Hyatt Gold Passport’s fall promotion is now accepting registrations, although it was already announced a little while ago on MilePoint. You must register by October 31, 2012, but the promotion runs from September 1 to November 30.
Use the public registration link here
The offer is much less exciting than the winter/spring promo earlier this year, in which every four nights not only earned you more bonus points but in fact earned a bigger bonus than the tier before. The exponential growth allowed some people to earn a lot of miles without much trouble, and I found it was well-timed with my Hyatt Diamond trial requiring 12 nights in 60 days.
This time, points earned are fixed at each level, and you need more nights to reach each level. Earn 5,000 bonus Gold Passport points after staying the first five nights and 10,000 bonus Gold Passport points for every five nights after that, up to 65,000 points total after staying 35 nights. And there is NO bonus for using your Hyatt Visa card. Correction: There is a 20% bonus for cardholders, meaning an extra 1,000 points after the first five nights and an extra 2,000 points after each subsequent five nights.
Question: Who’s going to stay 35 nights?
Answer: Not many people, unless you are a frequent business traveler. Maybe this will shift some travel already planned. What it won’t do as well is encourage people like me to book extra trips just for the heck of it, which is what I did earlier this year. I’m already better than halfway to Diamond status and will need a better excuse to stay more than 10 nights.
My hope is that the Hyatt promo for the upcoming Star Alliance MegaDO 4 will be an improvement on this, or at least stack. I am not anticipating Faster Free Nights. If anything, the relatively unimpressive public promo is a sign that Hyatt doesn’t find itself in a situation desperate for customers.
While I’m not about to go as far as Ric at Loyalty Traveler in mixed enthusiasm, I do think I’ll earn enough points to make registering worthwhile. And you should always register (DO IT NOW!) just in case you find yourself at a Hyatt later when you least expect.
There’s a good shot I will stay five nights, and possibly even 10 nights. That’s enough for 15,000 bonus points. What can you do with that? It’s worth a free night at the 48 Lex in New York, a hotel that can run upwards of $300-500 a night, and even several Park Hyatt hotels in less popular destinations like Goa and Melbourne. I’m heading to Singapore next month, and the Grand Hyatt there is only 18,000 points. So… not a great promotion, but certainly not one to turn up your nose at.
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