I am writing this short post from the Hyatt Place in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. While there is nothing out of the ordinary about this property or stay, it serves as a good reminder of the power of miles and points.
My daughter’s soccer team is currently playing in a national event at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. For those of you who have kids who play travel sports, you know how expensive all this travel can be. For those who don’t, our bank accounts are jealous. While fantastic for competition and exposure (we’ve had 11 girls commit to play D1 college soccer in the class of 2026 already), it’s a lot of time, travel and cost. Since early December, we’ve already traveled to California, Nebraska, Texas, and now Florida.
When we went to book the hotel, prices were quite high as we move into spring break season in Florida. Even booking a few months in advance, the cash rate at this property was $433.89 per night and that was for the advance purchase rate!
Hyatt Points to the Rescue
Fortunately, even though the hotel was near full occupancy, there were rooms available on points. At 9,500 points per night, that represents a fantastic value against the cash rate. At 4.6 cents per point value, it is on the very high end of what you can expect to get with Hyatt points. Compared with the advance purchase rate, booking with points also avoids the taxes and fees, and is cancellable.
TL;DR: Booking with hotel points can be a great option in cases where cash rates are inflated due to seasonal demand or special events in the area. In this case we would have had to pay over $400 a night for a limited-service hotel but instead booked the same room for 9,500 World of Hyatt points.
Thanks for blabbing about this. It’s now a category 12!
Pssst, there’s a map of hotels and categories. On the Hyatt website. With category filters. There are no secrets here, only explaining value.
Joke right? Category 12? Ha, ha. You’re previewing the new Hyatt rewards chart. Serious? In that case it’s still a category 2.
I think it was a joke but with the devaluations that have happened over the last few years, it’s hard to tell unfortunately. While I continue to find good value redemptions and appreciate a published award chart even with peak and off-peak pricing, the latest batch of category 4 properties moving to category 5 was painful and will further limit the usefulness of the category 1-4 free night certs.