Hyatt is offering a bonus of 10% – 30% on points purchases through August 31.

The more points you purchase the higher the bonus.

• 1000 – 9000 points gets a 10% bonus. Buying 9000 points means you receive 9900 points at a cost of 2.18 cents apiece.
  
• 10,000 – 29,000 points gets a 20% bonus. Buying 29,000 points means you receive 34,800 points at a cost of 2 cents apiece.
  
• 30,000 – 40,000 points gets you a 30% bonus. Buying 40,000 points means you receive 52,000 points at a cost of 1.846 cents apiece.

Hyatt Gold Passport allows a maximum purchase of 40,000 points per year.

I would not do this on a speculative basis. If you were going to buy some points to top off towards an award, it’s great that there’s a bonus.

There are a few situations where it would make sense to buy points instead of buying a hotel night.

• Under this promo, you can buy 15,600 points for $312. The Hyatt 48Lex in New York is currently a category 4 hotel, 15,000 points per night, and often over $500 though award nights will be bookable.

• You can buy 44,200 points for $816, enough for (2) nights at any category 6 hotel. That’s an average cost of $408 per night. Normally that’ll be a fantastic deal at many category 6 properties — like the Park Hyatts in Paris, Sydney, and Zurich. It’s normally also a fantastic deal at the Park Hyatt Maldives, but there’s a 50% off sale there at the moment which makes purchased nights frequently a better deal.

Bonuses are better than no bonuses, but I’m not pulling out the credit card on this one. Though if I needed to hit minimum spend for a big credit card bonus, I suppose there are worse things to spend money on than prepaid hotel nights.