Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Using hotel night free certificates can sometimes be challenging. It’s possible to earn quite a few free night certificates at different brands if you’re active in miles and points. They often come as credit card perks but you can also get them from spending offers, promotions or other activity. Because you usually have to book these certificates one at a time and separate from other reservations, it can sometimes be challenging to use them

(SEE ALSO: Where I “wasted” my 2 IHG free night certificates)

(SEE ALSO: 5 best hotels to use your IHG free night certificate)

Combining A Hyatt Free Night Certificate and Points

I currently have 2 separate Hyatt free night certificates (Category 1-4). One is from the Hyatt Credit Card and the other is the Brand Explorer award from having stayed at 5 different Hyatt Brands

a screenshot of a company logo

I have an upcoming 4 night stay for our Hawaii Trip that I booked with the Turkish Airlines 7500 mile to Hawaii sweet spot. I was looking at the Hyatt Place Waikiki as one option, but I started wondering “Can I use my free night certificate and points on the same reservation?”. I found this article by My Points Life and it seemed like it would be possible to use points and a free night certificate all on the same reservation

How to use a Free Night Certificate and Points on the Same Hyatt Reservation

It actually is pretty easy to use a free night certificate and points on the same Hyatt reservation. Much easier than my experience trying to combine points and free night certificates at other brands in the past. The trick is that even though you want to use points and free night certificates, when you do your search, you need to select the CASH rates option. That will give you a list of different rooms with their price. You also need to make sure to choose the basic room that is available to book with points. This option for now only works on the Hyatt.com desktop version – not on mobile or on the mobile app.

Once you do, you’ll get a box that looks like this.

a screenshot of a credit card

Choose “Pay My Way”. If you don’t see the Pay My Way button, it means that your selection is not bookable with points. It could be because the room type you chose is not bookable with points, or you have too many people for a points booking or maybe that you need to book a longer stay to use points. Once you choose Pay My Way, you’ll get another screen where you can choose how you want to pay for your reservation.
a screenshot of a website

As you can see, you can choose cash, points, cash and points or a free night certificate (if you have one in your account). In my case, I wanted to use my free night certificate and 3 nights of points.

Can You Book With Cash and Points and Points On The Same Hyatt Reservation?

Yes – you can book a Hyatt reservation with both cash and points as well as straight points. Because Hyatt doesn’t have any type of 4th night or 5th night free like some other chains, there isn’t any benefit to using all points unless that’s what you prefer. You book your combined reservation in the same way as above, using the Pay My Way feature on Hyatt.com. Once you get the Pay My Way screen, you can choose any combination of points, cash, cash and points or free night certificates that you want

a front view of a hotel

The Bottom Line

Historically it has been my experience that using free night certificates and combining them with other points or cash reservations has been challenging. So I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to combine two types of payments on Hyatt’s website. I booked my 4 night stay using 3 nights paid with points and one free night certificate and it worked out great. And it was quite the added bonus to use miles and points (and certificates) to save over $1,000 on this reservation! Saving over $300 for one night (after taxes) is a pretty good return on investment for a $95 annual fee on the World of Hyatt credit card!

Did you know about how to combine free night certificates and points on a Hyatt reservation? Leave your experience in the comments


This site is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as thepointsguy.com. This may impact how and where links appear on this site. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them

User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.

BoardingArea