Hyatt’s Promotion and Program Changes

Last week I reported that Hyatt would be bringing back its “Faster Free Nights” promotion — stay twice and pay with Mastercard and earn a free night.

Details and registration are now available on the Gold Passport website.

Hyatt has also posted upcoming changes to its program. They have eliminated the requirement of booking a three-night minimum for mid-week standard awards, have added flexibility in transferring points and awards between members, and changed the points-to-miles conversion ratio. These changes went into effect yesterday.

In addition, beginning March 1, Hyatt will eliminate their 300 point bonus for flying a partner airline and limit the rates that are eligible for stay credit.

    An “Eligible Rate” is any hotel published room rate, including, but not limited to the hyatt.com rate, prevailing rack rate, AAA and senior citizen rates, etc. “Ineligible Rates” are discounted rates, including, but not limited to, any free night stays, Internet wholesale rates (such as priceline.com, hotels.com, etc.), traditional wholesale rates (such as GOGO Worldwide Vacations, Pleasant Holidays, etc.), airline crew rates, airline employee rates, travel agency employee rates, Club at the Hyatt discount certificate stays, Hyatt employee or employee family discount rates, airline interrupted-trip vouchers or contracted rooms (a contract room is a room that has been reserved pursuant to a written and executed agreement between a hotel and a corporation, government agency or individual for a negotiated room rate in exchange for an agreed upon number of rooms to be rented for an extended period of time).

What this will mean in practice is unclear, at least to me.

Priceline and award nights have been earning credit towards the Faster Free Nights promotion and status accumulation as long as the member charged something to their room. This wasn’t ever technically supposed to happen. So changing the eligibility rules may or may not change what happens in practice, but it isn’t promising.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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