Now, this is the kind of exciting promotion I love. It’s not easy, but with a little effort heavy travelers can earn up to 94% back on their upcoming hotels stays if you stay at 10 different hotel brands in 5 months.

GHA Discovery is a loyalty program shared by a number of different chains. This is their 20th anniversary promotion. There are 39 separate brands that utilize this program. By the way they just added free breakfast as an elite benefit and they status match.

• The more brands you stay at, the bigger the bonus you earn
• At the top end, you can earn $5,200 towards future stays (‘Discovery Dollars’) for $6,000 in spend
• You need to spend a minimum of $600 per stay for the brand to qualify, you begin earning bonuses with your third brand, and max out the promotion with 10 brands
• Only stays booked after registering for the offer count, and stays must be completed by September 30

Oh, and there’s also a top prize of $200,000 in hotel stay credit:

To celebrate Global Hotel Alliance’s 20th anniversary, we’re giving away D$1,000,000 in prizes (worth USD 1,000,000). Register now and complete eligible stays at 3 distinct hotel brands to earn D$300, 4 brands to earn D$400, 5 brands to earn D$500 … increasing up to D$1,000 in bonus rewards! The top member who explores the most brands wins a grand prize of D$200,000, with second and third runner-up prizes of D$20,000. A minimum spend of USD 600 per stay is required.

Brand #		Bonus		Minimum Spend
1		0		600
2		0		600
3		300		600
4		400		600
5		500		600
6		600		600
7		700		600
8		800		600
9		900		600
10		1000		600
Total		D$5.200		$6,000

Taxes and fees don’t count towards your minimum spend, so you’ll ultimately be out of pocket more than $6,000 if you max this out. And it’s going to be difficult to spend exactly and only $600 on a qualifying stay. This isn’t supposed to be easy, but it is certainly generous. $5,200 is 87% of $6,000 that you’ll get back to spend on future stays at participating hotels.

This bonus is on top of standard Discovery Dollars earning in the program:

• Silver: 4%
  
• Gold: 5%
  
• Platinum: 6%
  
• Titanium: 7%

So a Titanium member completing this promotion with minimum spending is actually earning 94% back. No doubt there will be members who accomplish this. And it’s stackable with other bonuses, too.

One other wrinkle is that you’ve only got 37 and not 39 brands to choose from since NH Hotels, NH Collection and Nhow are treated as a single brand – and they’re the largest collection of properties in the program.

I love this offer so much because it gives members something to chase, and something to strategize over. Back in 2001 American AAdvantage gave 20,000 bonus miles to members who used 20 different partners during a five month period. Now their global alliance, oneworld (run out of American’s headquarters) is celebrating its 25th anniversary with… a cocktail that’s similar to a Negroni. If you want to find out where the excitement in loyalty is, it’s with smaller programs that need to be more aggressive to get your attention like this one.

(HT: Loyalty Lobby)