consider Singapore to be the more logical use (at least, post-AGR Derailment).

Edit: Even if I get bagged for $500 LON-NYC, that's not the end of the world.

Edit 2: So...er...Singapore transfer rates, anyone?

Most of us do not transfer Hyatt points to airlines. But generally you make the transfer, then Hyatt sweeps the accounts I believe every 2 weeks over to the airlines. So it's not instantaneous but the time it actually takes could be a couple of days to about 3 weeks or so generally depending on how you catch the cycle.

Essentially Hyatt points convert to miles at 2:1, if you move in chunks of 50K points. I think many people value Hyatt points at around 1.5 cents apiece, more or less. So that works out to 3 cents per mile... Much more than the cost of buying from most airlines and much less value than transferring some other kind of credit card points (Chase, Amex, etc.).

Another way of looking at it... 200k Hyatt points = 100K VS. (with surcharges on top to book the flight) Most of us would take the 10 free nights at a Category 5 Hyatt (or almost 7 nights at a Category 7...)

Uh, Hyatt transfers to VS at 4:3 (e.g. 100k Hyatt=75k VS), which is why that was my preferred transfer option (it comes to about $0.02/point in "cost"). Almost all the other airlines are at 2:1 (though there are a few others in between the two).

The other motive, to be clear, is that I'm presently showing UC HKG-LON-NYC going for 100k points plus...basically airport fees and UK APD (HKG restricts add-on fees, apparently...I just about fell out of my seat when I saw basically a $22 fee HKG-LON, and the HKG-LON-NYC). That's a $13,000 ticket from what I can tell. I don't know what a night at a Cat 5 would usually go for, but I'm guessing it's a bit less than $1000. Normally I wouldn't be jumping at that, but everything sort of hit a "sweet spot" and HGK-LON-NYC is actually a useful segment for me with a trip I have coming up.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on this. Ultimately, SQ doesn't allow buying points (VS does) which sealed the deal. As much as I'd enjoy a few free nights, it really came down to the conversion being one of a very few avenues I have towards piling up points there. It isn't quite the 1:1 of SPG (which I'm avoiding right now for what should be obvious reasons) but at this point it's better than nothing.

Hope you aren't paying APD if you're flying HKG-LON-NYC with <24h in LON, it's not applicable to transit pax (however if you're stopping over, you do pay).

Well, am only paying £2-something (approximately HKD2400). HKD140 of that was HKG-LON. Considering what I would pay LON-NYC normally am happy. Of course am also going to check and see if VS just has a very odd conversion rate for HKD in their system.