Hacking Your Honeymoon

Ashley and I had the pleasure of staying at the Alila Kothaifaru Maldives for our honeymoon in early January for 13 nights for 455,000 World of Hyatt points. In comparison rooms at this property can range anywhere from 800-2,000 USD a night or you can use 35,000 points a night which is a great return on value. During our trip we received the approximate value of 4.2 cents per point!

Ashley and I did opt for a cash upgrade to an overwater villa, since it was our honeymoon, but by no means is this necessary to enjoy this property.  Make sure to check out our Alila Property review here if you want to learn more about the hotel. 

How did we achieve this?

A combination of stays at Hyatt properties and credit card spend. 

In this blog, I will focus on the credit cards and keep in mind that Ashley and I saved up these Hyatt points over a few years for this aspirational trip.

Ashley and I use two methods to generate Hyatt points on credit cards. We use our World of Hyatt credit card for all expenses at Hyatt properties and we use the Chase Sapphire Reserve for all other bonus category spending. Full reviews of each credit card will be published next weekend.

However, you can also use any Chase cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points!

We are keeping these credit card details brief so this is not an exhaustive list of perks or benefits, but rather the ones we think are important. 

World of Hyatt Credit Card

Welcome Bonus: “Earn Up to 65,000 Bonus Points. 35,000 Bonus Points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in your first 3 months from account opening. Plus, up to 30,000 More Bonus Points by earning 2 Bonus Points”

Credit Card Categories:

• 9x at Hyatt Hotels - Plus additional points if you have status!

• 2x at Restaurants, Commuting costs, Airline Tickets purchased directly from airlines, and gym memberships.

• 1x on all other purchases

Annual fee: $95 

But you get a free category 4 free night certificate every year on your credit card anniversary date, and these are almost always worth more than $95.

Perks that Offset Cost

• Automatic discoverist status

• 2 elite nights for ever $5,000 spent

• Category 4 free night certificate every year on your credit card anniversary date, and these are almost always worth more than $95.

Chase Sapphire Reserve

Welcome Bonus: “60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.”

Credit Card Categories:

• 3x on all Travel Purchases

• 3x on Dining Purchases

• 5x on flights purchased through the Chase travel portal 

• 10x on Hotels and Rental cars purchased through the Chase travel portal 

• 1x on other purchases

Annual fee: $550

Perks that offset cost:

• $300 annual travel credit that are automatically used on travel purchases

• Priority pass membership for lounges, this one is special because it includes restaurants where you can take a guest and get $48 off your bill, which we use a lot. Pretty much a free full meal at many airports

• Travel Protections

If you are interested, apply through our referral link here.

Purchasing Points:

While I do not recommend this for most people, Hyatt does offer sales on points a few times a year. This can be a good way to get the points necessary for your trip that are cheaper than paying the cash rate for a room. This only works on specific high value redemptions so make sure you check the math and have an immediate plan to use them as points are consistently devalued over time!

Summary: If you take advantage of the intro bonuses alone you will have already earned 125,000 World of Hyatt Points. If you spend on these cards, stay at Hyatt Properties and even leverage a few other chase credit card intro bonuses you can rack up the World of Hyatt Points necessary for your aspirational trip in no time.