Shortly after Marriott launched its own 5 night bonus on the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card, Hyatt is out with a 5 free night offer on its personal credit card. But read my take below before you apply—if you don’t have an immediate plan to use the certificates, this offer may actually be worse for you.
Here are the best new cardmember welcome bonuses available on the Hyatt credit cards.
World of Hyatt Credit Card welcome offer
Welcome offer: Earn up to 5 free nights: Earn 3 free nights after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months of account opening. Plus, 2 free nights after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 6 months. Free nights can be redeemed at any Category 1-4 Hyatt hotel or resort worldwide. Offer ends February 26, 2026.
Hyatt card offers offer either World of Hyatt Bonus Points or category 1-4 free night certificates.
Unlike most other cards, which award the advertised bonus in addition to what you’d normally earn, the World of Hyatt Credit Card welcome offer’s $15,000 spending tier includes the points you would normally earn. Keep this in mind when evaluating the value of this welcome offer.
Annual fee: $95
World of Hyatt Business Credit Card
Offer: Earn 60,000 Bonus Points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months of account opening.
This bonus is awarded as World of Hyatt Bonus Points.
Annual fee: $199
My take: Don’t assume that the 5 free night certificate offer is better
I don’t find it surprising that Hyatt came out with a 5 free night certificate offer on its credit card shortly after Marriott launched a 5 free night offer on its $95/year card. But the five free night offer has some downsides.
First, free nights expire, so be sure that you have a plan to use all of them within a year after earning them, or else you’ll get significantly less value from your Hyatt card.
Second, Hyatt free night certificates can’t be topped off like Marriott certificates. The upside to this is that they can be used for peak pricing at category 4 hotels. The downside is that you can’t use category 1-4 certificates at all for category 5 and higher hotels.
Comparing this bonus with the regular bonus, it’s not actually that much better. Here’s a quick comparison of what you’d earn with the new bonus vs. the old bonus:
| Increased bonus | Old Bonus |
| $5,000 spending in 3 months 3 category 1-4 free night certificates | $3,000 spending in 3 months 30,000 World of Hyatt bonus points |
| $15,000 spending in 6 months 2 category 1-4 free night certificates (unclear if this includes the certificate you would normally earn) | $15,000 spending in 6 months 30,000 World of Hyatt bonus points (only 15,000 points more than you would normally earn) |
At the low tier, assuming you’ve got a plan to use the certificate for at least a moderately-priced category 3-4 hotel, you’ll come out ahead with the increased bonus. But it’s unclear whether the 2 category 1-4 free night certificates mentioned in the offer are in addition to or include the category 1-4 certificate you’d earn anyway by spending this much on the card.
Now, Frequent Miler is currently reporting that you will actually get a total of 6 free night certificates after you spend $15,000 on this card.
If you complete the second tier, you’ll actually end up with 6 certs, since the card automatically earns one after $15,000 in annual spend.
World of Hyatt card: Increased welcome offer of up to 5 Category 1-4 free night certs
Tim Steinke, Frequent Miler, January 15, 2026
While I generally trust Frequent Miler, this seems inconsistent with how this card in particular has advertised and awarded its welcome bonus in the past. Typically the World of Hyatt credit card’s welcome bonus is advertised as a 60,000 point welcome offer after a total of $15,000 spending. But that 60,000 points includes the points you would earn anyway from spending on the card.
My assumption would be that the advertised bonus includes the free night you’d get anyway after spending $15,000 on the card in a calendar year, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong. I’ll update this post if I get confirmation from Chase and/or Hyatt about how this works in practice.
My bottom-line take on this bonus is: If you’ve got an immediate plan to use Hyatt category 1-4 certificates, it’s probably a better bonus for you. But I wouldn’t apply for this card speculatively—absent a plan, I’d much prefer earning points that don’t expire.
Are you eligible to earn a Hyatt credit card bonus?
With the Hyatt credit cards, generally you’re able to earn a welcome bonus if you don’t currently have the same card and you haven’t received a bonus within the previous 24 months.
Keep in mind that the personal and business cards are seperate products for the purposes of welcome bonus qualification and that the 24-month eligibility clock starts from when you received the bonus. Not when you opened the card, not when you earned the bonus.
Here are the exact terms from the last time we reviewed them on the personal card:
The credit card is not available to either (i) current Cardmembers of this credit card, or (ii) previous Cardmembers of this credit card who received a new Cardmember bonus for this credit card within the last 24 months.
World of Hyatt Credit Card offer terms
And the terms on the business card are quite similar:
This new Cardmember bonus offer is not available to either (i) current Cardmembers of this business credit card, or (ii) previous Cardmembers of this business credit card who received a new Cardmember bonus for this business credit card within the last 24 months.
World of Hyatt Business Credit Card offer terms
More on the Hyatt cards
Want to dive deeper and compare the two Hyatt credit cards? We have a complete guide to the Hyatt credit cards, which compares all of the cards’ benefits side-by-side.
