HYATT’s 1st Quarter Promotion

The Hyatt hotel chain includes Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt, Hyatt Place, and Hyatt House. It is my favorite of the hotel chains – the rooms are well-appointed and the service impeccable.  (It’s also the only hotel chain where you don’t have to ask for toothpaste!) My only gripes are – first, that there are not enough Hyatt hotels in the world, and, second, that they are sometimes (but not always) a little bit on the expensive side.

As detailed in an earlier post – I was given Hyatt Diamond status by virtue of my attendance at the Star Alliance Mega Do trip last September.  Every stay at a Hyatt hotel is a dream vacation for me – in addition to free wifi, late checkout, room upgrades, and breakfast, I am treated like a star!  So, when, price permitting, there is a Hyatt hotel available in the place I’m visiting, I go for it! 

The newest promotion from Hyatt begins with the following words: ” Earn thousands of Hyatt Gold Passport® bonus points after every four nights. Now through April 30, earn enough points for two free nights at any Hyatt worldwide. After all, the more nights you stay, the more generous the rewards.”  The bonuses are detailed below – and, if you have the Chase Hyatt credit card (which I love and recommend), you will earn an additional 25% bonus (even if you don’t use the credit card!):

• Stay 4 Nights = Earn 4,000 Bonus Points (+1,000 bonus with credit card)
• Stay 8 Nights = Earn 8,000 additional Bonus Points (+2,000 bonus with credit card)
• Stay 12 Nights = Earn 12,000 additional Bonus Points (+3,000 bonus with credit card)
• Stay 16 Nights = Earn 20,000 additional Bonus Points (+4,000 bonus with credit card).

You can register for the promotion here: LINK

The total bonus you can receive is 44,000 points (or 54,000 points if you have the credit card).  This equates to 2 free nights at a top, top category 6 hotel.  I’m not a business traveler though, so my analysis of the promo must start with the least, not the most, hotel night stays.

If I take advantage of the promo, it will most likely be at the 4 nights level, not at the 16 night level. Is it a great promo? Not particularly.  But, getting 5,000 Hyatt points equates to a free night at a category one hotel. I have a number of trips during the time frame already booked, but in at least 2 cases, I have purchased non-refundable hotel stays via Priceline – so I can’t take advantage of the Hyatt promo during these stays.  Nevertheless, I can probably muster planning 4 nights with Hyatt hotels during this time frame as I’m a big fan of mini-vacations – a night here or there – for no reason – just to get away.  In fact, we are planning to take my parents for one or two nights to the Hyatt Regency Long Island for my dad’s 80-somethingth birthday this month, and I’m planning to spend an extra night in New Orleans (beyond the two nights at the Priceline hotel), so I’ve already booked the Hyatt Regency New Orleans for that night.  Only one to go…..

(I owe credit to so many of the esteemed travel bloggers for their discussion and analysis of this promotion.  I thank them all)