Hyatt Hotels 2,500 Points per MasterCard Paid Stay

Offer: Registration required. Earn 2,500 points per stay paid by MasterCard through September 15, 2009. Your account earning preference must be set to earn points to receive bonus.

Promotion Dates: June 15 through September 15, 2009.

Loyalty traveler analysis: This is a straightforward promotion. Earn 2,500 bonus points per stay.

My recommendation for Gold Passport members is to play the 6x Hyatt Gold Passport airline promotion to your advantage when staying at least two nights. Basically you need to determine if you will get more value out of the miles or bonus points.

A low cost two-night stay at a Hyatt Place may earn more value with 6x miles whereas a five-night $2,000 stay will likely earn more value in Gold Passport points. Change your earning preferences between miles and points to get the best value for your stay.

And remember that you must have your account set to earn points for this bonus. If you have your account set for miles for the 6x miles promotion and then you stay one night at a Hyatt and pay with your MasterCard you will not earn bonus miles (requires minimum  2-night stay) or bonus points (you will earn standard 500 airline miles for the hotel stay).

Sample Earning:

Grand Hyatt San Francisco $112 (AAA) rate for one night on Friday June 19, 2009

Pay with MasterCard.

Earn 2,500 bonus points from MasterCard promotion.

Earn 5 x 112 = 560 Gold Passport points.

General member earns 3,060 points for stay.

Platinum Member (5 hotel stays in calendar year): 15% bonus on base spending = 84 additional points

Platinum member earns 3,144 points for stay.

Diamond member (25 hotel stays in a calendar year): Earn 1,000 Gold Passport points platinum amenity and 30% bonus on base spending for another 560 x 0.3 points = 168 points.

Platinum member earns 4,228 points for stay.

Grand Hyatt San Francisco is a Gold Passport Category 3 points redemption for 12,000 points per free night. The points earned from the one night stay are between 25% to 35% of points needed for a free night at this particular hotel.

Hyatt Gold passport free nights table:

G Bonuses are a Hyatt Gold Passport Points Accelerator

Always check and try to use a G Bonus link when booking Hyatt Hotel reservations. You can accelerate your points earning by booking through the G bonus link to earn free night awards faster.

http://goldpassport.hyatt.com/gp/en/offers/bonus.jsp?icamp=GP3008

Grand Hyatt San Francisco has a G2 offer for 2,000 bonus points per stay valid any night of the week. (Many G bonuses are only valid certain nights. Business District hotels sometimes exclude weekend nights from G bonuses when rates are cheap. And other hotels only offer the G bonus on weekends.)

The surprising result I found when trying to book this Grand Hyatt reservation using the booking link for the 2,000 points G bonus is the rate increased from $111.75 (AAA) to $149 for a Hyatt.com nonrefundable rate.

At $149 per night this room could earn over 6,000 points for a one night stay. The points earned are  sufficient for a Category 1 hotel free night (Hyatt Place Silicon Valley, Fremont) or 50% of the cost for a free night at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco at 12,000 points.

This deal works out to a Pay 2, Get 1 night free for the Grand Hyatt San Francisco.

I hope it is not the prevailing trend that Hyatt Gold Passport G Bonus rates result in higher hotel booking rates than otherwise available through rates like AAA. I had not noticed this before.