Hyatt Hype and 2026 Changes

Hyatt is THE favorite hotel chain of points enthusiasts; but why?!

Unlike other popular hotel chains (Hilton, Marriott, IHG), Hyatt has a standard award chart for pricing. What does this mean?

It mean that other hotel chains price their award stays (aka point stays) based on the cash price. As we know, cash prices of travel fluctuate all.the.time. There often is no maximum on the amount of points that these hotels charge. For example, the popular high-end Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedegral charges as high as a whooping 250,000 points per night (booked through Hilton) and that doesn't even include food/drinks!

Whereas, as of today, the maximum point price you'll pay for top luxury level Hyatt is 45,000 points per night! But sadly.... that's about to change

Hyatt 2026 Changes

On February 25, 2026, Hyatt announced changes coming to the award chart. Now - it's not uncommon for hotels and airlines to announce changes to redemption rates annually. For Hyatt this usually comes in the form of moving hotels from one category level to another (up or down); which in effect changes the points price.

However, up until now, Hyatt Award Charts had 3 pricing scales for any given hotel: Off-Peak, Standard, and Peak. Today, Hyatt shared that they are moved to 5 pricing scales, which essentially is a means to charge more points but maintain a standardized award chart. It's not a good change.

Hyatt Hotel Award Charts

Based on the chart below, you'll see there is a large variance for hotel pricing. Want to book a Hyatt Place? If it's category one, it will cost you anywhere from 3,000 to 9,000 points per night?

Want to go to Hawaii and stay at the amazing Grand Hyatt Kauai? Currently it's a Category 8 hotel. If you want to go for Winter or Spring Break, you can expect to pay the Top price of 75,000 points a night. OUCH! With the current award chart the maximum peak pricing is only 45,000 points a night. This is a big blow!

2026 Hyatt Standard Hotel Award Chart

Hyatt All Inclusive Award Chart

Similar to standard hotels, Hyatt also has a number of all inclusive properties. These AI's have their own award chart and are categories as Levels A-F. 

2026 Hyatt All-Inclusive Award Chart

Hyatt Tips and Tricks

Now that I've covered the bad news; let's talk more about why Hyatt still remains to be a fan favorite and some tips/tricks you can use to book Hyatts for less points

Resort Fees

Any Hyatt stay booked on points does not pay a daily resort fee! This in itself can be a huge savings of $85/day or more (depending on the specific hotel and amenities offered)

Availability/Award Calendar

Two tips to mention here. If you do a search on Hyatt for a stay and receive results that there is No Point Availability, it may just be that one night of all the nights you want to stay isn't available.

See that "View Points Calendar" button? This is a newer Hyatt feature and while it's sometimes clunky (it doesn't work well in Hyatt app), it can be a nice tool to use because it shows you which nights in a calendar view are available to book for points. You can use the Points Calendar to adjust your dates/search to align. In this example below, I say I want to do a 3-night stay and the calendar shows me which dates are available to check-in to get a 3-night point stay:

Book Single Nights

This is a common strategy amongst point enthusiasts, especially for popular hotels at popular travel dates. Basically, most Hyatts generally release their award booking calendar ~13mo/395 days in advance. What you can do is book a one-night reservation 13mo in advance, as your date is released, to ensure availability to book (rather than waiting for the entire duration of your stay to be released). Then, once you have all of the individual one-night bookings made for the total duration of your stay, you can contact Hyatt to link/combine the reservations into one. This works - as long as you book identical room types for each night.

I like to follow this technique because at 13months in advance, flights aren't out yet! "Overbooking" a number of one-night reservations gives me more flexibility to figure out flights. For example, say next winter break we wanted to go to Hawaii after Christmas (Dec 26/Jan27). At roughly Thanksgiving 2025 time frame I would have started booking one-night Hyatt stays. If I wanted to stay in Hawaii for 6 nights total, I might have booked 8 one-night stays, which gives me flexibility on either end to cancel some of the one-night reservations, once I figured out my flights/travel dates.

All-Inclusives

I mention this in my Rules of Thumb for Point Cost post, but it's worth noting again here! When booking all-inclusive hotel, the standard point pricing (ie what's shown in the chart above) is for 2 room occupants. When you add more than 2 people to your search, the points price will increase - even double! 

For all-inclusives, Hyatt considers age 13+ as an adult. If you're traveling with kids 12 and under, instead of doubling the amount of points you're going to spend - consider paying the daily cash rate to add your kids!

You can book the reservation with 2 adults only (although ensure your room type can accommodate your total number of travelers, adults + children) and pay the daily cash rate to add children.

After you have a reservation, you can call and add in the children saying you want to pay cash. With this approach, instead of using points, you'll pay roughly $80-$130/child/day (depending on the specific hotel. You can do a World of Hyatt chat to ask the rate) to add in the all inclusive package.

Brand Explorer

Hyatt has over 20 brands of hotels under their portfolio. The Brand Explorer Award encourages you to stay at different Hyatt brand hotels and for every unique brand you stay at, you get a credit. For every 5 credits you get, you earn a Level 1-4 Free Night! This is a GREAT way to earn a free night certificate for a Level 1-4 Category hotel. This is also known at Hyatt Bingo!

Here's what my bingo card currently looks like. I stragetically booked a "Hyatt" brand hotel for a trip in April, so that I'll earn my second Free Night award

What's nice is there there isn't a time frame you have to complete the 5 stays. It's cumulative. But, once you stay a brand hotel, you won't get future credits if you stay at the same brand again. 

If you've done any Hyatt stays with a free World of Hyatt loyalty account linked, then you can check the status of your own Brand Explorer in your Hyatt profile:

Hyatt Awards

This leads me to Hyatt Awards. Like many hotel chains, Hyatt allows you to earn Milestone Rewards based on the number of nightly stays you have and/or the number of points you earn through spend at Hyatt and/or on Hyatt Credit Cards.

You can find all of the details here, but Milestone Rewards start at 20 nights a year. The rewards aren't amazing at this level, but they're still something!

Hyatt Status

Hyatt currently has 3 status levels: Member (no status), Discoverist (10 nights), Explorist (30 nights), and Globalist (60nights). This chart compares the Benefits of each level:

Globalist is the top tier status, which includes free breakfast for 2 adults and 2 children and/or Club Access (free food, discounted/free drinks, etc. Not all hotels have a Club), room upgrades including suites, highest point earn on eligible purchases (30%), and free parking on points nights.

Now, I am not going to hit Globalist. We did (strategically) hit 30 nights in 2025, which got us Explorist status. I could have pursued opening Hyatt Credit cards to fill the "gap" by earning qualifying points to get us to Globalist status through spend. However, even though I'm a devout Hyatt person, I like to keep our points flexible and therefore first focus our spend on earning flexible/transferable bank points.

BUT, one of my favorite Hyatt Awards is a Guest of Honor!

Guest of Honor Award

A Guest of Honor award, aka, GOH, is an award that you can earn (for 40 night stay) or be gifted (from other Globalists), which granted you "temporary Globalist status" for the stay you apply it to.

This means, you get to utilize all of those perks mentioned above. We have used GOHs around the world and saved THOUSANDS of dollars thanks to you! Free breakfast is huge - especially places like Hawaii and Maldives or as a family of 4 - when a hotel breakfast easily costs more than $100/day. Plus free parking is a great perk! In large cities, this can save you $60+/day.

How do I get my GOHs? I trade! I take my Free Night Awards I earn (see Brand Explorer above as one option) and I go on Hyatt Award Exchange Facebook groups to trade. Generally I can trade one Level 1-4 Free Night Award for 2-3 Guest of Honor awards.

When booking our trips for the year, I always take into consideration and plan out how I can maximize value using my GOHs.

Summary

Once again, this is a lot of material to cover - but provides oversight as to why Hyatt is so popular among points people!

Hyatt's standard award chart and Guest of Honor awards are my favorite reason to keep booking Hyatts. Keep in mind, Chase and Bilt are the only Hyatt transfer partners, which is why I try to save those points for Hyatt and use my other bank stashes to book flights!

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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

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Airline Alliances (and Why You Should Use Them)

I've talked about the advantage of transferring points to travel partners (like airlines and hotels), and how each major bank has their own set of travel partners (New to Points post, Rule 3: Know Thy Partners). I've also mentioned Airline Alliances before; they can be such a pivotal way to find flights, especially international, for less, that it deserves it's own post! Keep in mind - this is an intermediate skill. If you feel overwhelmed and daunted, you're not alone!

Airline Alliances (and Why You Need to Understand Them)

What's an airline alliance you ask?? An airline alliance is a group of separate airlines who have partnered together. This allows you to cross book flights from one airline to another, which extends greater benefits without needing to book directly with one airline. 

Major Airline Alliances

There are three major alliances to be aware of and utilize (as well as some other partnerships):

• Star Alliance
• Includes: Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Austrian, Avianca, Brussels, Copa, Croatia, EgyptAir, Ethiopian, Eva Air, LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa, Shenzhen Airlines, Singapore Airlines, South African Airways, Swiss, TAP Portugal, Thai, Turkish Airlines, and United

• OneWorld
• Includes: Alaska, American, British Airways, Cathay Pacfic, Fiji Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Oman Air, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian, and SriLankan Airlines

• SkyTeam
• Includes: AerolinesAregentina, Aeromexico, AirEuropa, AirFrance, China Airlines, China Eastern, Delta, Garuda Indonesia, Kenya Airways, KLM, Korean Air, MEA, SAS, Saudia, Tarom, Vietnam Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Xiamen Air

Benefits to Using Airline Alliances

Airline alliances can be a confusing part of the points game and a bit of a rabbit hole when it comes to conducting flight searches, but they can also be a pivotal tool to utilize to get you the best points value!

After you've identified a flight you want to book, considering search for the same exact flight on airline alliance partners. Why?

Reason 1: You want to book a flight on an airline that isn't a transfer partner of the bank where you have your points. You can search for the same flight on an airline in the same alliance, that is also partner of the bank points you want to use.

Example: You want to book a United flight, but you're saving your Chase points for Hyatt. Chase is the only bank who transfer to United. Buuut, you also have American Express and Capital One points. Both of these banks transfer to Singapore Air and Air Canada, who are in Star Alliance with United. 

You could search both of these airlines for the United flight you want to take. If you find the United flight on one of the partners, you can transfer your Amex or Capital One points to the partner to book.

Here is a United flight, from Denver to Paris. On United's Website, this flight would cost a United Credit Cardholder 40,000 miles + $51.80 in taxes and fees. If you're not a cardholder, the same exact flight, booked on United, would cost 44,000 points. (If you notice, this flight is actually operated by United AND Lufthansa! You're already using an airline alliance and you didn't even know it!):

United Pricing

From our example, you want to use Amex or Capital One points; one option is to search on Air Canada, which is a transfer partner of both banks. As you see, we can find the SAME EXACT flight on Air Canada for 40,000 points and $142 CAD (~$103 USD). In this case, you'd be saving your Chase points, but spending the same amount of points and a little more in cash to book the same flight:

Air Canada Pricing

Reason 2: Points pricing, taxes and fees vary across airlines. You may be able to book the same exact flight across two or three different airlines, all for a different points + taxes/fees price. On the flip side, some airlines, like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, are known to charge less points, but higher taxes and fees.

Example: Sticking with Star Alliance and wanting to fly Denver to Paris, first I checked United (for a different date than above), and found a flight I want to book. United is charging 51,500 points + $51.80 in taxes and fees:

United Pricing

Similar to above, let's check Air Canada. Same exact flight, is 40,000 points + $142 CAD (~$103) in taxes and fees.

Air Canada Pricing

Let's keep going! I've got something better for you! Singapore Air is also in Star Alliance and happens to be a transfer partner airline with Chase, Amex, and Capital One. When we put our same criteria in Singapore Air, I find the exact same flight.... for 32,500 points BUT it costs $313.20 for taxes and fees. 

Singapore Air Pricing

So you decide - would you rather spend less out of pocket (aka more points) or spend less points and higher fees? With Airline Alliance bookings, you get to choose!

Reason 3: You may have a specific flight you want to book and one of the airline alliance partners has a transfer bonus. 

Example: I took advantage of this when I needed to book a flight on Qatar Air. British Airways and Qatar are in OneWorld Alliance; and British Airways had a transfer bonus, so I moved my bank points to British Airways for the transfer bonus and then I moved my points to Qatar to book the flight I wanted.

**This specific example not only covers airline alliances, but more specifically incudes the ability to combine Avios (OneWorld Alliance airline points) across OneWorld Alliance airlines.

NOTE: not all flights can be booked through an airline alliance partner. Often only "Saver" flights can be booked via an alliance partner (but not always!). Once the quantity of "saver" flights sell out, then you'll only be able to find the flight with the direct airline and at a higher price.

Summary

Have you used airline alliances? Maybe you didn't even realize it! This knowledge gives you more places to search for award flights, but also more ways to better meet your point and/or taxes/fees budgets

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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Trying to figure out your next card? Here is my FREE personalized Next Card Recommendation form. Simply fill this out and I'll let you know suggestions.

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

My Everyday Cards

In points and miles, the "easier" way to make point earning sustainable is the ongoing opening of new credit cards to earn sign up bonuses. This strategy really is how you continue to earn enough points (without significant spending) to book travel and to keep replenishing your points inventory.

BUT....for some people, it's too much. It's too much to manage and too much to think about. When you're wondering:

What Card do You Use Everyday?

This post will cover cards which cards we use for every day costs based on type of spend. Keep in mind, 90% of the time, my household is working on a minimum spend on a new card to earn a sign up bonus, but there are times we aren't working on a new card spend. 

Everyday Spend Categories

Which Cards I use and Why

1. Groceries
Likely like many of you, groceries are a frequent purchase and a large portion of our budget. My first choice card for groceries is Chase Sapphire Preferred (learn more here), which earns 3x's times points per dollar spent for online groceries. 

This is great if you do online grocery orders for pick up (or Instacart), but if you shop in store, you won't automatically get 3x's points. This also excludes Target, Walmart and Wholesale Clubs.

One work around for in store shopping, is that if you shop at Kroger owned stores (in Colorado, that's King Soopers or City Market), you can add your CSP as your form of payment to in your Kroger Wallet. Then when you check out in store, open your King Soopers app, go to My Account > Wallet > and click "Kroger Pay" at the bottom. A screen will appear for you to select "Use at the register" and a QR code will appear for you to scan and pay. This method earns 3x's points on your grocery spend, even though you're shopping in person!

Grocery Runner Up Card: American Express Gold Personal (learn more here)

Now, Amex Gold Personal actually earns 4x's points on groceries (that's 1 point more than Sapphire Preferred); however, because I find Chase points harder to earn, I generally use my CSP for groceries when I can get the 3x's points.

But, there are some stores where the pay via app wallet hack doesn't work, and/or there are times when we have plenty of Chase points so I'll use the Amex Gold instead to work on building up our Amex point start.

Costco Tip: Costco doesn't accept Amex directly.... but you can order Costco through Instacart (even without a Costco membership! Although if you do have a Costco membership, enter it in Instacart for better pricing) and you can use an Amex card for Instacart!

I don't do this on the regular, but when I'm working on an Amex minimum spend to hit a signup bonus, I feel its worth both the spend and the 4x's points. Don't forget, Instacart is also on Rakuten, so you can earn even more points (or cash back!). Several credit cards offer Instacart membership, which gets your free delivery and reduced fees. Some cards (like Chase Ink Cash or Unlimited), even come with $20mo Instacart credit!

2. Dining 
This is another common expense in our household. When dining out or ordering directly from a restaurant, similar to above, my first preference is to use Chase Sapphire Preferred (learn more here), which earns 3x's times per dollar spent on dining and maximizes our Chase point earn. 

Dining Runner Up Card: American Express Gold Personal (learn more here)

Amex Gold Personal actually earns 4x's points on dining (that's 1 point more than Sapphire Preferred per dollar spent); however, because I find Chase points harder to earn, I generally use my CSP for for dining when I can get the 3x's points.

The Caveat: 3rd Party Delivery Services

This would be orders from Uber Eats, Door Dash etc. These services also earn 3x's points for CSP or 4x's points for Amex Gold. We have several credit cards that offer monthly credits as a benefit as well as "membership" for free delivery and lower fees. This includes:

• Amex Gold Personal: $10/mo Uber credit
• Amex Platinum Personal: $15/mo Uber credit + UberOne membership (free delivery/lower fees)
• These 2 Amex Card benefits stack, so we get $25/mo Uber credits and free delivery. I pay the remaining UberEats amount owed with Amex Gold to earn 4X's points
• Chase Sapphire (Preferred, Reserve, and Reserve for Business) all come with annual DashPass, which is free delivery/reduced fees for DoorDash. The Reserve cards come with $5 restaurant monthly credit. Even though this is minimal, I generally pair this with a door dash giftcard to order once or twice a month and use this benefit. Note, the Reserve for Business does NOT earn extra points on restaurants/dining.

3. Travel
It isn't as common for us to be spending cash on travel since we primarily book flights and hotels on points; but for the times we do elect to pay cash, I want to maximize our point earn.

Generally, my go-to card for this is the Ink Business Preferred (which currently has an elevated offer! details here). The Ink Preferred earns 3x's points on travel and does not have foreign transaction fees. IMO, this is a GREAT low-fee card to keep in your wallet, especially for international travel!

*An example of using these benefits: I opened this card for my P2 before we went to the Maldives; because we knew we would have a hefty bill for food and drinks at the hotel. Not only did we use the bill towards the minimum spend to earn a sign up bonus; but we also earn 3x's points on our bill because hotels code as travel!

Tip: When staying at hotels, I always try to charge any purchases at the hotel (coffee shop, bar, restaurant, poolside, etc) to our room. That way, when we check out of the hotel, all of our charges as charged by the hotel and we earn the points multiplier (3x with Ink Preferred or 4x points with Sapphire Reserve Business)

Travel Runner Up Card: Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business (learn more here)

This card earns 4x's points for direct purchase/booking on hotels and flights. This is a little bit better than Ink Preferred, but is also limited to hotels and flights; whereas Ink Preferred "Travel" costs can include airlines, hotels, rental cars, trains, third party travel services (like tours booked through Viator), etc.

4. Everything Else

This one is a no brainer for me; it's Capital One Venture Card (learn more here) or Venture X (learn more here). Both of these cards earn 2x's points on ALL purchases and have no foreign transaction fees.

Keep in mind, Capital One introduced "family rules" at the end of 2025, that they want you to open the cards "in order" to earn sign up bonuses on each card. That means, you'll want to open a Venture Card before the VentureX, so that in a 48-month time period, you're eligible to earn sign up bonuses on both.

(If you open VentureX before Venture Card, you will not earn a sign up bonus on the Venture Card until 48mo have passed from the VentureX sign up bonus)

At the time of publishing this post (Feb 2026); the Venture Card has an elevated offer! Learn more here.

Bonus Categories

Chase Travel Portal: When shopping for flights and hotels, it almost always costs less points to book travel by transferring points out of the bank to book directly with airline and hotel partners.

However, there are times that it IS cheap to book in Chase Travel Portal. For these bookings, I use Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business, which earns 8x's points on portal bookings.

Chase Freedom Quarterly Bonus: This post covers Chase Freedom cards and mentions that Freedom and Freedom Flex cards have quarterly bonus categories to earn 5x's points on purchases, up to a $1.500 purchase limit. I try to utilize the quarterly bonus as much as I can.

(Reminder: Chase Freedom is a no annual fee card that you can downgrade a Sapphire card to!)

Summary

So, while we generally are working on a minimum spend for a sign up bonus, the Chase Sapphire Preferred, American Express Gold Personal, Ink Business Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business and Capital One Venture Card (or VentureX if you already have a Venture and want more Capital One points) are always in my wallet and my go-to "back-up" cards!

Because of their extra point earn, the majority of these cards are "keeper" cards for me - meaning that myself or my Player2 (husband) will always have one open! (Just not the Reserve Business due to the annual fee). This post talks about when and why to close or downgrade cards.

If you want to open one of these cards, I would SO appreciate if you utilized my referral links to open cards. This doesn't cost you anything, but provides me with some extra points and keeps all of my content free! Thank you in advance!

Reminder, if you're viewing this through a Meta app, please open an external browser to apply. This protects your data and gives me credit. If you're interested in business cards, but want more information, as well as directions how to apply for them; read here!

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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Trying to figure out your next card? Here is my FREE personalized Next Card Recommendation form. Simply fill this out and I'll let you know suggestions.

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Paying Taxes with a Credit Card

Whoa, wait - Can you use a credit card to pay Federal taxes?? The answer is yes! A quote direct from IRS website:

 "The IRS uses third party payment processors for payments by debit and credit card. It's safe and secure; your information is used solely to process your payment."

If you're like my household, and often owe Federal Taxes, the silver lining is that you CAN use a credit card to pay! If you have to pay this bill anyways, why not get a free vacation out of it?! you can do this, by sign up for a new credit card, use that credit card to pay for your taxes and other every expenses to hit the minimum spend on the card to earn a sign up bonus. Then use those sign up bonus points to transfer to an airline and/or hotel for free travel! 

New to the idea of free travel thanks to credit card points and miles? I recommend checking these posts Points 101 and Start Here! 

This post will run through: how/who to pay federal taxes with credit card(s), what the fees are, why it may be worth the fees, and cards I would consider opening.

Paying Federal Taxes with Credit Card

Disclaimers: This is not financial advice, as I am not a financial professional. In addition, this post speaks to Federal Income Tax paid once a year. If you pay estimated taxes quarterly, similar knowledge applies.

The silver lining of owing the government a bunch of money is that: 1. They didn't get an interest free "loan" from us and 2. That we use this expense to sign up for a credit card with a higher minimum spend than our normal expenses would cover, which means we're turning our tax bill into points for free travel.

Who to Pay
The IRS has two authorized processors of credit cards for tax payment, Pay1040 and ACI Payments, Inc. Each processor has various fees, including if you are paying with a personal credit card or with a "commercial or coporate" credit (which business cards can fall into)

Source: IRS

How to Pay

If you're like us and use a third party tax preparation service, when you get to the section of how to pay your taxes, select that you will pay by check or another way. Then, go to one of the two processors listed above, Pay1040 and ACI Payments, Inc follow their instructions to pay.

Can You Use Business Cards to Pay Personal Taxes?

Again, I'm not a financial professional, but I have used my sole proprietor business cards to pay my personal/joint income tax (more on business cards/types here)

Note: per the fee chart above, you may be charged a higher fee to pay with a business card instead of a personal credit card. Some people have had success adding their business card attached to their Paypal account, and then using Paypal to pay taxes with the vendors above. Adding this step of Paypal can then reduce the fee from commercial/corporate card to personal card (although I will say, I tried this last year and was not successful!)

Can I use More than One Credit Card?

The answer is yes! Each processor allows up to 2 credit cards to be used for one IRS payment. The number of payments that the IRS accepts in a tax year is dependent on the type of tax form being filed. I'm guessing the majority of people file 1040's, my household included; which IRS allows two payments per tax year or if you have an installment agreement; you can pay twice a month.

What this means? Since there are 2 processers and each processor accepts 2 credit cards, this means, if you needed/wanted, you could use a total of 4 credit cards to pay your taxes owed from your filed Form 1040.

Source: IRS

Why Would I want to Pay a Fee?

I get it! People are leery of annual credit card fees, why would you want to spend MORE money on processing fees to use a credit card, when you already owe money in the first place?!

Let's talk through the fee. Let's say your normal month spend is $4,000/mo. With that, you can comfortably open a credit card that has a $12,000 minimum spend in 3 months. 

Credit cards with an $12K minimum spend (or less) include Chase Sapphire Preferred or Reserve, Chase Ink Business Cards (Cash, Unlimited, and Preferred), Venture Card, VentureX, and American Express Personal Gold and Personal Platinum (although American Express gives you 6 months to hit the minimum spend on personal cards!)...The standard sign up offer on most of these credit cards lists is 75,000 to 125,000 points.

Example:

• Let's say you owe $3,000 in taxes. Now your 3-month spend outlook just jumped up from $12,000 to $15,000. 

• A $15,000 spend can get you an Amex Gold Business card. The Amex Gold Business card has a sign up bonus up to 200,000 points. The Amex personal Gold has a sign up bonus up to 100,000 points for a $6,000 spend.

• So in essence, if you opened a Biz Gold instead of a Personal Card, you could earn an additional 100,000 points for the processing fee. 

• From above, the IRS Federal Tax processing fee of 2.89% to use a card credit, for the hypothetical $3000 taxes owed, that means $3,000*2.89% = $86.7. 

In this example, you're paying $87 dollars to earn 100,000 points you otherwise generally couldn't/wouldn't earn!! This is WELL worth it in my book!

In fact, this is exactly what I did for Tax Year 2024 - opened the American Express Gold Business card! This year I opened the Chase Sapphire Reserve Business to use on a combination of our property and federal taxes and general life expenses, because I want all of the Chase points we can get and we otherwise could not hit the high minimum spend on this card!

What Cards Would You Recommend Opening for This?

Here is a list of cards I would consider opening to utilize to pay taxes (and every day expenses), but on current sign up bonuses and ranked by minimum spend (generally in a 3 month time period). Cards listed with an "*" currently have an elevated offer at the time of publishing (2/5/26).

PS - If you're curious about standard sign up offers verse elevated; I have a post here that covers common card offers.

Personal Credit Cards

• Minimum spend $4K: Capital One Venture Card* - More details here
• Minimum spend $5K: Chase Sapphire Preferred - More details here
• Minimum spend $6K (in 6 months): Amex Gold Personal - More details here
• Minimum spend $12K (in 6 months): Amex Platinum Personal

Business Credit Cards

• Minimum spend $6K: Chase Ink Cash or Unlimited - More details here
• Minimum spend $8K: Chase Ink Preferred* - More details here
• Minimum spend $15K: Amex Gold Business 
• Minimum spend $20K: Chase Sapphire Reserve Business - More details here
• Minimum spend $30K: Capital One VentureX Business

Summary

I know not everyone is comfortable opening business cards; in which case you depending the amount of your expenses and taxes owed, you could open one new personal card and your partner could open one new personal card to still take advantage!

I also realize not everyone thinks it's worth it to pay fees to use a credit card. My general rule of thumb is that I ONLY will pay a fee to use a card, *if* we're working on a minimum spend and *if* it's a minimum spend we cannot hit without pay a fee to use a card on.

From our property and income taxes alone, we could use these expenses to open a new card and hit a minimum spend for a sign up bonus; which is what we do! We're not spending more money (well, maybe a couple of hundred in processing fees), but we ARE spending smarter - to earn points/travel from bills we will pay regardless.

While this post focused on federal income taxes, keep in mind that other taxes like State and Property may also be ways to turn required expenses into points for free travel! My county charges 2.25% fee for property taxes, but it's a fee I'm willing to pay if that "extra spend" helps me hit a credit card minimum spend that we otherwise could not hit.

What do you think? Is it worth opening a new card to pay your taxes?

As a reminder - my small business operates on use of my referral links. When you open a credit card using one of my links, it's FREE to you, but the bank gives me a small chunk of points for referring which, which keeps this free content coming! Thank you for supporting me and my business by using my referral links!

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Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Trying to figure out your next card? Here is my FREE personalized Next Card Recommendation form. Simply fill this out and I'll let you know my suggestions.

Wondering how I keep all of this information organized? Check out my Points Tracker!

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Promotional Companion Pass

It's baaaack!

Right now, Feb 2026, the sign up bonus for ANY Southwest Personal Credit Card will get you a buy one, get one flights; earning a companion pass through 2/28/2027!

Now, there are a few cons to this offer; or at least differences from the “traditional companion pass”, that you should consider before taking this offer. The Cons are covered later on in this post, so that you can know full scope and decide if this offer is right for you. 

Promotional Southwest Companion Pass

There are 3 Southwest personal credit cards with an elevated offer right now, that includes earning Companion Pass, through 2/28/27. Each card's minimum spend, sign up bonus offer, annual fee, and benefits vary. Let's talk through each card!

Rapid Rewards Plus Card

Current Elevated Offer: Spend $3,000 in 3 months; earn 20,000 points AND Companion Pass through 2/28/27

Annual Fee: $99

5/24: This is a personal card, therefore it takes a spot for the Chase 5/24 rule (Chase will only allow you to have 4 personal credit cards from ANY bank/store/airline/hotel/etc in the previous 24 months. If you exceed this limit, Chase likely will automatically not approve you for more cards. Read Item 2 here for more beginner basics)

Benefits:

• Free checked bag for cardholder and up to 8 people on the same reservation. You do NOT have to use the card to purchase flights in order to utilize this benefit
• Free standard seat selection 48 hours in advance of flights for everyone one your reservation
• 10% Flight Discount
• No foreign transaction fees
• 3,000 anniversary points yearly

Referral Link

Rapid Rewards Premier Card 

Current Elevated Offer: Spend $4,000 in 3 months; earn 30,000 points AND Companion Pass through 2/28/27

Annual Fee $149

5/24: This is a personal card, therefore it takes a spot for the Chase 5/24 rule (Chase will only allow you to have 4 personal credit cards from ANY bank/store/airline/hotel/etc in the previous 24 months. If you exceed this limit, Chase likely will automatically not approve you for more cards. Read Item 2 here for more beginner basics)

Benefits:

• Free checked bag for cardholder and up to 8 people on the same reservation. You do NOT have to use the card to purchase flights in order to utilize this benefit
• Free Preferred seat selection 48 hours in advance of flights for everyone one your reservation
• 15% Flight Discount
• No foreign transaction fees
• 6,000 anniversary points yearly

Referral Link

Rapid Rewards Priority Card 

Current Elevated Offer: Spend $5,000 in 3 months; earn 50,000 points AND Companion Pass through 2/28/27

Annual Fee $229

5/24: This is a personal card, therefore it takes a spot for the Chase 5/24 rule (Chase will only allow you to have 4 personal credit cards from ANY bank/store/airline/hotel/etc in the previous 24 months. If you exceed this limit, Chase likely will automatically not approve you for more cards. Read Item 2 here for more beginner basics)

Benefits:

• Free checked bag for cardholder and up to 8 people on the same reservation. You do NOT have to use the card to purchase flights in order to utilize this benefit
• Free Preferred seat selection at time of booking  for everyone one your reservation
• No foreign transaction fees
• 7,600 anniversary points yearly

Referral Link

Comparing All 3 Cards...

Cons for this Elevated Offer

You can only earn a sign up bonus on ANY Southwest Personal card every 24 months. That means, if you open one of the cards listed above now, you will not be eligible to earn a sign up bonus on a Southwest Personal card for 24 months after you hit the Feb 2026 Personal card SUB.

Why does this matter? This promo CP only lasts until 2/28/27. While a year of BOGO flights is great,  the traditional method of earning companion pass lets you earn bogo flights for up to 24 months.

Additionally, with the traditional method of earning CP, you earn 125,000 points that you can then spend to book flights! The offers above only get you 20,000-40,000 points, which may not even be enough for a one-way flight in some cases.

If you have opened a SW Personal card in the past 24 months and earned a sign up bonus, then you are NOT eligible for this offer.

This is a Great Offer For...

1. People who absolutely cannot open a business card. Although, you really should read this post and reconsider!

2. Someone who has big holiday travel planned, especially over Christmas 2026/New Years 2027. Going to Hawaii next winter? SW roundtrip flight to Hawaii around the holidays can easily cost 120,000 points for ONE person, round trip. If you have companion pass, then you're saving ~120,000 points with this offer by itself, which is easily just as good as any other sign up bonus!

Summary

This offer isn't right for everyone, but there are some situations where I think this is a GREAT offer! If you're interested in applying, here is a referral link (you can open any of the SW personal cards with this!)! This is free to you, but gives me a small kick back of points for using my referral. 

___________________________

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

Trying to figure out your next card? Here is my FREE personalized Next Card Recommendation form. Simply fill this out and I'll let you know my suggestions.

Wondering how I keep all of this information organized? Check out my Points Tracker!

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!