It’ll be tough to top the amount of travel we did in 2019 and we won’t be doing that in 2020. For one thing, I don’t have enough vacation time saved up. That pesky day job, unfortunately, gets in the way. That said, we still have some interesting trips planned including 10 days in Spain (Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid) which we scored ridiculously cheap tickets for last summer. We are also planning to go back to Maui with a stopover on Kauai this time. It’s booked but still tentative depending on how many snow days the kids’ school has this winter. My wife and I are also planning an anniversary trip this summer when the kids will be in sleep away camp. Next Christmas we are looking at a return trip to Dubai, including a side trip to Abu Dhabi. We’ll still be traveling in 2020, just not quite as often.

Points Strategy

With these trips in mind, we’ve put together an updated points strategy for the new year.

Marriott and Hyatt

We ended the year with my wife easily requalifying for Marriott Titanium status. We have spent many nights at the chain and will continue to do so in 2020, though we may scale back those stays slightly.

With our upcoming trip to Kauai and our anniversary trip planned this summer, we’re interested in some different properties to try. In Kauai, there is the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort which several bloggers list as their favorite. It certainly looks amazing so we’re interested in trying that. Additionally, for our anniversary trip, we found the Miraval wellness resorts. These are high-end all-inclusive resorts and spas that are places that we wouldn’t take the kids. They are also properties where we can use Hyatt points.

With those destinations in mind, I’ve applied for the World of Hyatt card which has a unique way to earn status through ongoing spend. For every $5000 you spend, you get two elite qualifying nights to go with the 5 nights you get for free by holding the card. The program is structured such that for every 10 qualifying nights you get some sort of benefit, whether it’s club lounge passes, suite upgrades, increased status, or a free night certificate. In theory, you could spend your way to top-level status without ever staying a night. That’s counterproductive but interesting that it’s possible.

From the beginning of the year, we’ll be putting a majority of our spend on this new card and staying in Hyatt properties whenever possible to help supercharge our status by the summer so we can use a club and/or suite upgrade for our Hawaii trip. While there are other cards some of that spend would earn more points, and in some cases earn even more Hyatt points, the focus will be on getting at least mid-level status by our summer trip.

Hyatt points are work quite a bit more than Marriott points in our limited experience. For Marriott points, I can often get around 1 cent per point. Or rather, if I can’t get at least that much I usually look for a cash rate instead. For Hyatt points, I’ve had great luck getting at least 2 cents per point in value. The Kauai property was a great value when I booked it and the Miraval resort, while it costs a ton of points, it costs even more in cash (often well over $1000/night).

So not only will I be earning Hyatt points spending on my new World of Hyatt Visa card, but we also have a stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards points which are a transfer partner with Hyatt. I transferred the necessary points to make the Kauai reservation since Hyatt doesn’t let you make a points reservation if you don’t have enough points as Marriott does.

In addition to focusing our spend on this card, I’ll do my best to stay in Hyatt properties when I travel for work and we’ll likely look for some cheap weekend rates at properties near our house. A night away in the dead of winter to a property with a pool (and free breakfast) for less than $100 can be a welcome relief and will help accelerate our way to the status we’re interested in.

Of course, there are only a finite number of nights per year we can stay in a hotel so it’s likely we won’t be able to keep my wife’s titanium status and will have to fall back to Platinum. There are a lot more Platinum members than Titanium members so it’s not as exclusive, but it still gets us free breakfast which is the benefit we value the most.

That said, it’s not uncommon for loyalty programs to have promotions that can help you earn qualifying nights more quickly. In 2019 Marriot had a promotion that allowed you to get 10 elite qualifying nights after 2 stays within a timeframe which was a fantastic deal. Hyatt has also had deals that helped you get bonus qualifying nights. I’ll be keeping an eye out for those.

Airline Status

I don’t talk much about airline status because we don’t really fly often enough to get status. That said, I ALMOST achieved JetBlue Mosaic status this year without trying. This is mainly because of our flight to Dubai on Emirates which I credited towards JetBlue because I needed the miles for an award flight to Orlando with my youngest.

Since we are planning to go to Dubai again for Christmas 2020 I’m going to concentrate as much of my flying on JetBlue as I can, including my work trips. In the end, I suspect I will come up a bit short as only the trip TO Dubai will be in 2020. The return trip will be in 2021 after the new year, but I might have enough other trips to make it. JetBlue is the largest carrier in our home airport in Boston and I really enjoy their product. The extra legroom in the regular coach seats is priceless to me, especially in transcontinental flights.

We also collect a lot of Citi ThankYou points for which JetBlue is a great transfer partner for us even though it doesn’t give us the maximum value. Transferring to JetBlue at worst breaks even with any fees we incur to pay things like our mortgage through Plastiq.

Through my wife’s Titanium status with Marriott, she gets United Sliver status which is the lowest level of status on that airline. Since she re-qualified for Titanium she’ll keep that status. It’s somewhat useful if she’s flying alone but most of the perks she gets I also get by holding the United MileagePlus Card. The only thing she gets is that we get to choose extra legroom seats for free. We don’t fly United often so it’s not a huge benefit, but we do take advantage of it when we can. She rarely flies United for her work so she doesn’t usually use that status on her solo trips either.

Summary

The big change for us is going after status with Hyatt in parallel with requalifying for at least Platinum status with Marriott. We’ll be moving a lot of our spend early in the year to my new World of Hyatt card which won’t be the optimal place to put the spend, but it’s not a bad option given the benefits we’ll get from that ongoing spend. We’ll see if this is the right decision. There are a lot of Hyatt properties all over the world that look very interesting and aspirational so we’ll be putting those on our list for future trips.

Happy New Year!