Buy Mr & Mrs Smith hotel gift cards via Hyatt and earn points PLUS elite night credits

Back in April, Hyatt bought the London-based Mr & Mrs Smith hotel marketing group.

Long term readers will know that Mr & Mrs Smith used to have a deal with IHG One Rewards, whereby certain Smith properties could be booked, for cash or points, via the IHG website.

This ended when Hyatt bought the company. At some point – but not just yet – it is very likely that some Smith hotels will appear on hyatt.com.

What is interesting about this deal is that Mr & Mrs Smith is not a hotel brand. It is, at heart, simply a travel agent with a strong brand and a focused niche on upmarket independent leisure hotels.

For Hyatt, it will end up similar to the Small Luxury Hotels affiliation. Hotels will not become Hyatt branded, or indeed Mr & Mrs Smith branded, but will agree to have their rooms sold via hyatt.com – for cash or points – in return for giving points and limited elite benefits to World of Hyatt members.

This is all in the future though.

You can gain from Mr & Mrs Smith bookings immediately

Hyatt has found a smart way to allow World of Hyatt members to benefit from Mr & Mrs Smith stays whilst negotiations with hotels over integration continue.

This is what you can do.

• Hyatt is selling Mr & Mrs Smith gift cards via this site

• You will earn the standard 5 World of Hyatt points for every $1 you spend on gift cards

• Elite members of World of Hyatt will earn their elite bonus on top

• You will earn 1 night towards elite status for every $300 of gift cards you buy

Here’s the important small print:

• You can only redeem gift cards AGAINST ROOM SPEND, not against food, drink, spa or other expenses

• You can only redeem gift cards on the Mr & Mrs Smith website – you can’t use them in the hotel or if booking via the hotel’s own website. You also won’t be able to use them on the Hyatt website when the hotels are finally integrated.

• Each gift card can contain up to $1,000 of credit and the Mr & Mrs Smith website allows up to five gift cards to be used in one transaction. You can use more but it requires customer services to process your booking.

• You won’t earn any additional World of Hyatt points or elite credit from your stay. Even when hotels join World of Hyatt, you won’t earn points or credit for booking via the Mr & Mrs Smith website which is the only place these gift cards can be used.

• Gift cards do not expire

• You can choose between an e-card and a physical plastic gift card

You also have the option of redeeming World of Hyatt points for a Mr & Mrs Smith gift card. However, I don’t recommend this. The rate is not fantastic – 8,333 points gets you $100 (£82.35) which is basically 1.0p per point. You can do better than this with a standard World of Hyatt redemption booking.

Is this deal worth it?

There are clearly a few scenarios where this deal looks interesting:

• If you were booking a hotel which is part of Mr & Mrs Smith (eg Chewton Glen, Lime Wood, Grantley Hall to name 0.15% of them) then you now have an option to earn some points from it

• If you are close to earning World of Hyatt elite status, this promotion is a way of buying elite nights towards 2024 status without having to do a hotel stay immediately. The same goes for anyone who earns status via base points, as the 5 points per $1 earned on gift cards count towards status.

There are downside risks:

• Assuming you use the gift card in the UK, you would need to use a credit card with 0% FX fees to buy the gift card, or the FX fee would wipe out much of the value of the points

• Mr & Mrs Smith may not have the cheapest rate or best package for the hotel you want to book

• You are reliant on the Mr & Mrs Smith website using a fair exchange rate if your hotel is not charged in $

Overall, however, this is a fairly elegant solution to plug the gap until Mr & Mrs Smith hotels are fully integrated into World of Hyatt.

PS. Amusingly, some hotels which are part of other brands appear on Mr & Mrs Smith. Planning a stay at the University Arms in Cambridge? It’s part of Marriott Bonvoy, but via this deal you could earn World of Hyatt points instead!

World of Hyatt update – December 2024:

Get bonus points: World of Hyatt is not currently running a global promotion

New to World of Hyatt?  Read our overview of World of Hyatt here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on what we think World of Hyatt points are worth is here.

Buy points: If you need additional World of Hyatt points, you can buy them here.

World of Hyatt is offering a 25% bonus when you buy points by 4th January 2025.  Your annual purchase limit is increased to 110,000 points and you could buy your 2025 allowance between 1st and 4th January to benefit twice. Click here to buy points.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Hyatt and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.