Hi, I would love to stay at the above mentioned hotel for 4 nights in June 15, however for the basic room it's going to set me back approx USD$1,800. Can anyone recommend really cheap hotel booking sites, or credit card loyalty programs or FF programs etc that I could sign up to get cheap points/stays. I live in NSW, Australia.
Earning Hyatt Gold Passport points from Australia is pretty hard without staying at their hotels. (Unless someone can correct me?) Buying points is probably poor value in this case too... that hotel is Category 6 which means you'll need 25,000 points per night.
Ignoring Hyatt Gold Passport, I did a search on a few booking sites and came up short.
So instead of focusing on trying to get the hotel on the cheap using points or bonuses, you might instead wish to resign yourself to paying the best rate you can find and then looking at both maximising your points earn from the stay or using promotions to leverage better value from your stay.
Points hacking is about both maximising your points earning plus maximising your redemptions. If you can't find a good way to redeem for where you want to go, pay for the booking but make sure you're going to earn the most points or bonuses you can!
Just quickly - I did come up with something after searching further. Have a look at American Express Travel - you can pay with Membership Rewards and if you can find a good Amex sign up bonus you might be able to offset some of the cost - although that's probably not the best value you could get from Amex points. There's also a $50 credit when you spend over $150 offer on at the moment, ends 31 Jan. It's only $50 but could help.
In addition to what's already been posted, I stayed at this hotel in October 2013.
Firstly, it's not cheap, even if you do manage to use points. As Crossbow said, it is a category 6 hotel so even if you do have points, you'll need a lot to stay here especially considering that there are not a lot of ways to earn Hyatt Points except by staying at their hotels.
If you do really want to stay here (and I would highly recommend it - the hotel and grounds are stunning), sign up to Hyatt's reward program so you can at least accrue points and use them elsewhere. I did that and have had a few free hotel nights back in Australia.
I’ve had good success with looking at Amex travel for Hyatt hotels with high nightly rates - amex.com.au/travel - they often seem to have discounts on some room types. Worth a look. You won’t earn Hyatt points though, but to me, the saving was worth it.
Thanks for your responses everybody :)