By late 2025, I had a decision in front of me that would have been an easy yes a few years earlier.

Hyatt offered me a status challenge. Stay ten nights in ninety days to secure Explorist through early 2027, or twenty nights for Globalist. Globalist is the key top-tier hotel status I do not currently have locked in across my portfolio, and I have valued it a lot in the past.

Around the same time, American Express updated the Platinum card with a new semi-annual $300 Fine Hotels & Resorts credit. I had just upgraded an underperforming Gold card, which meant I suddenly had fresh FHR credits that needed to be used before year-end.

One detail mattered. FHR bookings still earn full Hyatt points and elite night credit. Unlike most third-party bookings, these nights count.

That led to a straightforward question. Was there a trip I would genuinely enjoy that could also help with the challenge?

Malta stood out.

I had stayed at the Hyatt Regency Malta before and liked it. The newer Hyatt Centric is nearby. December, right before Christmas, is off-season, and rates drop noticeably.

Malta is a deeply Catholic country, and the sense of tradition around Advent appealed to me far more than peak summer crowds and heat. This was not a fabricated mattress-run destination. It was somewhere I would actually want to be.

Mid-December pricing looked roughly like this:

While I’ve generically called the Amex hotel program rate the “FHR” rate, the program also covers The Hotel Collection (“THC”) properties, of which the Malta Centric is a member. THC benefits include a $100 property credit, possible upgrades, and late checkout, all while earning elite nights. The main differences are: that THC bookings require a minimum 2 night stay for the $300 credit to apply vs FHR’s single night minimum; and breakfast isn’t a THC benefit.

I structured the stay with two separate three-night FHR/THC blocks at the Hyatt Centric, each largely offset by a $300 credit. The net out-of-pocket cost per 3-night block would have been roughly $60 to $70, with the property credit included. I mixed in a couple of direct Hyatt nights as well, including one night at the Regency to distinctly separate the stays.

In total, the Malta portion would have delivered 8 elite-qualifying nights at a very low net cost: less than $350 all-in, in a place I wanted to visit anyway. Combined with already-booked Hyatt nights in Berlin and an upcoming family trip to Florida, I would have cleared Explorist easily and been on the way to Globalist.

Also, regarding points earned: Amex doesn’t claw back Amex MR points on FHR bookings, so you get the full Amex spend calculated along with the Hyatt stay points. ie my <$350 net spend would result in earning around 10,700 Hyatt points (Explorist earnings on stay, year-end promos, and Hyatt card use on the non-FHR bookings) and 3650 Amex MR. Most folks value each of those point currencies at 1.5c+ per point. So that’s at least $215 in value coming back that way also.

Given the Hyatt status acquisition goal, the math was excellent.

I briefly considered adding a one-night stay at Casa Ellul in Valletta, a Small Luxury Hotels property with a Michelin-starred restaurant, Risette. There was an SLH Amex offer in play, and an SLH status promotion I’d signed up for earlier in the year that I could also tie in.

But that single night was expensive relative to the rest of the plan, and it started to disrupt the overall efficiency. As the dates approached, it no longer felt essential.

I canceled it, kept the restaurant reservation, and the rest of the plan improved.

On its own, the Malta plan was smart. Clean. Efficient. It would have delivered exactly what it promised.

But when I stepped back and looked at the bigger picture, it no longer felt necessary.

Between casino-comped Vegas rooms, multiple Fine Hotels & Resorts credits, Chase and Citi hotel benefits, free night certificates, Hilton resort credits, and automatic top-tier status with Hilton, Marriott, and IHG, I already have a large amount of hotel value that does not rely on earned nights.

Heading into 2026, I will likely cover thirty or more hotel nights through cards, promos, and certificates without doing anything heroic.

In that context, chasing incremental earned status in one more program started to feel redundant.

Globalist is excellent. Breakfast, upgrades, and waived resort fees matter. But was it worth pulling the family away just before Christmas to check a box I no longer really needed?

A few years ago, the answer would have been yes. In 2025, it was not.

So I let it go.

The interesting part of this Malta plan is not that I did not go. It is that I did not need to.

Even when the math is outstanding, opportunity cost still matters. A plan can be clever and still be wrong in context.

Hotel elite status is no longer scarce capital. Many of the perks that once required grinding nights are now accessible through cards and targeted offers. Mattress runs still make sense in some situations, but the bar is higher than it used to be. The trip has to be one you would take anyway.

Malta remains on my list. Just not this way, and not for this reason.

For now, the better move is redeploying expiring 2025 credits into prepaid bookings for 2026, locking in value without forcing a holiday trip.

Sometimes the smartest optimization is realizing you are already ahead.