How I Saved $1,500 with Hyatt’s Category 1-4 Free Night Certificates

I paid for this pricey hotel stay with free night certificates, instead of more than $1,500!

Last fall, the World of Hyatt credit card offered an unusually lucrative welcome offer: five Category 1-4 free-night certificates. While there is a sadly dwindling number of Category 1-4 hotels, these certificates can still very valuable!

Several months later, I used four of these certificates to book a stay at the Hyatt Centric Magnificent Mile in the heart of Chicago. My husband and I visited Chicago in June 2025, and the cash rates were between $318 and $416 per night for this trip. Instead, we used our certificates and paid nothing for our stay! I used Hyatt’s Pay My Way feature to book multiple nights with the certificates, and it was a very easy process. The hotel was lovely, and we were able to walk nearly everywhere we wanted to go in Chicago.

This is a rare offer, and no one knows if/when it will come around again. But if it does, you could book a stay like this, too.

Learn more: I wrote about how to maximize free night certificates for the Travel Mom Squad blog.