Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
Like a lot of airline loyalty programs, the American Airlines AAdvantage program allows members to convert a variety of hotel points into miles if they need to boost their account balance but the poor conversion rates that are generally offered usually make such transfers highly uneconomical.
Still…
Every now and again American Airlines offers a bonus for converting hotel points into AAdvantage Miles, and right now there’s a promotion running in which anyone with a World of Hyatt balance can transfer their points into the AAdvantage program and receive a 25% bonus on top of the points that are normally on offer. For most people, this remains a less than tempting proposition but it may still be useful for some.
Convert Hyatt Points To AAdvantage Miles
Under normal circumstances, World of Hyatt points convert or to AAdvantage Miles in a ratio of 5,000:2,000 but through 31 May 2020, the AAdvantage program will be adding a 25% bonus to all transfers. this improves the transfer ratio to 5,000:2,500.
I value Hyatt points at 1.4 cents each while I value AAdvantage Miles at 1.25 cents each so even if the ratio was 1:1 I wouldn’t be overly inclined to participate…but that doesn’t mean that this is a complete bust for everyone.
I can think of three scenarios where this may be a promotion worth considering:
1. You Only Need A Few Miles For A Flight Award
a large transfer of Hyatt points into the AAdvantage program would be hard to justify right now but, if you’re only a few thousand miles away from having a large enough AAdvantage balance to book a premium cabin award (that is available to book right now), sacrificing a few thousand Hyatt points in order to book that award is probably not a bad move.
If you’ve managed to find a good premium cabin award that’s bookable through American Airlines, you’ll probably be getting a lot more than 1.25 cents/point in value out of the miles you use so the math will look a lot more favorable than it may otherwise look.
2. You Have Orphaned Hyatt Points
Not everyone is a big Hyatt loyalist and if you’re not based in the US (and have ready access to a Hyatt co-branded credit card or a Chase Sapphire credit card) it can be tough to earn enough Hyatt points for a worthwhile redemption…and that’s where this offer may come in useful.
For people who stay at Hyatt properties infrequently and have only managed to amass a small balance of Hyatt points from their stays (and with little prospect of earning enough points for a nice redemption any time soon), this promotion offers a way of converting those points into a currency they may be able to use more easily or into a currency they may already actively collect.
Given the choice of allowing a small balance of Hyatt points go unused year after year or converting those points to a more useful program, the latter is clearly a better option even if the conversion rate is poor.
3. You Have Orphaned Chase Points
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Credit Card and the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card both earn Ultimate Rewards points which can be converted to Hyatt points (and a host of other currencies) in a ratio of 1:1. If you’re considering giving up your Ultimate Rewards card and only have a small balance of points that need to be used, a transfer to Hyatt and then to AAdvantage may make sense…but only in very limited circumstances.
On the whole, most people will get a lot more value out of their Chase Ultimate Rewards point by transferring them to programs like the British Airways Executive Club, United Airlines MileagePlus or possibly even JetBlue’s True Blue program but, on the off chance that we’re dealing with a hardened American Airlines loyalist who never uses any of the currencies I just listed, an indirect transfer to the AAdvantage program may be a reasonable option to take.
Bottom Line
For the overwhelming majority of readers, a 25% bonus on transfers between Hyatt and the AAdvantage program isn’t enough to move the needle – the transfer ratio is still too poor to warrant any serious transfer of points.
However, for a limited few this may be a promotion worth considering but, before you do, bear in mind that hotel points are likely to be easier to use than airline miles in the short term so you should be very sure that you really don’t have a better use for the Hyatt points you’re transferring out.
