
This past January, I stayed 4 nights at the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas using points. Firstly Delta flies direct from JFK so I used my Delta Points to book and was able to get a free checked bag with my American Express Gold Business Delta Card.
Right now as an example Jan 10th – 14th rates for a Fountain View King Room is $232/night. BUT the catch is that along with this rate you will pay $381.00 in additional fees and taxes! Woof. This Hyatt property is considered category 5 which cost 20,000 Hyatt points per night. Keep in mind when booking through Hyatt this 20,000 rate includes EVERYTHING including taxes and those annoying resort fees.
When I visited I went for another option – the Club Access rate for 27,000 point per night. This includes a better room (Usually Fountain or Ocean View), and access to the Club on the ground floor which was excellent. The Club offers free breakfast with a wide array of hot and cold options, coffee, and cold drinks. Then starting at 5pm they start serving dinner food and free alcoholic drinks (premium brands too)!
Club access is well worth the extra 7,000 per day because you can literally save hundreds of dollars on food and drink which are quite expensive at Baha Mar. The Club is also spacious, not very crowded, and right on the fountain with outdoor and indoor seating options.
Some might argue that booking through Chase is still valuable because of the 1.5x multiple (booking through Hyatt is a 1:1 transfer so you would be losing out on this) but with Chase you still need to pay those resort fees and Club Access will be much more expensive.
For another good review of the property see The Points Guys’ post below:
https://thepointsguy.com/reviews/grand-hyatt-baha-mar/