🏨 Hyatt drops a new booking platform on us

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 2 seconds

Goooood morning, and welcome back to Daily Drop, the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream of newsletters. We simply get better with each bite.

Speaking of sweet, here are today’s highlights:

• 🏨 Hyatt introduces new "Homes & Hideaways” platform

• ✈️ Earn 5x bonus miles on United flights to Europe

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

🏨 Hyatt introduces new "Homes & Hideaways” platform

Hyatt has announced a new platform for booking vacation rentals, which is… honestly, it’s kind of meh.

Hyatt Homes & Hideaways is a new addition to the Hyatt suite of products that allows travelers to book vacation rentals and homes.

When booking these properties through Hyatt, you can both earn and redeem Hyatt points on the properties, which is definitely a neat perk.

Here is how many points you’ll earn when booking:

• Hyatt members: 5 points per dollar

• Discoverist members: 5.5 points per dollar

• Exploits members: 6 points per dollar

• Globalist members: 6.5 points per dollar

In other words, the earning rates are the same as you’d earn on normal Hyatt stays, which is great.

Marriott has a similar program (Marriott Homes & Villas), but their earning rates are significantly lower than normal hotel earning rates, so I’d say Hyatt has the edge here.

Additionally, you will earn elite night credit to help boost you to elite status, which is another nice perk.

There is one major drawback to this new program, however…

You don’t get any elite benefits when staying at these properties. So if you have Globalist status, don’t expect any kind of special treatment.

It makes sense though. These aren’t normal hotels, so things like free breakfast, suite upgrades, etc. don’t really apply anyway.

As I mentioned earlier, you can also redeem Hyatt points on stays, but I wouldn’t recommend doing so…

I ran a few sample searches, and it looks like you can generally only get about 1.2 cents per point in value when redeeming Hyatt points.

For example, this cozy lodge in Colorado costs $386 per night, but a whopping 32,000 Hyatt points… 😬

For reference, that’s enough Hyatt points to book NINE nights at a Category 1 hotel, or even enough to book a night at a bucket list hotel like the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, which only costs 30,000 points per night.

Unless you’re really in a tight place and need to use your points for a vacation rental, I’d strongly urge you to save them for a better-value redemption.

So here’s my take:

Hyatt isn’t doing anything groundbreaking here. There are plenty of other platforms to book vacation rentals out there, so I wouldn’t advise using this particular one without shopping around for other good deals too.

Still, for people who like staying in these types of accommodations and also want to rake in a few extra Hyatt points along the way, it could be a nice option.

Plus, I’m never upset to see Hyatt pushing the envelope and expanding their program. After all, that is why we love Hyatt. 🤷‍♂️

✈️ Earn 5x bonus miles on United flights to Europe

I don’t know about you, but I want to go to Europe right now.

But that’s not enough for me… I want to go to Europe AND earn a boatload of points in the process.

Is that too much to ask?

Clearly, United doesn’t think so. Because they have just come out with a promo to do… well… exactly that.

Right now, you can earn 5x bonus United miles on economy flights to/from Europe.

Here are the details:

• You need to register for the offer (though any MileagePlus member is eligible)

• This only applies to economy flights between the U.S. and Amsterdam, London, and Paris

• Basic economy flights are not eligible

• Connecting flights DO count as long as one leg is to/from the cities listed above

• You must book and complete your flights before December 13th, 2023

• You can earn a maximum of 50,000 bonus miles from this promo

So yeah, there’s quite a bit of fine print, but overall this is not too shabby at all. Late fall and early winter is a great time to head to Europe, in my opinion.

I enjoy the cold weather, and REALLY enjoy the lower numbers of tourists…

Plus, 5x miles is nothing to take lightly… for example, let’s take this flight from Newark to Frankfurt costs $1,010 round-trip. (Remember, you can’t book basic economy with this promotion)

Since each direction has a leg between Newark and Paris, the 5x bonus miles would apply here.

Remember, you only earn miles on the base fare, which in this case is $800. The rest is taxes and surcharges, which do not earn miles.

With the promotion, you’d be earning 8,000 total miles (5x base miles and 5x bonus miles) from this journey, which is not a bad return on your spending at all.

If you have elite status with United, you’ll earn even more total miles as well. Here is a quick chart that breaks down the earnings of this promo based on your level of status with United:

Overall, this is a great way to maximize the return on your spending for anyone interested in checking out Europe between now and December 13th. Just be sure to register for the offer before booking and taking your flights.

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

Correct answer: The University of Al Qarawiynn, Morocco

Really, I should say this is the world’s “first university,” since the “oldest” is debated. Maybe I’m just confused here, but wouldn’t the “first” one be the “oldest”? Oh well.

The University of Al Qarawiynn was actually founded by a woman named Fatima al-Fihri back in 895 CE.

You might now recognize the institution under the name “The University of Al Quaraouiyine," which is what it has been called since 1963 when it was incorporated into the country’s state university system.

With many of the oldest universities being found in Western Europe, it’s pretty cool that the number one spot sits in the Middle East.

If you’re interested, you can read more about the university’s history here.

Did you know that Daily Drop has a YouTube channel? Check out our latest video for some visual travel hacking tips.

In this week’s video, we’re talking about how to earn 3x UR points… on EVERYTHING.

This is not a deal you want to miss, and Brendan breaks it down in a way that makes it impossible to not take advantage of it. 👇

That’s all for today, kiddos!

Being someone who loves his hotel points, elite status, etc., I’m always curious to learn how y’all feel about hotels vs. vacation rentals like Airbnb and this new Hyatt platform.

Have a great day, and see you bright and early tomorrow. ❤️

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