Points and Miles University

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45 Hyatt Category 1-4 Hotels For a Fabulous Free Night Award Redemption - Master List

💡Tl;dr - On, March 25, Hyatt went live with its 2025 changes to its award charts. As such, I've highlighted some properties that make for snappy redemptions using a category 1-4 Free Night Award Certificate. Each year, Hyatt shakes up its portfolio and adjusts the redemption costs

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45 Hyatt Category 1-4 Hotels For a Fabulous Free Night Award Redemption - Part 4: Caribbean, Central and South America

💡Tl;dr - Today, March 25, Hyatt goes live with its 2025 changes to its award charts. As such, I wanted to highlight some properties that could be great redemptions with a category 1-4 Free Night Award Certificate. Each year, Hyatt shakes up its portfolio and adjusts the redemption costs

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45 Hyatt Category 1-4 Hotels For a Fabulous Free Night Award Redemption - Part 3: North America

💡Tl;dr - Tomorrow, March 25, Hyatt will go live with its 2025 changes to its award charts. As such, I wanted to highlight some properties that could be great redemptions with a category 1-4 Free Night Award Certificate. Each year, Hyatt shakes up its portfolio and adjusts the redemption

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45 Hyatt Category 1-4 Hotels For a Fabulous Free Night Award Redemption - Part 2: Europe and Africa

💡Tl;dr - This coming Tuesday - March 25, Hyatt will go live with its 2025 changes to its award charts. As such, I wanted to highlight some properties that could be great redemptions with a category 1-4 Free Night Award Certificate. Each year, Hyatt shakes up its portfolio and

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45 Hyatt Category 1-4 Hotels For a Fabulous Free Night Award Redemption - Part 1: Asia and Oceania

💡Tl;dr - Next Tuesday - March 25, Hyatt will go live with its 2025 changes to its award charts. As such, I wanted to highlight some properties that could be great redemptions with a category 1-4 Free Night Award Certificate. Each year, Hyatt shakes up its portfolio and adjusts

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Transferring HawaiianMiles to Alaska MileagePlan and Vice Versa

💡tl;dr - As I recently did it for an upcoming redemption, I thought it’d be helpful to do a step-by-step walkthrough of turning HawaiianMiles into Mileage Plan Miles.  By now, you may have heard that Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines have merged. One of the first items checked

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Quick Hack: Use Your Browser's Developer Tools to See Which Hyatt Promotions You've Registered For

💡Tl;dr - A browser hack to view the Hyatt promotions you've previously registered for.  Yesterday, I wrote about Hyatt's current promotion at Hyatt Vacation Club properties and how you could get some solid value if you meet the right criteria. While writing this piece, I

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Hyatt Releases its 2025 Property Category Reshuffling: Nothing Too Drastic

💡Tl;dr - Hyatt released its 2025 property category chart, and as is usually the case, some notable properties have moved up a category while others have moved down. Each year, usually sometime in mid-Q1, Hyatt will release an updated property category chart where travelers can see which properties have

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Capital One Adds JetBlue As a Transfer Partner: Ratio is Not Competitive

💡Tl;dr - You can now transfer Capital One rewards to JetBlue's TrueBlue. While learning about new uses for your versatile bank points is always great, the transfer ratio is not promising. Capital One has added JetBlue's TrueBlue as a transfer partner, allowing you to freely

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PointsCalendar: A Lightweight, Powerful, and FREE Hotel Award Availability Tool

💡Tl;dr - A quick look at another award tool that can help you find hotel award night availability - PointsCalendar A few weeks ago, I wrote a triad of pieces covering some of my favorite tools I used for award travel. (Parts 1, 2, and 3 are here). I

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Speedrun Your Way to Meaningful Elite Status for Each Major Hotel Chain with These Shortcuts

💡Tl;dr - The fastest ways to get to a meaningful status in each major airline or loyalty program. My favorite travel tips and hacks are the ones that help everyday folks get meaningful value with minimal effort. To that end, I wanted to publish a short piece identifying the

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Want to Fly Qatar Q-Suites? Hint: Try Booking with Virgin Australia

💡tl;dr–Virgin Australia and Qatar Airways recently deepened their partnership, which includes new routes from Doha to Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth and more award seating for Q-suites bookable on Virgin Australia. Gold in the Inbox I usually ignore emails from most frequent flier programs, but the Velocity Frequent Flyer

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Quick Tip: Time the Selection of Your Hyatt Milestone Awards to Push Out the Expiration Dates

💡tl;dr - Nothing monumental here - just offering a quick heads up that the expiration for Hyatt award certificates is based upon the date you select the award, as opposed to the day you earned the award. Remember this fact in order to maximize the utility of your Milestone

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Nightly Upgrade Awards: Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Bonvoy Elite Annual Choice Benefit

💡Tl;dr - The usefulness of Night Upgrade Awards continues to be hit or miss for many Bonvoy Elites. I've had a fair amount of success using these awards, so I'm sharing some simple tips to maximize your chances of confirming your upgrade. All of the

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The (possibly) Definitive List of How to Safari in Africa on Points in 2025 and Beyond

💡tl;dr—Redeeming points for 'bucket-list' travel is exciting and makes a trip feel just a bit more memorable. As I've recently written about my first points-safari experience, I wanted to answer the question—where else can you go on safari in Africa on points? Consider

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Luxury Hybrid Accommodations That'll Get You Closer To Nature

💡tl;dr - While I love the outdoors, I'm not a big fan of camping. Thus, hybrid accommodations in or near nature have long intrigued me. This piece originated from a list I sent to a friend looking for off-the-beaten-path adventures in their newfound free time after leaving

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Art of the Hedge - Using Budget Air Fares to Wait Out Award Availability

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'Tis Better to Give...and Receive: Get Last Minute Elite Night Credits Toward Status by Gifting Hyatt Guest of Honor Awards

💡tl;dr—Are you a few elite nights short of qualifying for next year's Hyatt Globalist, Explorist, or Discoverist status? If you have any Guest of Honor Certificates you don't plan on using for your travels, consider gifting them to a friend (or relative, really anyone)

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Tools I Use for Award Travel - Scoping Out Hotel Availability - Part 3

💡tl;dr—We're basking in the Pax Romana of online travel tools, as there are many wonderful applications to help you find open availability to redeem points for hotel stays. In this third installment, I'll cover the tools I use the most to scope out availability

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Hyatt Brand Explorer Remix

💡tl;dr: If you haven't checked in on Hyatt's Brand Explorer in a while, you should take a quick peek. Several new and exciting properties in the Hyatt portfolio present more options for knocking off some of the more elusive brand stamps in your Brand Explorer

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Tools I Use for Award Travel - Finding Award Fares - Part 2

💡tl;dr - We're basking in Pax Romana of online travel tools, as there are many wonderful applications to help you discover routes, search, find, and book award travel. In this piece, I'll cover the tools I use most to unearth awards airline fare. Disclosure: I

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Tools I Use for Award Travel - Discovering Nonstop Routes - Part 1

💡tl;dr - We're basking in Pax Romana of online travel tools, as numerous applications exist to discover routes, search, find, and book award travel. In this piece, I'll cover the tools I use most to unearth flight routes. Disclosure: I won't cover every

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Introduction to Points and Miles - a Primer

Check out this beginner's guide to kickstart your points and miles journey!

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The Power of Buying Points and Miles

💡Tl;dr - This piece is a short one. It's a simple FYI and a call to action. There has never been a better time to buy points due in part to the advancement of award availability tracking tools and the frequency by which points are sold. Nowadays,

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Don't Get Caught Slipping! - Do this ONE Administrative Task to Prepare for Your Next Redemption.

💡tl;dr - Missing out on a great redemption can be painful, even worse when your poor preparation is to blame. By taking a few minutes to ensure you have valid accounts for all the major airline and hotel loyalty programs, you'll be well-positioned to take advantage of