missydarlin

Because they wanted it to be ... and I still don't see anything wrong with that.

Perhaps they wanted to show appreciation to a certain demographic of customers without creating an expectation and/or artificially inflating the numbers of that demographic.

Or perhaps they are testing the future buying pattern of the part of the demographic that got it against the part that didn't.

I'm guessing that "all the negative reaction"... which is going to be limited to the small percentage of Hyatt customers that are on FT- who all immediately logged into their accounts to count unique stays (not judging, I did it too) ... is a drop in the bucket compared to the positive reaction they get from the customers who received the surprise.

RTW1

No you're not. It's basic communications 101.... for every negative comment that is made there are a lot more out there that feel the same but keep quite. Not addressing those is about the worse you can do... and using that BS PR language might be even worse.

But if you are blinded by only the good things of a program (it's not mutual exclusive you know) and cannot see this, it's not much use discussing it further. I guess the people that are running GP still think that the internet doesn't exist. These kind of promo's were probably a good idea when the information would be contained to the one receiving the gift. Times have changed though.....now informing your customers what you are doing and addressing their issues is what's needed. Something they handle quite good when there is a negative comment about an hotel stay. Not so much when it concerns their own responsibility like the GP program or the disfunctional website.

If I didn't like most of the GP program, or more specifically the service some of the hotels provide, I wouldn't even bother anymore and would be long gone.

hotelfanatic

YTD:
54 paid nights SPG (1/2 stays w/ comp suites upgrade)
1 paid night Hyatt (no room upgrade)

And btw, I am going to get my spg Plat Requalification Gift for 2013. They even have a website set up to facilitate this (https://www.spgpromos.com/elitegift2...tion=main.home). No special sauce require!!

Take note Jeff - this is the way to treat all your valued members and encourage them to stay with your brand.

austin_modern

Really? I tend to find the most vocal tend to just whine about everything and tend not to be a reasonable distribution of opinions.

It must really piss you off that just about every hotel and airline chain have unpublished tiers above platinum/diamond/executive/etc. It must irritate you that credit card companies do the same thing with their black cards.... etc.

Unpublished benefits have been around forever to target customers that the business believes will help them achieve their goals... I know it sucks when you dont fit their desired profile, but sometimes life isnt as fair as you would like it to be.

todorovic

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 5: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B329 Safari/8536.25)

Follow up to my OP.

HGP emailed me today with a survey to voice my opinion regarding the promotion. I am somewhat tempted to solicit a collective FT opinion to share with Hyatt but I'm afraid what it would look like.

travelkid

Got an e-mail from the milestones curator;

"The e-mail you heard about is part of a pilot initiative, and so, reached a very small group of members who recently reached specific milestones based on their eligible stay activity. We are keeping the details of this initiative under wraps for now; however, I can assure you that there are plans for expansion. That said, it's quite possible that you may hear from us very soon. I researched the number of unique hotels you have visited with eligible Hyatt Gold Passport stays from 1995 to present; you have reached an impressive XXX different hotels."

No magic sauce yet though

JonathanIT

Really? How "open, honest, and forthright" was the "stay at all 9 properties" promo?! I only missed St. Regis, and if I had known obviously I could have easily knocked it off the list.

Honestly, if there were some "secret sauce" involved with that promo I wouldn't have been as annoyed... because who knows if I would have been eligible or not. I actually find that promo more irritating, because I know I could have completed the task at hand and gotten the three nights. But who cares? I hardly gave it a second thought, because I value SPG Platinum status a for a whole lot more than that.

I find all this criticism laughable... because it really is just a bunch of "where's mine?!?!" whining (no matter how logically it is presented). lol

Yes, I happen to have gotten both of these "big" promos from Hyatt. Yes, I have missed many targeted promos from all sorts of companies. No, it doesn't bother me one bit. What matters with HGP is the overall strength of the program, the properties and the service. Period.

soonerfanatic

Where's mine whining? Hardly. When Hyatt is losing out on my business and my colleagues business, it turns into a loyalty disservice and nothing laughable. I don't cry and moan over it, just make a plan and act on it.

taipeiflyer

Always easy for the guy who gets something to say how it's not a big deal. If you really feel that way, you can go ahead and give me the free night.

austin_modern

its probably non-transferrable.

AJLondon

Ask for his free 50k UA miles from HGP too. That might help you get flights to your free night hotel.

hotelfanatic

Logical????

Really!! LOL.

If you have not noticed, there does not appear to be any logic in how this and last year's UA50 promo are awarded. But if is so logical, can you gace us with it???

austin_modern

Answer: special sauce.

taipeiflyer

An absolutely HORRIBLE analogy... because everyone who stayed at all 9 properties got the benefit... it is not if you stayed at all 9 properties and didn't get the benefit because your recipe didn't quite match SPG's "secret sauce." Your off-base analogy would only make sense if Hyatt came out and said if you stay at 50 unique properties, you will get the bonus. Obviously, there are several HGP members who have only stayed at 49 unique properties, so they would be one short just like you with respect to SPG and not staying at a StR. But I- AND MANY OTHERS- ave stayed at 50 unique properties and got crapped on- AGAIN!

JonathanIT

Sorry, you are the one who is missing the point. Had SPG "come out and said" ANYTHING it wouldn't have been as bad... but they said NOTHING until the promo was done. HORRIBLE analysis of my post. lol