Hyatt Bonus Journey Elite Nights Earned In 2020 Should Now Have Posted

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If you’re one of the many people chasing top-tier Hyatt status courtesy of the incredibly generous promotion that Hyatt is currently running, I have some good news for you. A significant number of the bonus elite night credits that Hyatt’s Bonus Journeys promotion promises have already been posted to member accounts.

Hyatt’s Bonus Journeys promotion was launched in the last quarter of 2020 and was by far the most lucrative promotion that we saw last year. Originally, the promotion was only supposed to run through 4 January 2021 but with a month of the promotion left, Hyatt extended the end date to 28 February 2021.

While the extension meant that Hyatt fans could make the most of the 15% – 25% rebates that the promotion offers on award bookings for a lot longer, and while it meant that earning top-tier Hyatt status in 2021 suddenly became incredibly easy, a lot of Hyatt loyalists were concerned that the bonus elite nights that the promotion offered for nights consumed in 2020 would now not post until March 2021 at the very earliest. Fortunately, those concerns have turned out to be unfounded.

Not only have the bonus elite night credits from the World of Hyatt credit card now posted to member accounts, but the elite night credits due from Hyatt stays made up to 4 January 2021 should also have now posted. This is what I’m seeing in my account:

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The standard five elite night credits that the World of Hyatt credit card offers posted promptly on 1 January, the bonus 5 elite night credits that the World of Hyatt credit card was offering as part of its welcome bonus that ended on 31 December posted on 6 January, and the bonus elite nights that I earned in 2020 courtesy of the Bonus Journeys promotion posted a day after that.

A little amusingly, because Hyatt has halved the elite status requirements for 2021…

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…and because all the bonus elite nights have now posted, I have managed to earn World of Hyatt Explorist status through February 2023 without having completed a single stay in 2021 so far.

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As it happens, Explorist status doesn’t actually mean all that much to me as I’m in the middle of a monster mattress run which should earn me top-tier Globalist status as well as 4 suite upgrade awards, but the fact that we’ve now seen the bonus elite night credits posting from the World of Hyatt credit card and the Bonus Journeys promotion (for nights consumed through 4 January 2021) means that we now probably have a lot of very happy newly-minted Hyatt top-tier elites floating around.

It’s a shame that a lot of the world is still locked down and that a lot of us still can’t really travel very far, but the fact that Hyatt status is valid for the year in which it is earned, for the year after it is earned and also for the first two months of the year after that, means that anyone who has just earned World of Hyatt status will have a significant amount of time in which to enjoy all the benefits that the status offers – we’re not going to remain locked down forever!

At a time where every little bit of good news is very welcome, hopefully that makes a few people happy.