Hyatt just announced the first credit card in the hotel chain’s history, the Hyatt Gold Passport from Chase. The card is getting tons of press because of its unusual sign-up bonus, as described in the press release:
After the first use of the credit card, members will receive, courtesy of Chase and Hyatt, two nights at any Hyatt anywhere in the world which are redeemable within one year. This benefit makes the Hyatt Card unique among hotel reward cards, which typically require the translation of award points into stays and have limitations on the properties where the points can be redeemed.
They’re not just blowing smoke either, this is unique. However, these types of signups are generally intended to sell consumers like me and you on sub-par credit cards. As a general rule, the most catchy marketing implies the most onerous terms and conditions. But I did a bit deeper analysis, and that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
How does it stack up?
I’ll run through and break down all the relevant points from the press release:
- Two free nights with signup. This is probably the most generous signup bonus I’ve ever seen. There are several Park Hyatt hotels where rooms go for over $400 a night. I haven’t been able to verify that Park Hyatt qualifies, but the fine print seems unambiguous. In this case, $800 even beats out American Airline’s recent 75,000 mile promotion.
- Zero foreign transaction fees. This means that you won’t pay any fees for purchases made abroad or at home in foreign currencies. Most cards charge up to 3%, as you can see in our foreign transaction fee table, and only a handful of the 600+ cards in our database charge nothing.
- Hyatt stays earn more. Stays at Hyatt hotels earn 3x rewards, while all other purchases earn 1 point per dollar. Plus our analysis shows that Hyatt rewards are second only to Starwood points. We estimate each point to be worth ~1.5 cents, while most other hotels fall below 1 cent, and Starwood takes the lead at 2.3 cents, as you can see in our hotel rewards infographic.
- Simple and easy redemptions. No blackout dates, no limit on available standard rooms and no resort fees. Pretty much speaks for itself.
- Automatic Platinum status. Gets you a 15% point bonus on each stay, as well as priority room selection, and free internet access (this is big if you know how expensive hotel internet can be).
- Annual fee of $75. The highest annual fee of all the hotel rewards cards we track, tied with the Hilton HHonors Surpass. But given the advantages listed above, it’s probably worth it.
Starwood – the Other Contender
As mentioned above, the Starwood Amex is the only hotel credit card we track that beats the Hyatt card, and it wins by a decent margin. So unless you’re tied to Hyatt hotels, you should give it a look as well. They might be raising their annual fee from $45 to $65 soon, but we recently wrote about how the Starwood Amex rewards program is still worth every penny.
If you still need convincing, compare these and other cards on our travel miles rewards cards page, or click the icons below for a full breakdown of each card.
| Hyatt Card | Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express | ||||||||
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| Signing Promo | |||||||||
| None - 2 free nights at any Hyatt, worldwide, the first time you use the card. | 25,000 Starwood Points Bonus after spending $5,000 - 10K with your first purchase and another 15K when you spend $5K within 6 months - enough for 6 free nights at a Category 1 or 2 hotel | ||||||||
| Intro APR Promo | |||||||||
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| Annual fee | |||||||||
| $75 | $0 the first year, then $65 | ||||||||
| Details | |||||||||
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