When Hyatt Gold Passport relaunched as World of Hyatt, it added an interesting new promotion which generally passes people by. It is called Hyatt Brand Explorer.
The way that Brand Explorer works is that you receive a voucher for a free night at any Category 1-4 Hyatt property after staying at five different Hyatt brands.
What is intriguing about this promotion is that there is no time limit for completing it.
The promotion launched on 1st March 2017, so we are now three years in. This is what I have achieved so far (click to enlarge):
You will find a similar image when you log in to your own personal World of Hyatt account. It is under the ‘My Awards’ tab on the ‘My Account’ page.
As you can see, I have a ticks for Park Hyatt (multiple Hamburg stays), Hyatt Place (Hyatt Place Dubai Al Rigga review), Hyatt Regency (Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights review) and Hyatt Centric (Hyatt Centric Madrid review). This only leaves me with one to go!
Getting the 5th one should be easy, because there are still three large Hyatt brands – Grand Hyatt, Hyatt and Andaz – which I haven’t done yet. Even better, redemption stays count.
Here are the detailed terms from the Hyatt site:
“Earning a 5-Brand Free Night Award. Measurement of qualifying stays for a 5-Brand Free Night Award began on March 1, 2017, for stays where a Member pays an Eligible Rate and on January 1, 2018, for stays where a Member redeems a Free Night Award. Measurement continues over the life of a Member’s Program membership.
A Member may earn a “5-Brand Free Night Award” after paying an Eligible Rate or redeeming a Free Night Award for a completed stay of one (1) night or more at a participating hotel or resort from five (5) different Hyatt brands, namely: Park Hyatt, Miraval, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt, Andaz, Hyatt Centric, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, Thompson Hotels, Alila (some locations only), Joie de Vivre (some locations only), Destination (both participating Destination Hotels and participating Destination Residences locations, but only once the applicable location begins participating in the Program), Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Hyatt Zilara, Hyatt Ziva, or Hyatt Residence Club. No other brand counts toward earning this award. Properties within The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, while independently branded, will constitute a single Hyatt brand for purposes of earning a 5-Brand Free Night Award.
For example, a Member would earn a 5-Brand Free Night Award after paying an Eligible Rate or redeeming a Free Night Award for five (5) total one-night stays as follows: one at a Park Hyatt hotel, one at a Grand Hyatt hotel, one at a Hyatt Regency hotel, one at an Andaz hotel, and one at a Hyatt Centric hotel. A Member who previously earned a 5-Brand Free Night Award may earn an additional award only upon completing qualifying stays at another group of five (5) different participating Hyatt hotel brands. (That is, if you stay at a Park Hyatt hotel and that stay counts towards your first 5-brand Free Night Award, future stays at any Park Hyatt hotel or resort will not count towards a second 5-brand Free Night Award.) If accounts are merged, stay and award history will be consolidated for the purposes of calculating 5-brand Free Night Awards.”
What do you get when you hit five brands?
Completing the Brand Explorer award gets you a voucher for a free night in any Category 1-4 Hyatt hotel. It is valid for 12 months with the stay to be completed – not just booked – within that period.
Standard reward availability is required in order to use the voucher.
You can in theory earn the Brand Explorer free night twice by staying at 10 different Hyatt brands, but that is difficult unless you live in North America.
What is the voucher worth?
I tend to value a World of Hyatt point at 1p. A free night at a Category 4 Hyatt property is 15,000 points per night so you are looking at around £150 of value at best.
A free night potentially worth £150 is a decent return on five stays. It isn’t that simple, of course, since the 12 month restriction on using your free night means that you might not maximise the return.
There are some decent hotels in Category 1-4. Click here to see a list of Category 4 hotels. It includes such properties, in Europe, as:
Grand Hyatt Berlin
Hyatt Regency Dusseldorf
Hyatt Regency Hesperia Madrid
Hyatt Centric Milan
Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile
Park Hyatt Istanbul
Hyatt Regency Kiev
There are also some decent European hotels in Category 3, including Hyatt Centric Venice.
There are also a lot of independent hotels such as Luton Hoo which are available as part of the ‘Small Luxury Hotels’ partnership with Hyatt.
Conclusion
If you have done any Hyatt stays in the last three years, it is worth having a look at your Brand Explorer chart on the World of Hyatt home page to see how many you have ticked off. It is a fun and long-term way to earn a free night.
(Want to earn more hotel points? Click here to see our complete list of promotions from the major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Promos’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.)
About Head for Points
Hyatt also have a promotional rate going for healthcare workers – https://world.hyatt.com/content/gp/en/landing/healthcare-rate.html
Started this a few years ago, have 2 out of 5!
This is a great promotion, we used our free night last year at the Arden Stratford, which became available as a Category 4 when SLH entered the Hyatt loyalty scheme. A very good choice of hotel right now considering current foreign travel restrictions, for anyone just completing 5 brands. I tend to use Hyatt when I’m stateside more than any other chains, and after collecting Centric, Regency and Place I then completed the 5 with Park Hyatt in Zurich and Andaz in Amsterdam, highly recommend both of these. It’s the type of promotion I enjoy as it’s a simple incentive. The Arden often sells for £300+ so it was well worth it.
It’s apparently possible to get a 3rd free night after staying at 15 brands. Good luck with that one!
I’m currently on 8 out of 10. 15 different brands ? Unlikely 😁
I think it shows how tiny a footprint they have outside NA that they can run this sort of thing for years and most of us haven’t got more than 2 or 3!
BTW have checked back – my last Hyatt stay was June 2017 but not showing on my tracker. It was a redemption stay so perhaps they’ve only become eligible more recently?
Alan, I think it could be worth a phone call to Hyatt. Redemption stays should have counted from the beginning.
This is covered in the T&C’s which I copied and pasted into the article. Read the first couple of lines.