Hyatt announced their fourth quarter promotion yesterday and it took many by surprise, myself included. For many years, Hyatt has offered "Faster Free Nights" during the Fourth Quarter, similar to their "Big Welcome Back" promotion they offered this spring, in which you could opt for a free night at any Hyatt worldwide for every two stays at any Hyatt property.
Perhaps because they already did the "buy two, get one" promo earlier in the year or because the competition offered such lackluster promotions, Hyatt is offering 10,000 bonus Gold Passport points for every five qualifying nights (not stays) from September 15 through December 15. If you credit your stays to your airline account, you can still get the bonus miles in your Gold passport account.
Of course I am disappointed by the news. I was banking on a "Faster Free Nights" promotion to earn enough credit for a week of Park Hyatts in China. Both the Park Hyatt in Beijing and the Park Hyatt in Shanghai are Category 5 hotels, so it is going to take 18K points/night to stay at them. I’m not sure I can earn that many points before the trip and simply don’t find the 10K bonus offer attractive enough to pay a premium for Hyatt during my fall travels. Look like its going to be back to Priceline for now.
But I can’t fault Hyatt. They are not running a charity and they have been quite generous this year already. The "Faster Free Nights" promo will be missed, though…
Do you think it has anything to do how people have expected them to extend the expiration of FFN or allowed people to convert them to points ? Maybe they realized it was a bigger pain and did not want to do it again ? Sometimes too much of a good thing can be bad, just a thought. Keep up the good work, love reading your updates.
@Derek: Could be. But they could have just made clear that even for Diamonds, the certs could not be converted to points.
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Scope out the low rates at Hyatt Place properties. Then use your points to stay at the more expensive ones… just a thought