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Hyatt Brand Explorer is yet another one of Hyatt's great perks. Through it, you can earn free night stays simply by staying at different Hyatt brands within the World of Hyatt program. With many of the recent additions to World of Hyatt including new brands like Bunkhouse and The Standard, now members can earn up to seven free nights.
Here's a look at how this perk works, which Hyatt brands are eligible, and how to maximize this awesome benefit.
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What Is Hyatt Brand Explorer?
Hyatt Brand Explorer offers you up to seven free nights with World of Hyatt by staying at the different brands participating in World of Hyatt. This is not a benefits that resets yearly, but rather a once-a-lifetime thing.
Because of that, there is no inherent rush to collect all brands. Feel free to do this as quickly or slowly as you want. It's also simple. For every five unique brands, you earn one night award. But before anything else, let's first understand the various brands under the Hyatt umbrella.
Related: Best Category 1–4 Hotels to Redeem Your World of Hyatt Free Night Awards
Qualifying Hyatt brands
The following 35 Hyatt brands currently qualify for the Hyatt Brand Explorer perk — so long as your stay occurs after the property has started participating in World of Hyatt before your stay.
- Alila
- Alua Hotels and Resorts
- Andaz
- Breathless Resorts and Spas
- Bunkhouse Hotels
- Caption by Hyatt
- Destination by Hyatt (both participating Destination by Hyatt Hotels and participating Destination by Hyatt Residences locations)
- Dream Hotels
- Dreams Resorts and Spas
- Grand Hyatt
- Hyatt (often referred to as “Vanilla Hyatt” to prevent confusion)
- Hyatt Centric
- Hyatt House
- Hyatt Place
- Hyatt Regency
- Hyatt Studios
- Hyatt Vacation Club (including any Vacation Ownership Property, whether or not branded as a Hyatt Vacation Club)
- Hyatt Vivid Hotels and Resorts
- Hyatt Zilara
- Hyatt Ziva
- Impression by Secrets
- Joie de Vivre / JdV by Hyatt
- Me and All Hotels
- Miraval
- Mr & Mrs Smith
- Park Hyatt
- Secrets Resorts and Spas
- Sunscape Resorts and Spas
- The Standard
- The StandardX
- The Unbound Collection by Hyatt
- The Venetian Resort Las Vegas
- Thompson Hotels
- UrCove
- Zoëtry Wellness and Spa
Notice that stays at Hyatt's now defunct Small Luxury Hotels partner properties did not count toward the Hyatt Brand Explorer perk.
Related: Hyatt Introduces Award Chart for All-Inclusive Resorts
Earn up to Seven Free Nights via Hyatt Brand Explorer
With the Hyatt Brand Explorer perk, you can earn one free night after every five new brands you stay at. But it's not limited to the first five. You can earn another free night every time you stay with five more brands. Thanks to the addition of several all-inclusive resort brands and the expansion of Hyatt's portfolio to include even more brands in recent years, you can earn seven free nights in total.
For example, these are all of the brands I've checked off the list so far:
As you can see, I've earned just two free nights, with 13 unique brands under Hyatt's portfolio. Just two more brands will unlock an additional free night award for me soon, hopefully.
What type of Hyatt free night awards do you earn?
The free nights earned with Brand Explorer are the same Category 1–4 Hyatt free night awards you might be familiar with from The World of Hyatt Credit Card (Rates & Fees).
These free night awards allow you to stay at a Category 1–4 property worldwide, and the awards are valid for one year. The clock starts ticking the moment the Free Night Award certificate is issued. Note that you must complete the stay by the expiration date — not just make the reservation.
For reference, Category 4 awards typically cost 15,000 points during standard pricing. Thus, if you see a property charging 15,000 points or less for an award night, you should be able to use the free night certificate. If a night costs more than 15,000 points, it might be bookable with a free night certificate. In this case, though, the property would need to be a Category 4 hotel charging 18,000 points for a peak night. If you need a refresher on how to use free night awards, we got you.
You can read more about Hyatt peak and off-peak pricing here.
Related: Avoid Wasting Valuable Hyatt Free Night Awards — How To Make Sure Hyatt Pulls the Right Certificate
How to find new brands
Hyatt makes it really easy to find the location of brands you want to stay at. Simply head to Hyatt.com. You don't even need to log in.
At the top of Hyatt's home page, hover over ‘Explore' and click on “Hotels & Resorts.” This will take you to a map.
At the top right, you'll see “Filters” — click on it. This is where you can select the brands you haven't stayed at yet. As you click on the bubbles with the brand names, you'll the blue ‘Results' button update the quantity of properties displayed on the map.
Here, you can filter by brands (just click on the ones you want visible on the map) and even by award category. This way, you could view only the cheapest redemptions when pursuing your free nights from the Brand Explorer perk.
There are over 1,000 properties around the world for the 22 brands I have not experienced yet. The world is my Hyatt oyster, if you will. Each blue dot represents a location, and clicking on it shows details about the property.
Up for grabs for me are every single all-inclusive brand, as I haven't stayed there yet. I have also not stayed at either The Standard, The StandardX or Bunkhouse Hotels, the three most recently added brands, but I'm going to find a way to as they look rather cool.
I am optimistic I can knock down at least seven more brands to unlock the next two free night awards with relative ease. But, based on my travel patters, I see it somewhat difficult to stay at certain brands. Whether it be the small number of properties under than brand (like Caption by Hyatt or Hyatt Vivid, both with three properties in the world), because I see no meaningful in-property benefits (looking at you, Mr & Mrs Smith) or because they're all in one country, and better brands are available to choose (like UrCove).
Which Stays Count Toward Hyatt Brand Explorer?
If you think that only paid stays count toward Hyatt Brand Explorer, I have good news. Amazingly, all Hyatt stays count: free nights, Points + Cash, and even points bookings. If the stay is in your name and under a qualifying rate (meaning it's not an employee discount, group rate, or similar), then it counts.
When Hyatt first launched Brand Explorer, award stays did not count. Thus, some people had to stay at a brand again to get credit later on. In a super-customer-friendly move, Hyatt changed this. So you can now earn seven free nights from Hyatt Brand Explorer without spending a cent out of pocket. No need to pay cash for the stays to get the check mark.
How to Check Your Hyatt Brand Explorer Progress
To see which brands you've stayed at, log into your World of Hyatt account. In the top right corner, click on your name and then click either “Account” or “My Awards” in the drop-down menu.
From here, click “Brand Explorer” in the menu on the left side.
Then, once the site loads, it will show which brands you've stayed at so far — made simple with check marks next to the brand logo. At the top of the page, you'll also see your progress toward the next award and how many awards you've earned so far.
You'll see that I have three nights toward my current block of five. I have also earned two free nights so far. With stays at two new brands, I'll earn my next free night award (my third), and the “Current Progress” on the left will go back to zero as I start on my next batch of five brands. Easy peasy.
Pro tip to maximize the Brand Explorer perk
If you regularly travel as a couple, book at least one night under your significant other's name at the beginning or end of your main reservation (which hopefully is the one with Globalist status). That way, both of you will get that brand under your belt.
Every time you stay at five unique brands, then each of you will get a free night award to use at a later day. If you both were to hit all 35 brands, that could mean 14 free night stays.
Bottom Line
Hyatt's Brand Explorer is truly unique. Competing hotel chains like Marriott Bonvoy and Hilton Honors don't offer anything similar.
In my opinion, Brand Explorer is one of the best hotel loyalty perks around. Just by staying at different Hyatt brands, you can earn up to seven free World of Hyatt nights. Best of all, you don't even have to pay for the stays to get credit for a participating brand.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: The World of Hyatt Credit Card (Rates & Fees)
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