Ever since the new World of Hyatt Visa was released by Chase, it has been in my cross-hairs. I mean, the card was enough (along with an increased Alaska card offer) for me to rethink the 5/24 strategy my wife and I had been playing [SEE: Why I’ve stopped being concerned about 5/24 (again)]. She successfully applied for the card and is on track to hit the full 60,000-point sign-up bonus by the statement closing early next month.
But I’m still interested in picking up the card myself. Since it offers 2 elite qualifying nights for every $5,000 in spend, it potentially provides an avenue to earning top-tier Hyatt Globalist status. Being able to manufacture this status would completely change my hotel loyalty outlook [SEE: Hammering out my hotel and airline loyalty plans for 2019 (and beyond)].
The question is…should I take the easy route and simply upgrade my current card? Or should I cancel this week and reapply? Let’s analyze the risk and reward.
Risk-free: upgrading my current card
There is an easy path to getting my hands on the new World of Hyatt Visa: upgrade my current Hyatt Credit Card to the new product. There was an offer of 2,000 Hyatt points for doing so, which is pretty lame. I’m not even sure if this is still being offered. If they were offering something in the 15,000+ range, I’d probably go this route.
If my only goal is getting the new World of Hyatt Visa in my wallet, this is the quick and simple plan. One phone call to Chase will convert my current card, increasing the fee but adding all the perks I’m looking for. No hard pull, either. But it would leave me with an empty Hyatt account balance, just like I have now.
Risky: cancel my card and reapply for the new one
The other strategy is quite a bit riskier, but there is a much bigger reward. Instead of converting my existing card to the new World of Hyatt card, I could cancel my existing card and reapply for the new version. This would net me 60,000 Hyatt points, which I personally value at $900. I just paid the fee for my other card in September, so this would come at a cost of $95. The risk here is that I may not be approved, even though the World of Hyatt Visa is one of the Chase cards that is *not* (yet) subject to 5/24 (SEE: Chase possibly expanding cards subject to 5/24?).
The window is closing fast for this strategy to work. I would have to cancel in the next couple days, wait for 30 days, and then apply for the new product at the very end of November. I thought I’d read that the new card offer would be available through November 30, but I cannot confirm this anywhere. If that is the case, there isn’t much wiggle room.
I would be entirely willing to take the risk if the only downside was being stuck without a Hyatt card at all. Sure, I’d lose the opportunity to earn an annual “free” night, and I would no longer be able to upgrade to the new card. I’d be without a Hyatt card entirely. But I can live with that, which I address below.
The bigger worry is that a new application could potentially trigger a Chase shutdown. There are many reports of Chase going after people who apply for too many cards in too short a time. While I’ve not applied for a new Chase card since the beginning of 2017, I’ve applied for quite a few other products in that time. Fortunately, most of this year’s new accounts have been business cards with non-Chase issuers, which shouldn’t show as new accounts on my credit report. My guess is that this risk isn’t too great in my case, since I don’t do much MS on my Chase cards. But it’s still a healthy risk.
Backup plan: my wife earns Globalist
If I go with the risky plan of canceling and reapplying and then am *not* approved, . As my wife isn’t the one who travels for work, it would certainly make earning Globalist a bit harder. The vast bulk would have to come from credit card spend. Without my wife staying a single night with Hyatt, we would have to spend $140,000 on the card to earn Globalist. This would probably be a non-starter, even taking into consideration manufactured spending opportunities, but it is an avenue nonetheless.
If my wife earns Globalist, she would then be able to use the Hyatt Guest of Honor program to make bookings for my stays. It would be a roundabout way of having my cake and eating it, too. But as I mentioned, the path to Globalist in this case would be much more difficult.
Conclusion
At this point, I’m leaning toward the riskier plan. The one thing that has kept me from it is the potential of losing all my Chase accounts. Due to their 5/24 rule, Chase has turned me into a pretty good customer this past couple years. I spend on their cards routinely and am hanging onto six of them. It would hurt immensely to lose this relationship.
What would you do in my shoes?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
You could net another 10k points if your wife refers you to the card when you re-apply.
Exactly what I’ll do! 🙂
i was afraid of chase shut down too, but both hubby and I decided to open another IHG card. We were instantly approved and no problems. I looked at flyertalk for those applying for IHG card and hardly any reports of shut down. I also have the old Hyatt card coming up on another fee, but couldn’t get the new one until end of march, so hope it’s still around and they haven’t changed the 5/24 rule for Hyatt! Interesting that you can hold 2 IHG cards, but only 1 Hyatt.
You don’t need to wait 30 days. Multiple reports in FT of approvals as little as 7 days after cancel.
Personally I don’t think you fit the profile of the customer that Chase is terminating. I think if you limit to one Chase app per year (as I do) you should be fine. And stay away from mfr spend. They don’t want the people who apply for multiple cards, collect bonus, and cancel – all on an annual basis.
I just did the “risky” strategy – cancelled old Hyatt Visa, waited a little over 30 days, and applied successfully for the WOH one. Currently working through the spend requirement. I’m probably 7 or 8 out of 24 per Chase’s rule and have been more active opening cards with Amex, Citi in recent years, so I was not shut down and the 5/24 exclusion for the WOH Visa still applies.