Hyatt Gold Passport pledges $25 to the American Red Cross (up to a maximum of $25,000) for each 5K Hyatt Gold Passport® points donated by the program’s members. Is there a catch?

Hyatt is donating cash, but it earns back the value of the donated points by its program members. What is the value of the donated points?

Bloggers on hotel points value Hyatt Gold Passport points between 1.67 cents and 16 cents a point.

At 5 cents a point, the value of each Hyatt Gold Passport member’s donation of 5K points is actually $250. Yet Hyatt is donating only one tenth of that amount – $25 – to the American Red Cross!. Their donation is limited to $25K (1,000 member donations of 5K points each). Is the number of points that members can donate to the cause also unlimited?

Hyatt is donating $50,000 upfront: until a certain threshold of member donations is reached they will "lose" money: whether or not they profit depends upon the number of 5K point contributions by its members.

A breakeven analysis (at a 5 cent point value, assuming member contributions are unlimited) shows that:
•At 334 contributions of 5K points Hyatt recoups its full $75K
•At 1,000 contributions of 5K points Hyatt actually makes a profit of $150,000
•At 10,000 contributions 5K points of each, Hyatt makes a profit of$2,400,000

Full analysis on my blog.