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Hyatt Gold Passport promotion registration is open for the 16 nights earn 44,000 points promotion running February 1 to April 30, 2012.
Registration is required by March 31.
Hyatt nights completed during the promotion period and prior to registration count as long as member registers by March 31.
Don’t delay. Sign up now!
Hyatt Gold Passport informally announced its next loyalty promotion to the attendees of the Oneworld MegaDo in Dallas, Texas last night according to several attendees like ThePointsGuy. The promotion earns bonus points at 4-night increments, up to 16 nights. The nights do not need to be consecutive.
There is even a 25% bonus for stays paid with the Hyatt Visa credit card members. [update: Jan27, 4:00pm Pacific - Gold Passport Concierge posted on FlyerTalk that all Hyatt Visa card members earn bonus. There is no need to pay for the hotel stays with the Hyatt Visa.]
Register by March 31 for Hyatt Promotion.
This promotion offers the potential of earning 44,000 bonus points after 16 nights or 55,000 bonus points for Hyatt Visa card members.
Last week the winner of 110,000 points prize donated by Hyatt Gold Passport for the Passports with Purpose raffle was selected. Hyatt Gold Passport sponsored Loyalty Traveler for the PwP fundraiser to raise $80,000 for building libraries in Zambia.
Passports with Purpose 2011 Statistics
Here is a message from Pam, Debbie, Michelle, Beth and Meg:
We raised a grand total of $89699.00 for Room to Read. That’s $9699 over our initial goal of 80k. We are continually honored and totally blown away by your support and participation in this initiative. We are so proud to work with you on PwP and more than that, we love it. We freaking love it. We love that it takes everything we do — traveling, telling stories, blogging, social media, making connections around the world — and creates something that makes the world a better place. Those libraries in Zambia, they’re yours and they are a lasting gift to those who will learn to read and write and share their own stories and make their own connections.
Hyatt Gold Passport 110,000 Points prize winner.
Last year I made a trip to southern California and stayed at three Hyatt Hotels in Santa Barbara, Westlake Village and Irvine. Recently Brian Kelly, The Points Guy, posted about his Thanksgiving stay at Hyatt Santa Barbara. Reading his review reminded me I never actually wrote a post about my Hotel Mar Monte stay Thanksgiving week 2010. The hotel is now called Hyatt Santa Barbara.
Highway 1 runs by my house in Monterey and becomes the Big Sur coast road just about five miles south once past Carmel. Highway 1 Big Sur driving can be 100 miles of highway bliss or hell, mostly depending on the weather. Read More…
Hyatt has a promotion for 1,500 bonus points at AVIA, Hotel Sierra and Hyatt Summerfield Suites for stays from November 22 through January 8, 2012. Use Special Offer Code 1500GP when booking rates. There is no higher rate for using this code. 1500GP promotion works with AAA and AARP discount rates too.
There is no list of participating hotels. Every hotel I tried in these brands showed 1,500GP beside the rate code.
Hyatt AVIA Napa AAA discount + 1,500 bonus points per stay.
The Gold Passport Diamond customer service agent didn’t mention this offer when I booked AVIA Long Beach last week and the earliest mention I see of the offer on the web is November 26. I will see if I can get the bonus retroactively?
My AVIA Long Beach hotel review this week shows several photos of a master suite at the property along with the hotel facilities. The pool is a great hotel feature. Checking this 1500GP rate I see AVIA Long Beach has a special December 2011 offer for the master suite room category at $119. This rate also allows 1500GP bonus. That is a deal for this hotel. The lowest advance purchase rate is $171.15 for the Master Suite room.
Gold Passport Suite Upgrade rate AVIA Long Beach Dec 13, 2011.
This looks like a good Winter Hyatt Gold Passport Bonus Offer.
Winter Hyatt Gold Passport Bonus Offer AVIA, Hotel Sierra, Summefield Suites for stays Nov 22-Jan 8, 2012.
The promotion also mentions Hyatt House which is the new 2012 Hyatt brand being created from Hyatt Summerfield Suites and recently acquired Hotel Sierra extended stay properties. Four AVIA upper upscale boutique hotels were also acquired by Hyatt in the Hotel Sierra deal.
Passports with Purpose 2011 Reminder
Hyatt Gold Passport donated a 110,000 points prize to sponsor Loyalty Traveler for the Passports with Purpose raffle.
$10 per ticket can win you some really cheap points (Loyalty Traveler post Nov 30, 2011).
Costco members have access to a nearly identical offer with Hyatt Hotel discounts I posted for AARP members yesterday. Receive a 10% rate discount on the Hyatt Daily Rate (BAR) and a $25 credit per night for hotel dining, services like Spa and activities like Golf. $25 daily credit may not be used for alcohol, room rate, taxes, resort fees.
This Costco special offer is for stays completed by February 29, 2012 in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean and is not applicable for Park Hyatt or Hyatt Summerfield Suites. (The similar AARP rate is good for Park Hyatt hotels.)
The Costco link books through Hyatt website channels so these rates are eligible for points and promotion credit.
Hotel charges must be posted to your room to use the $25 daily credit. Travel purchases are not included in the Costco Executive membership 2% rebate program, so you will not be getting a kickback at the end of your Costco membership year on Hyatt stays booked through this offer.
Hyatt Promotion Code Costco for 10% off + $25 nightly hotel credit.
I am going to be 52 in six weeks. I could have joined AARP when I turned 50. Since I still see well enough to drive, I hadn’t made the leap to AARP yet. My hotel discount with AAA motor club generally matches the AARP discount of 10% at most hotels.
Now Hyatt Hotels compelled me to join AARP ($16/year) for this holiday travel season with an offer of 10% off the Hyatt Daily Room Rate plus $25 stay credit per night. That offer calls out to me as a free dinner at the Hyatt hotel restaurant.
Hyatt’s AARP special offer is for stays from November 14, 2011 through February 29, 2012 at Hyatt Hotels & Resorts in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. This offer is not valid for stays at Hyatt Summerfield Suites.
$25 daily credit may be used for dining, spa, golf and other hotel operated activities and services charged to your hotel room. The daily credit may not be applied to room rate, taxes, resort fees or alcohol.
Update: 11/21 See comments for this post where readers reveal almost identical promotion offer exclusive for Costco members and link to potentially free AARP membership for one year.
Participating Hotels for Hyatt AARP promotion
I love the Hyatt offer, but I need to give a loud shout-out that I do not like the way the list of participating properties is shown for this offer. Come on hotel loyalty program promotion designers.
Considering the average American’s geography is a bit weak, is it too much to ask to list hotels by state and country? Just about every hotel program plops down a list of hotels by any random order their database makes easy to print when it comes to showing participating or non-participating hotels in promotion offers.
This is not too consumer-friendly when we need an atlas or a lot of computer searches to figure out where a hotel is located and we need to pore over hundreds of hotels searching for ones in the vicinity of our destination.
Here is the Hyatt participating properties list, in order, as shown on the website:
Hyatt AARP special offer is 10% off BAR + $25 daily hotel credit.
Hyatt Hotels currently has a 48 hour sale ending 11:59pm, Wednesday November 16 for 89 hotels. There are hotels from each Hyatt brand including Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt Place, Summerfield Suites, Andaz and Park Hyatt hotels in the U.S., Canada and Caribbean.
Use Special Offer code C48H11 to search for discounts from 15% to 30% at participating hotels. These are prepaid and nonrefundable rates.
Each hotel has its own set of dates for stays using these sale rates. The hotel with the earliest availability appears to be November 27 (Lake Tahoe, California) and the latest stay date through February 29 (several hotels). Some hotels have as small as a two week window for stays at these discount rates.
Some hotels offering only 15% or 20% off Best Available Rate will likely be a small savings over a refundable AAA rate that generally offers 10% off.
Here is one randomly selected example of the Hyatt sale rate compared to AAA rate.
Hyatt Westlake Plaza, Thousand Oaks, California
48-hour sale rate is 20% off Best Available Rate for this property based on $139 BAR.
Terms and Conditions of this sale require full hotel stay prepayment. You lose the entire cost of the hotel stay if you need to change or cancel the reservation. This is not so bad on a $111 rate, but could be a significant loss if you book a $1,000 vacation getaway hotel stay.
Hyatt 48-hour sale rate terms for Hyatt Westlake Plaza.
Compare rates carefully. AAA rate for Hyatt Westlake Plaza is $125.10, or only $13.90 more per night. The AAA breakfast rate is only a 10% discount on BAR, compared to 20% discount for Hyatt 48-hour sale rate.
The AAA rate includes breakfast for two.
Personally I try to avoid prepaid nonrefundable rates at hotels. I have a strong risk aversion to losing my entire deposit.
In this example the AAA rate includes breakfast for two, but I already get that benefit as a Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond member. I’ll gladly pay the extra $14 though to have a no penalty cancellation policy up to 3pm day before arrival for the Hyatt Westlake.
Compare the Hyatt 48 hour sale rates to other available rates. There might be a hotel rate savings deal with this Hyatt sale that falls within your risk tolerance.
There was a live chat between Randy Petersen and Jeff Zidell, head of Hyatt Gold Passport loyalty program on MilePoint last night. This is the first MilePoint chat I have logged into and I was unaware the format is a computer version of a radio style chat, except no voices and limited audience participation .
First, let me sincerely give thanks to Jeff Zidell and Randy Petersen and the folks at the House of Miles for giving Hyatt Gold Passport members an opportunity to get some first-hand insight into Hyatt Gold Passport.
I don’t want to shoot the messengers – just the messaging system.
I should probably keep my critical comments to a minimum, but I am acting bipolar this week and I seem incapable of shutting my blog mouth. This past week I have ragged on Carlson Hotels, the J.W. Marriott L.A. and city of Los Angeles and now I’ll take on Hyatt and MilePoint.
Engagement with the Audience
While the MilePoint chat format was a window into a conversation, there was little opportunity for engagement as an audience member tuning in for the hour. I felt like I was being waterboarded with words dripping slowly onto the computer screen one sentence at a time. A question would be raised and then dead space for a couple of minutes until the next statement appeared.
I assume Randy Petersen was able to see what comments people were submitting to the chat during the hour. I don’t know if Jeff Zidell was getting a feed of comments.
As an audience member I was surprised to find the entire conversation filtered. I made comments and submitted questions during the hour, but nothing I wrote came up in the chat. This also happened to BoardingArea blogger MommyPoints who submitted a question during the chat. Consider yourself fortunate if you were not sitting in front of your computer for the entire 60+ minutes of the live broadcast as you can read the entire chat transcript in ten minutes.
Jeff Zidell was good humored and opened up with a joke about MilePointers having the opportunity to “Occupy Hyatt Gold Passport” for an hour. The thing about the Occupy movement is the audience has a voice and opportunity to give immediate feedback to the speakers. There was little opportunity for audience participation here.
Here is my 3 minute summary of the topics covered:
1. Hyatt restaurants have rolled out a new hamburger bun – softer and richer.
2. Hyatt has about 125 hotels in development around the globe.
3. Cash & Points and Discount Award Nights are on Hyatt’s radar.
4. Faster Free Nights, the periodic promotion Hyatt Gold Passport ran every year until 2011 for a free hotel night after every two stays, does not seem to be on Hyatt’s radar now.
5. Jeff Zidell has been with Hyatt Gold Passport for 3.5 years. One year after he arrived Gold Passport made major changes in April 2009 to elite membership: complimentary Internet for our elite tiers, full breakfast for Diamond members, 72/48-hour guaranteed availability for Platinum/Diamond and four confirmed Diamond Suite Upgrades. This year additional Diamond member enhancements include 4pm late checkout and enhanced welcome amenities at Hyatt Place and Hyatt Summerfield Suites.
6. Earn points and redeem points for Food & Beverage and Spa services when not staying at the Hyatt property are being beta tested now. Expect more availability in 2012.
7. Hyatt Reservations system improvements are coming in 2012.
8. Hyatt Gold Passport Lifetime Diamond membership requirements are ten years as a Hyatt Gold Passport (no need to be Diamond) and 1,000,000 base points earned (equivalent to $200,000 hotel spend).
9. Jeff Zidell stated Hyatt wants to create “true loyalty, not operate a profit center.” He commented the credit card has increased loyalty. “In addition, we want to maintain a very compelling and competitive award chart, which comes under pressure if you flood the market with a lot of additional points.”
- My Loyalty Traveler reply is Hyatt had the leading edge competitive award chart prior to the creation of Category 6 hotel rewards and the hotel shift upwards in the system. The program is still competitive compared to most others in terms of the distribution of hotels with most hotels in the lower half of the reward categories. At the upper end the program is losing ground in terms of the cost for a Category 5 or 6 hotel reward based on the rate points are earned for hotel spend.
I take Jeff’s response to indicate a Hyatt Gold Passport shopping portal is not in the works.
10. Property level specific bonuses, so-called “G Bonuses” since the promo code started with the letter G, do not appear to be too big on Hyatt’s radar either.
Loyalty Traveler comment – I think I broke the story of G bonuses going by the wayside from a chat I had with Jeff Zidell in March 2011. At that time he stated they might be coming back in July. I guess not!
11. Why are Hyatt properties shortchanging the number of points posted from stays?
Jeff said this was unacceptable.
This is another issue I raised on Loyalty Traveler in December 2010 and my post even prompted a few back and forth emails with Jeff and Hyatt. This July-August 2011 thread on FlyerTalk suggests the issue is widespread and apparently has still not been resolved.
12. Are there additional benefits for Gold Passport members who spend 75 or 100+ nights per year? Are there benefits for reaching 2 million, 3 million and more points?
Loyalty Traveler comment – At this point, 40 minutes into the chat I had to get snarky and submit my question “Are we whale hunting with Jeff Zidell?” referring to the term whales used by casinos for the really big money spenders. Hyatt already has an uber-elite level called Courtesy Card. Here is a Loyalty Traveler post on Courtesy Card.
13. When asked if Hyatt is considering award stays for elite qualification, Jeff responded, “We are looking into this, but we don’t think that it would impact very many members.”
Then Jeff followed up with a question, “Would you stay more frequently with us if this option were part of the program? Again, feel free to Tweet us using the hashtag #HyattGP.”
I jumped on Twitter and found BoardingArea blogger Mommy_Points posted a tweet at the same time in response to this question.
I realized we could actually have a real time audience conversation on Twitter around the MilePoint chat as it was happening. But I think Mommy_Points and I were the only two using that media outlet for that purpose at the time.
14. Complimentary Internet – wired or wireless is up to the hotel. I wrote an article about that last year.
15. Stays Count Double Promotions – Promotions for double elite credit, like FFN, were another annual promotion offer from Hyatt Gold Passport until this year. Looks like we won’t be seeing these come back in the near future.
Jeff’s response: “This is something that we are always looking at, but we have found that these types of promotions undermine the integrity of our tiers. We hear from many of our members that tier integrity is really important.”
My response: Looks like all the Hyatt Gold Passport fast-tracking to elite status went from 60mph to 0. You can still possibly pull in a Gold Passport Diamond Stay Challenge if you are acceptable.
16. Diamond Breakfast – Will Hyatt Gold Passport standardize the complimentary breakfast benefit for Diamond members? Yes!
Hyatt Gold Passport Takeaways
My takeaways from the conversation is Hyatt is pulling back on the high value promotions that attracted many of us to the program over the past decade. The company went public, partnered with a bank for a co-branded credit card, gave top elite status for 18 months to anyone who asked prior to the credit card launch and since then has added a new top tier hotel category, shifted a large portion of hotels upward in category, and made Diamond elite a more beneficial status level, but removed the avenues to reach this level without 25 paid stays or 50 paid hotel nights a year.
Hyatt Gold Passport is still among the most generous hotel loyalty programs in my opinion, but reaching and maintaining top-tier Diamond elite is going to require more hotel spend and the free nights earned are likely to be less than in years past for many of us Gold Passport members.
Hyatt Gold Passport members earn 1,500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles per stay at any Hyatt brand hotel worldwide from October 1, 2011 to January 15, 2012. Normally Hyatt Gold Passport offers 500 miles with most airline partners for members who prefer miles to 5 points per dollar. Triple AAdvantage miles may be earned on ten stays for 15,000 total miles during the promotion period.
Hyatt promotion registration is required for 1,500 AAdvantage miles per stay. You can register online or by phone at 1-800-30-HYATT and request promotion code AA001.
Gold Passport members have the opportunity to earn both miles and 5,000 points every three nights at Hyatt until November 15. The current Hyatt Possibilities promotion offers 5,000 bonus points every three nights and the promotion terms include Gold Passport members earning miles on hotel stays. You can earn triple miles and promotion bonus points, but you will not receive regular Gold Passport points or elite points.
How to Request Miles from Hyatt Gold Passport
Hyatt Gold Passport does not have a way to change your earning preference to airline miles instead of Hyatt points through online account preferences. Gold Passport members need to request American Airlines AAdvantage miles (or any airline miles) at check-in and provide your frequent flyer number. Even when you request miles at the hotel there is the likelihood your account will post Gold Passport points instead of miles.
Don’t panic if you earn Hyatt points instead of AAdvantage miles when your hotel stay posts. This is common for miles earners. A call to Hyatt Gold Passport customer service can easily get the Gold Passport points changed to miles.
Loyalty Traveler Analysis
Triple miles with American Airlines AAdvantage promotion can be combined with the 5,000 Gold Passport points every three nights promotion that runs concurrently through November 15, 2011.
Hyatt Gold Passport points are typically worth $20 per 1,000 points.
The combination of 1,667 Gold Passport points per night (about $27 value) and 1,500 AAdvantage miles per stay ($20+ value) is a nice rebate on Hyatt hotel spend.
Hyatt Gold Passport offers good value hotel rebates for frequent guests this fall 2011.
Related Post: Southwest Airlines 1,800 Rapid Rewards points per Hyatt stay, up to 18,000 points October 1-January 15, 2012. Loyalty Traveler post September 23.
Hyatt Gold Passport has provided me 5,000 points for a sweepstakes on Loyalty Traveler blog. 5,000 Gold Passport points are sufficient for a free night at these Category 1 Hotels.
This sweepstakes giveaway is in conjunction with the current Gold Passport Possibilities promotion offering Gold Passport members 5,000 points for every three nights stayed through November 15, 2011. Hopefully the Loyalty Traveler sweepstakes winner will be able to use the 5,000 points bump to book an even more spectacular getaway with Hyatt Hotels.
One of the best features of Hyatt Gold Passport Possibilities promotion compared to the competition this round is the inclusion of all Hyatt brand hotels worldwide for earning 5,000 bonus points evey three nights, up to 30,000 bonus points.
SPG and HHonors current promotions exclude many of the hotels in the San Francisco Bay Area region where I live. The Hyatt promotion for 5,000 bonus points every three nights is applicable for all Hyatt brand hotels worldwide. Bonus points are additional to the regular 5 points per US$1 earned on Hyatt stays.
There are around 456 Hyatt brand hotels worldwide in Park Hyatt, Andaz, Hyatt Regency, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Place and Hyatt Summerfield Suites to be renamed Hyatt House in the near future.
Loyalty Traveler’s Hyatt Gold Passport Sweepstakes Entry
1. Leave a comment on this Loyalty Traveler post stating which Hyatt Hotel you would most like to visit before 12 noon California time Sunday, October 16, 2011.
2. You need to comment using an email address where I can reach you to coordinate with Hyatt Gold Passport to deposit the points in your account if you win the 5,000 points.
3. Please only enter the sweepstakes one time during the 123 hours of the sweepstakes to give everyone a fair opportunity of winning.
4. Winner will be chosen randomly using random.org and posted on Loyalty Traveler blog by Monday, October 17.
5. Good Luck. I will forward the winner’s email address to my Hyatt Gold Passport contact and they will coordinate the 5,000 points prize deposit into your Gold Passport account.
How to Participate in the Hyatt Gold Passport Possibilities Promotion
To earn Hyatt Gold Passport bonus points, travelers must:
Members can earn a maximum of 30,000 bonus points during this promotion. For full details, including terms and conditions, visit www.goldpassport.com/possibilities. Travelers interested in becoming a Hyatt Gold Passport member can enroll online at http://www.goldpassport.com/, by phone (1-800-51-HYATT), or at the time of check-in at any Hyatt hotel or resort worldwide.
Loyalty Traveler Disclosure: I am not receiving any Hyatt Gold Passport points for myself by running this promotion. This is solely a giveaway for Loyalty Traveler readers.
If readers feel inclined to help out Loyalty Traveler, then you can always follow me on Twitter and/or “Like” me on Loyalty Traveler’s Facebook page, although Facebook Ric Garrido has my Twitter and blog posts feed so it is actually more useful for readers.
View of Ferry Building from Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero, San Francisco.
Related Loyalty Traveler post August 29, 2011: Hyatt 5,000 points every 3 Nights Sep 15-Nov 15
