Great Value in Hyatt Cash + Points

In looking at hotels for my stay in Tokyo, I was trying to decide between three properties.  The Andaz, Park Hyatt, and Conrad are all on my list to check out.  The Park Hyatt is prohibitively expensive using points (30,000/night) and cash (north of $650/night AI) so I decided to stay at both the Andaz and the Conrad.  Booking the Conrad was easy thanks to a Hilton free night certificate and a giant stash of Hilton HHonors points.

The Andaz situation left me with three options:

1)  Pay cash at a nightly rate of $668 including near 25% tax (refundable rate)
2)  Redeem 25,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points/night
3)  Redeem 12,500 Hyatt Gold Passport points and pay $200 per night AI

One critical part of the equation is factoring in the HGP points earned in each situation.  As a Platinum member, I earn 5.75 points per dollar spent.  Add in the 3 points per dollar spent on the Hyatt Visa card and I'm earning 8.75 points per dollar spent.  I value Hyatt points at roughly 2 cents and consistently get greater value out of them.  For my two night stay, here's how the earnings break down:

1)  9,340 points earned for a total value of $187
2)  0 points earned
3)  2,800 points earned for a total value of $56

Cash + Points stays also count for elite credit with Hyatt but since I'm not making Diamond anytime soon, that's not something I care that much about.

While I wouldn't pay the cash rate (EVER) let's use that as the baseline to value the other point redemption options.

1)  Total cost (cash - point value rebate) for a two night stay would be $1,149
2)  At 50,000 points that is a redemption value of 2.30 cents/point
3)  At 25,000 points (subtracting the cash outlay in this scenario from the total cash cost and then adding back in the rebate from points earned) that is a redemption value of 3.29 cents/point

I was excited about staying at the Andaz but the value received for the cash + points redemption made the decision even easier.