Be sure to see the update to this post about eligibility for this offer.
Hyatt has been exceptionally generous in being willing to give elite members of other hotel chains temporary top tier status in the Gold Passport program, while offering an expedited way to keep that status. And they even gave these temporary Diamond full confirmed suite upgrades as though they had earned the status for a year.
This was exceptionally game-able.
Plenty of folks signed up for a credit card that gave them Hilton Gold status and leveraged that into Hyatt Diamond — maybe transferred some points into Hyatt from Chase Ultimate Rewards, booked cash and points award stays, upgraded them to suites at booking and enjoyed free breakfasts during their stays.
That super-easy Diamond status offer ended October 31.
Although Hyatt was willing to share at the time that an expedited path towards status wasn’t gone for good.
It’s hard to dispute the strong value of Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status:
- Hyatt has the best suite upgrade benefit of any chain — offering Diamond members confirmed-at-booking suites valid on any paid rate booked through a Hyatt channel four times a year.
- Hyatt has the best top tier breakfast benefit: full restaurant breakfast when no club lounge is available. (And if the club lounge is closed 2500 bonus points, also.) Several Hyatt properties are among the hotels with the very best breakfasts anywhere.
So it’s desirable and plenty of frequent flyers want a jumpstart towards these benefits. But Hyatt doesn’t want to give away the benefits to people who aren’t going to stay loyal to the chain and become frequent guests.
(The downside to Hyatt of course is that they have about 500 hotels, half the size of Starwood and orders of magnitude smaller than Marriott, Hilton, and IHG.)
Last week One Mile at a Time reported that Hyatt would bring back a new version of their status challenge “in early 2015.”
I’ve confirmed the details of the offer with Hyatt, and that it will become available January 1.
- You don’t need to have status with another chain to qualify.
- Sign up and get automatic Platinum status for 60 days.
- Stay 6 nights during that time and keep Platinum through February 2016.
- While doing this offer you’ll receive 1,000 bonus points for the first 6 nights.
- Stay 12 nights during that time and receive Diamond status through February 2016.
So there’s no more ‘instant Diamond’ status offer, you actually have to stay 12 nights within 60 days for Diamond.
But you don’t even need to have status with another chain to sign up, you just need to ask for the challenge. (Some folks reported being asked to prove in the past that they had hotel stay activity, and not just status, so having a Hilton Reserve credit card wasn’t actually enough.)
So there’s good and bad here, but it’s great to see expedited status back for those interested in it and the criteria is reasonable. If you have 12 upcoming hotel nights within a 2 month period you’ll want to do this if you can make those nights work with Hyatt.
Current elites can’t benefit from renew their current status with this offer, it’s meant to bring in new loyal guests. Hyatt tells me,
This offer cannot be used to requalify for Diamond or to requalify for Platinum as those who participate and achieve the night requirement receive Platinum or Diamond until 2/2016.
As well as in the past I expect that MGM Mlife stays won’t count towards the challenge, which is too bad considering the inexpensive hotels midweek in Las Vegas in such close proximity to each other. But cash and points award nights, as qualifying status nights, should.
This offer is available with an end date of May 31. They haven’t shared whether the offer will be renewed in the future. Assuming the program lasts, some folks will want to maximize their time as a Diamond and presumably taking and completing the challenge in the back half of the year will wind up conferring status until February 2017 … but this hasn’t been confirmed yet.
If you want Hyatt Platinum status for 60 days, just call and ask starting January 1. (With Hyatt introducing free internet for all guests there’s not a ton of incremental benefit to Platinum – in my view the meaningful benefit is 2pm late checkout).
More importantly if you want to make the move to Hyatt, starting January 1 you’ll be able to request a challenge and then give them 12 nights in 60 days to earn the level instead of hte usual requirement of 25 stays or 50 nights during the year.
Update: I’ve clarified that existing Platinums can use this offer to earn Diamond status, and noted the end-date for the current version of the offer as May 31.
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@DCS your total number of stays have been relatively few, and predominantly (although not exclusively) in a single region.
@Gary
It makes little sense to claim that 12 suite upgrades a year are just a “few” while at the same time touting JUST 4 ‘confirmed’ suite upgrades in total per YEAR as the “best in the business”. The two claims collide!
BTW, my reason for doing “just” 12 stays at Hilton properties is yet another feature that is unique to the HHonors program (best in the business?): It is the only program that allows elite qualification on BASE POINTS, in addition to the usual metrics of numbers of stays or nights. In 2014, I requalified for HHonors Diamond after just 7 stays because they’d already earned me the 120K base points required to make Diamond. Therefore, my 12 stays at Hilton properties were 5 more than I needed. So, again, what is your metric for deciding to characterize 12 suite upgrades on 12 stays as just a ‘few’?!!
Anyway, on that deafening cognitive dissonance I must exit this discussion. As the confusion in this thread just showed, GP already does a nice job revealing itself for the immature hotel loyalty program that it is.
Best in the business? Yeah, right…;-)
G’day from…Yangon, Myanmar!
@ Gary. Look forward to getting an update. I am beginning to think my “confirmed registration” might not be that… well… confirmed. Am currently staying at Hyatt so could ask hotel sales office/ Customer Relations Manager to register if necessary. Thanks for the heads up on this promo anyway!
Also looking forward to an update. Have a stay scheduled for a week from now and would like to take advantage of this.
I called a couple of hours ago and the CSR knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned “Quick Qualifying Elite Trial”. (Currently I am Platinum status)He immediately was able to register me. However he did not mention that I would get 1000 points after the first 6 stays. However on Flyertalk, Gold Passport Concierge said the exact same thing that was told to Jason (Comment 48). So now I am confused to whether or not I am in this trial. :/
According to the Hyatt Gold Passport rep on Flyertalk:
“The Elite Tier Offer is not an open, public offer. This is a special offer that may only be extended by our hotels’ sales offices. To participate, you would need to speak with the sales office of a property you frequent to consider submission of your information for registration in this particular promotion.”
This isn’t ‘The Elite Tier Offer’ as noted by other commenters below so there’s some confusion. This information was proactively offered to me by Hyatt, though I’ll follow up.
@Rado @Gary @Joe S Recall that I had registered for this promotion on Jan 01 with Rado’s help. I just completed my 2 night stay in NYC. My status was upgraded to platinum ahead of my stay. I’ve already received my base points + 1,000 pt per night bonus. I can only suggest being persistent with CSR.
@ Monte P. Glad to hear it worked out for you. I have now confirmed with the Hyatt I am currently staying at that my registration is confirmed. I have also just checked and see that my last stay (which included 1st and 2nd Jan) was also credit for 1000 extra GP points.
Maybe I just have bad luck, but I emailed them yesterday and then called them today. Same basic response: “The ‘Quick Qualifying Elite Trial’ is a targeted offer and we can only sign you up if you received the offer via email.”
I was as persistent as I could be without being rude and still nothing after speaking with a supervisor. Hopefully Gary can get it figured out because I want to hit Diamond before I go to the Maldives in March.
I emailed and received the following response:
Thank you for contacting Hyatt Gold Passport; I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.
I regret to inform you, at this time Gold Passport is not offering any extensions for tier status eligibility. Please note that we had a Diamond trial membership offer until Friday, 31 October 2014, in which a member could receive Diamond status, offering elite membership benefits.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any other assistance with your Hyatt Gold Passport account.
Tried with another call tonight. Got the exact same text from the CSR:
“The Elite Tier Offer is not an open, public offer. This is a special offer that may only be extended by our hotels’ sales offices. To participate, you would need to speak with the sales office of a property you frequent to consider submission of your information for registration in this particular promotion.”
Verbatim
@Gary
Just a note to suggest that this blogpost be updated because Marriott Rewards just offered their Gold and Platinum members a free breakfast benefit that is almost verbatim what Hyatt offers their Diamonds:
http://www.marriott.com/hotel-promotions/weekend-breakfast.mi?stop_mobi=Yes&emlad=dcs4070%40msn.com&nck=124757241&ck=1094210&lk=1000105429&trkstart=1&vedate=&vetype=&veseg=&veof=GPBreakfast-V&trkend=1
As the wording in the Marriott announcement clearly indicates, there is a huge difference between how the free breakfast perk is implemented in the US and Canada vs. the rest of the world, and your update should probably be specific about this difference. For top elites who travel in Asia, e.g., free breakfast that is nothing short of a royal feast, in the hotel restaurant, is the norm. Therefore, gushing over one chain’s free breakfast offering in North America, without spelling out the narrowness of the comparison, is not very informative or meaningful unless only North American travelers are targeted…(but what happens when they travel outside of N America? Shouldn’t a blog on travel prepare folks for that too?).
Less brand “advocacy” and more objectivity in travel blogging may ultimately deliver better value to the readers than promoting a “best in the business” program, which is often tough to determine because it is often oh so subjective! 😉
@DCS- Marriott does not provide ANY free breakfast to elites at Marriott Courtyard properties or at resorts. That’s a huge, gaping hole. Their breakfast benefit is thus weaker than Hyatt, Starwood, and Hilton. Although it’s better than 18 months ago. And that’s despite having the toughest top tier to qualify for.
http://viewfromthewing.com/2013/05/21/the-marriott-elite-weekend-fast-is-over-gold-and-platinum-breakfast-benefit-being-extended/
And they don’t guarantee late checkout either…
Did you speak with your contacts Gary? You said you would on Monday, and now it’s Wednesday evening. How do we register?
@Gary
Marriott has more 3,800 properties in their portfolio, the wide majority of which are one of these: JW Marriott®, Autograph Collection®, Renaissance® and Marriott Hotels®, where breakfast will be offered. To call the exclusion of the Courtyard brand a ‘gaping hole’ seems like an attempt to belittle what is really a nice perk for Marriott elites. Unlike Hyatt, Marriott has a huge a footprint, meaning that exclusion of a single brand from a perk does not have the same effect it would if a Hyatt brand were excluded from a perk. Call it a matter of proportion. Subtracting a small number from a large number won’t have a major effect. Subtracting a small number from small number would likely be quite consequential…
Lastly, we should also remember not to make too much of such ‘exclusions’ because they are often ignored by hotels in different parts of the world. Courtyard Shanghai was already providing free breakfast long before Marriott decided to make it an official elite perk. Waldorf-Astorias are explicitly excluded from the list of Hilton properties that offer free elite breakfast and, yet, every W=A in China offers free breakfast to HHonors elites…
Would have been great if this really did exist…
We have Hilton Diamond and SPG Platinum, but this was the year to go for Hyatt Diamond.
Based on this post, I booked around 20 nights, most of which were points & cash requiring a pain in the a** call in to Hyatt.
After emails and time on hold, I discovered this trial, as posted, does not exist.
I was told by a Hyatt rep that the details of the Jan 2015 5 part Challenge would be disclosed next week (and this is not it).
Groan…
I also was planning stays based on this apparently non-existent promotion! What a waste of time.
Thanks Gary!
As you can see above several folks have registered for it. I do not know why so many Hyatt agents are unaware of it.
Gary,
I have to disagree with you. As far as I can tell there are 3-4 people who appear to have been registered to this promotion. Only 1 or 2 have actually confirmed that it seems to be working. The vast majority of the rest of us have been left in the cold – with denials from Hyatt that this actually exists.
The problem is this: where did you get your information from? Obviously, your information is problematic. Now – a week into the new year, it’s VERY IMPROBABLE that it’s a matter of CSR education – especially when the CSR’s are giving us a new corporate line about it not being available.
So – my problem is that your information (supposedly confirmed by Hyatt)is incorrect, inaccurate, or just plain wrong.
We come here to get information. If you are not a reliable source, we will stop coming.
Sorry about the harshness, but this is ridiculous.
@Rick Montgomery the information came from Hyatt’s Manager of Corporate Communications by email on December 30 (including emailed answers to followup questions)
All I see above (and on FT and MMS post on the subject) is people bitching that they can’t sign up.
I tried the e-mail route and it was a no go.
Hyatt phone rep told me the “Quick Qualifying Elite Trial” (which is described in your post) was targeted by certain properties to certain guests, and not available to the public at large.
She said they would be releasing their new program next week, which is a 5 step program beginning with 5000 points after 2 stays. After completion of step 1, they will give you instructions on your next step.
Why so much misinformation on this?
I really would like to know what to do.
@Gary Have you followed up with your source to ask him why the CSRs are so confused about this?
@PatMike That sounds suspiciously like the supposed-to-be-announced-January-12th Q1 promotion, which wouldn’t be for elite status. Of course I could be wrong.
@djibouti CSR said that this promotion would ultimately lead to Diamond if you follow all 5 steps.
I’m confused.
Any new information on this? I was really hoping to sign up to requalify for Diamond after missing it last year.
has anyone been successful this week?
i got this msg:
Thank you for contacting Hyatt Gold Passport; I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.
I regret to inform you that, I am unable to process your request as Diamond Trial Offer 2014 has already been expired on Friday, 31 October 2014 and the dates for Diamond Trial Offer 2015 has not been released yet and 12 nights under MGM property does not count in Diamond Challenge. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to you.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require any other assistance with your Hyatt Gold Passport account.
Tried Gold Passport e-mail and received
Oh well – 10 nights in January alone for Marriott to have.
I called around 4 days ago and the CSR knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned “Quick Qualifying Elite Trial” Immediately he was able to register me within minutes. Yesterday I called back to confirm I was registered for this trial, since so many people were having a hard time registering. The new CSR quickly confirmed that I was in fact registered for this trial.
Gary – we are still waiting for the follow up you said you would do with your Hyatt contact!!
I pinged on this and haven’t heard back which is strange
I called the Platinum customer service line tonight and was told that to register, I needed 40 nights last year or 50,000 base points. The second again confirmed the same. The third agent told me that this was something that I had to receive an e-mail invitation for. I plan to try again tomorrow.
So not sure what happened, because each time I was on the phone or emailed about this promotion they told me they didn’t see anything which gave you instant Platinum status, but logged in to my account today and it was Platinum. So no idea what to think now.
@PatMike
“She said they would be releasing their new program next week, which is a 5 step program beginning with 5000 points after 2 stays. After completion of step 1, they will give you instructions on your next step.”
That is precisely my “Stay More, Play More” promotion. I very much doubt that there’s a step 2 after my first 2 stays or any elite status at the end of the tunnel, and I’m not about to waste nights on Hyatt finding out. But, I’m 99% sure that CSR you talked to is so full of crap she needs a commode for an office chair.
Do we all agree that this isn’t happening now?
Somehow it’s happening, just don’t know how to call up and ask for it. On my 4th or 5th call (and multiple emails) they said I was registered for the promo ( 6 = Platinum, 12 = Diamond) but they didn’t see anything about instant Platinum status. A week later, my account showed up as Platinum though.
The flyertalk thread has a lot of conflicting information as well – seems like a few people are getting it, and many many more are not.
The flyertalk thread has a lot of conflicting information as well – seems like a few people are getting it, and many many more are not.
Just called GP. I’ve spoke to two separate agents.
The first agent claimed that he wasn’t aware of any promotion like that. After I’ve asked him to double-check, he came back and confirmed that there is indeed no promotion of that kind.
The second agent initially mentioned about the old diamond challenge and how it was discontinued. After double-checking, she came back and said that there is a current promotion, but in order to qualify, you have to have stayed at least 40 nights at Hyatt in 2014.
:DGuess that means more calls for tomorrow
I called the sales manager of a hotel I was staying at last weekend, and she was able to sign me up for the offer a day before my check-in.
I called HGP to confirm my successful registration for the offer. They, of course, had no idea what I was talking about. After another lengthy hold, they came back to confirm I was registered on Jan 15th, and I already can see the 1,000 point bonus for Jan 16th.
Hallelujah!
The offer is called “Elite Tier Offer” and Hyatt CSRs can access it on their HGP Tools screen. It appears to be targeted towards property sales departments. When they are logged in, they need to select “Member Enrollment” then under “Source Code” they need to select “ELT15” from the drop down menu. I hope this info may help others get through the Hyatt CSR gauntlet…
Folks,
Just tried the ELT15 as specified above.
Stonewalled by the CSR – they have an email saying it has to come from the properties.
I was not able to get it by phone or email, however I was successful getting a property to enroll me. I just called the sales office of a Hyatt I had a reservation at. They got me enrolled before my check-in date and even gave me a diamond amenity and a note upon check-in.