Any Globalists using only points?
 

Is there anyone else here like me? I am a Globalist leisure traveler. I earn and burn around 1 million Hyatt points a year. I exclusively book on points, the only cash I spend at Hyatt's are for incidentals during my stays, and this is usually minimal. I already have my stays booked to re-qualify for Globalist this year staying in mostly Cat 5-7 resorts. I'm mostly curious if there are any others playing this game like me.

You’re an edge case.

Also, I think you’d need a lot more than 1mm points per year to do 60 nights in mostly Cat 5-7s (unless by “mostly” you mean >50%)? Aside from the last two years when there were double EQN promos, halved elite qualification requirement, etc.

This year I have 16 nights coming from credit card spend (5 from the personal card, 6 for spending $15k, 5 from the business card). I will also collect 5 FNC's through credits cards and milestones. This leaves 39 more nights on points. I have already stayed at Regency Gainey ranch Cat 5 (4 nights), Maui Regency Cat 6 (8 nights), Andaz Mayakoba Cat 6 (7 nights), so far this year, and I have reservations for Andaz Maui Cat 7 (8 nights), Indian Wells Regency Cat 5 (6 nights), for later this year. I am also using my FNC's for 4 nights at the Eliza Jane. Those stays will take me very close to 60 nights, and I've only spend 596,000 points.

Basically, the only way I can think of to do would be through credit card spend, so you likely would have to have a business that you were funding through a credit card in order to get that much spend (and be against spending cash at Hyatt properties). There might be a few business owners on here that are similar.

I have some people in my personal life that only fund Hyatt stays on points from either WOH or Ultimate Rewards credit cards, but they aren't hitting that many points and consequently that many nights because they are only putting on reasonable day-to-day spend.

I don't have business spend, I just churn mostly Ink cards, using MS to meet minimum spend.

Another way could be through MS but that will end eventually. Shutdowns are inevitable at that pace. Does any US program transfer to Hyatt except Chase? I would not MS on Chase.

On the other hand Hyatt doesn't care; you are a pretty good customer. If they are selling a million miles on your behalf they are making more from you then they make from a lot of Globalists.

I'm just not sure why you spend a minimal amount while at resort properties. The whole point of a resort is to enjoy the property and all the amenities. If you are not going to use any of them you may as well stay at the Hyatt Place down the street. If I'm relaxing poolside I'm not going to deny myself a drink or some food just to save a few dollars... that would kind of ruin the trip.

When I visit urban properties it's not rare for me to check out with nothing charged to my folio but definitely not at a resort.

How long have you been doing that for? Seems ripe for a shut down if it’s mostly SUBs.

Ahhh, you'll find some folks on here who are amenable to MS and some who definitely aren't. MSing with Chase on a business card with no business stresses me out just thinking about it, but there are always different strokes for different folks.

Yeah and it will be brutal too, losing access to every Chase card for life.

I've done churning in the past but I won't mess with Chase or Amex.

Considering the hoops I had to jump through (multiple in-person branch visits to different branches) to even apply for a Chase card, I can't imagine messing with them and doing anything slightly off-the-books. Being shutdown forever would be a massive blow.

typically will pay cash if cash price is below $170(with tax)
anything above, i use points exclusively.

Globalist on points Can you give a breakdown of how much of that 1M yearly points is from

• credit card sign up bonuses
• manufactured spend
• actual spend
• bonus journeys
• milestones
• other categories

You're definitely going around and hitting the high value Hyatts. I have a pretty good stash of Chase points, but I still need to do quite a lot of them on paid nights.

On your list, I've done Mayakoba a few times on $$ because at least outside of Jan-Mar it's regularly got decently priced rooms (especially with Corp rates and/or Prive). Basically I'd never use points at Hyatt if I'm getting less than 1.5 cents/point. And generally aim for 2+.

I'm also going to agree with the other posters here - you can absolutely churn some on Ink cards and do some MS, but at your scale (particularly if it's just you and not P2/P3) it seems like you're very likely to run into a shutdown. To me it just isn't worth that risk because my Hyatt status is much more difficult to maintain and isn't as valuable/useful if I'm no longer able to earn/use chase points and cards.

Chase has a history of doing this. They will close every credit card and bank account you have with them. You will be allowed to transfer your points out (IIRC they either settled or lost a lawsuit about this during a previous round of shutdowns, and now their policy gives you some set amount of time to transfer your points after your account gets closed) and you will never be allowed to open another Chase card or bank account again, for life.

Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it. OP is flying a bit close to the sun, I think. For, what, $20k worth of points per year? Not worth it.

Ironically, my multi-week application saga with Chase led Hyatt to get a pretty good customer as I was trying to get the WOH card to maximize return on Hyatt purchases before I started adding Hyatt into my travel rotation (really wanted Discoverist for 2 PM late checkout to make up for the 4 PM I was getting at Bonvoy properties).

I have found Chase to be much harder to deal with from a CS side than Amex - not to mention their ridiculous 5/24 rule, but I'm grateful I stuck it out through the hassle.

There are some "manufactured spend" types who do generate enough points that get used for Hyatt stays that they do become Globalist on point stays. That said, I have seen some Hyatt accounts have an uptick in the percentage of award stays that don't credit as stays for some weird reason and thus need follow-ups for the award stays to count like they should for status acquisition/retention (and whatever else is tied to the stay counter).

Amex is nice in that they will tell you when you are applying that you won't get the bonus, but they are still happy to have you as a customer.

Chase is a little more punitive here. They know that you need them more than they need you and they just fire you.

I'm curious to know me about your story... were you shut down? Why did you have to jump through these hoops? I've never heard of anyone being "unfired" by Chase.

I've seen some "fired" Chase credit card customers get back in with Chase credit cards after a break of several years. Part of it may have had to do with becoming a Chase current account customer for the first time after being fired -- on at least the credit card side -- and waiting it out for some time after that.

Nope, no shutdown and no prior Chase account. I applied for the card and then was asked to send in a bunch of identity documentation by going into a branch. Went to branches several times to fax in the required documentation to no avail (the departments kept saying they hadn't received the faxes). Finally, I found a branch with a banker who was fed up after hearing my story and spent 30 minutes with me calling different internal phone lines to finally get me approved while I was sitting there. This specific banker was very nice even eating into their lunch hour because they felt like the process was not working out for me as it should have.

Not to hijack the thread but for my case, i am spending around 1MM on bonus categories with my business card and got back 2MM points so far.

Basically i am on the same boat as OP, globalist on point. Started with Hyatt biz card this year and i am planning to burn all my points.

Already booked a 7 night reward stay in Hyatt Ziva Cancun (x2 rooms) in Jul. The problem is i couldn't apply TSU so probably need to cancel this stay and go with other resort where i can book standard/premium suite. In planning process for other trips till end of year.

Bilt.

https://www.biltrewards.com/

It’s not an MS factory the same way Ink + gift card reselling is though.

Can I ask this as someone who is the amateur in this thread: I thought gift cards to cash was something that most CC's shut down via loophole and that biz cards were expected to be tied to an actual biz with accounts and such? Am I erroneous in my thinking? I mean I put almost everything travel-related on my CSR, save flights on my Amex PL, and daily stuff goes on the Freedom UL. But as a leisure and occasional biz traveler (3-4 overseas trips a year), I still can't come close to generating this kind of spend.

The difference between you and OP is that you are generating this from (presumably legitimate) business spend. I have no idea how OP could have the time and ability to do that much MSing.

I am in this boat. Globalist who does not travel for work but earns between 50-100k month in chase UR due to business spend / category bonuses. I do have the Hyatt CC as well for direct spend when necessary and my GF also has Chase cards to assist, but generally our stay breakdown looks like:

- 50% at higher end category 5-7 (usually personal trips & vacations that are pre-planned)
- 50% Category 2-4 at Hyatt Place or lower tier Hyatt Regency properties for short domestic weekends when visiting friends / family
- Sprinkle in the minimum 3x free night certs each year (1x for having Chase Hyatt CC, 1x for hitting 30 nights, 1x for hitting 60 nights)
- We also try to maximize the different points promos, double nights (when its a thing), specific brand promos (Thompson promo now for example)

*Only time we opt to pay for rooms is when some of the lower category properties are so cheap that it just doesn't make sense to use point.

My family do pure leisure travel so we choose some popular destinations and good resorts for our stay. With the constrain of our self-imposed no-skipping-school policy, we always see the ridiculous high cash rates, which makes point stay a pretty natural choice(of coz in involves some early plannings).

We travel 30ish nights and the rest comes from personal Hyatt cc spending. I might be loosing a few hundreds to 1k not maximizing cc bonuses but the 30ish full breakfast and TSUs worth more than that in our case.

This has nothing to do with spend. He is churning Ink cards for the SUB. This is a popular thing to do right now because they are easily churned and the bonuses are good. Eventually Chase will say "no more" and shut down all the people who are doing this, as they have done in the past with other cards.

Business cards are supposed to be tied to a business but the definition of business is pretty loose. Anyone can just have a sole proprietorship that doesn't do anything or make any money. There are no real requirements. Personally I choose not to open business cards because, again, I don't want to piss off Chase, but honestly opening one without a "real" business has no real risk because, again, there are no real requirements for a sole proprietership. It just uses your social. Churning them is a different story.

Makes perfect sense. Thanks so much for the explination.

Hi All,
Sorry for not responding earlier. Flyertalk doesn't let you do more than 5 posts in your first 24 hours.

Here is a breakdown of how I have earned my points in the last 12 months:

95% of my points are from credit card sign up bonuses. I have signed up for 8 UR/Hyatt earning cards. These 8 cards have netted me 890,000 points from the sign up bonuses and self-referrals (I also sign my spouse up for cards).

I had to spend about $75,000 to meet the minimum spends on these cards, probably about half of that was manufactured, with the rest was my normal organic spend, $2,000 - $3,000 per month. I don't manufacture spend other than to meet sign up bonuses and meet the $15k spend on the Hyatt personal card to get the FNC and 6 elite nights.

The amount of points I get from actual spend, bonus journeys, milestones etc is negligible. In the last 12 months it has been about 20,000 points mostly from the Bonus journeys 2-night bonus promo. Like I said above, I don't spend much while at resorts.

I've been churning cards for 5+ years now. I know the rules, and risks. I know all about the history of Chase shutdowns and other banks for that matter. I signed up for my first Hyatt card back when 5/24 didn't apply to it. I've rarely had to talk to a chase rep about my accounts. I've never stepped foot in a Chase branch. I have 800+ credit, $300k household income, stay around 2/24, and space out my applications to at least 90 days, and I lower my credit limit so that I get auto approved. I am an ideal customer from Chase's perspective.

Some of my other favorite stays include Alila Ventana, GH Kaui, PH New York.

I aim for 3+ c/pt. So far over the lifetime of my redemptions I've averaged 3.81 c/pt, this is skewed slightly by some out sized value stays (Presidential Suite at GH Kauai, and Big Sur Villa at Ventana).

I disagree about the shutdown risk. I'm not new to this game, I signed up for my first ink card in 2017, and have been slow and steady since then. I've studied the profiles of users that have been shutdown, and they are very different than what I am doing. I am down to 2/24 and stick to 1/90 velocity. I stay under the radar, and still bring in 1 million Hyatt points per year.

The good news is that nobody will become a Lifetime Globalist from MS-ing for points.

So eventually the credit card game ends, and the affected people will be forced to go see how much worse things are over at Hilton and Marriott...

How do you have eight sign up bonuses over the last twelve months if you're keeping around 2/24?

You do realize that Chase must pay Hyatt for these million points? They're likely losing money off of you. I doubt that you're an ideal customer.

To be clear, I'm super impressed that you've made it work. Well done.

All the cards I've signed up for in the last 12 months have been business cards, they don't count toward 5/24 and don't show up on my credit profile.

Yes, I realize that Chase is paying Hyatt for the points. Based on my automatic approvals, they don't seem to have a problem giving me more though. Their algorithm see's my high credit score, high income, low number of (personal) cards, and small amount of credit offered to me and automatically approves me for every new card I sign up for with them.

Thanks avogadro, it is a fun hobby!

Nobody? No, just not that many. There are some pretty creative people around who know how to make cream from MS milk and have already done so.

Last i checked credit card spend doesn't count for lt so no one will earn it based on cc spend.

Last I checked, MS-ing for points on some bank cards could be done so as to generate points that could be used toward Hyatt stay activity that counted and still counts toward lifetime Globalist status.

Yes, and then they do an audit, realize that you are gaming the system, and shut down all your credit cards and bank accounts with them, and never allow you to do business with them again.

Your should read some older threads from before the 5/24, when personal cards were churnable. It's not like this hasn't happened before. Chase is by far the most heavy handed with their shutdowns; the worst of any of the lenders. They even tried to confiscate the points in peoples' accounts (but they weren't allowed to do that, fortunately)

As far as I know, Lifetime Globalist can be only be achieved by base points, which can only be earned through paying cash on stays.

Points from some bank cards may be used to pay for paid rates at Hyatt where the stays count toward Hyatt base points for lifetime Globalist, and there has been MS using those cards to cover such Hyatt stays. The Hyatt credit cards aren’t the only bank cards out there used for MS, it’s just that the Hyatt cards are not useful for this purpose. But other cards have been useful to MS toward points that can be used to get lifetime Globalist status.

I take it this is the 1st time you have done this, how do you repeat it year after year? Or was your plan simply to be a Globalist for 1 year?