Disaster Relief
 

Dear FlyerTalk Community,

Hyatt joins with the American Red Cross to support the communities affected by the massive tornado in Oklahoma. We invite you to support our response efforts by donating your Hyatt Gold Passport® points. Each 5,000 point donation results in a $25 USD gift to the American Red Cross. To donate your points, please call Hyatt Gold Passport Customer Service toll free at +1.800.228.3360 in the U.S. and Canada or +1.402.593.8615 when outside the U.S. and Canada.

If you’d prefer to make a cash donation, please visit http://american.redcross.org/hyatt-pub. Hyatt is donating $50,000 to the American Red Cross and pledges to match total donations of points and cash through June 30, 2013 – up to $25,000.

We thank you for teaming up with Hyatt and the American Red Cross to rebuild communities where our associates, guests and neighbors have been affected by this disaster.

For more information, please visit http://hyatt.com/disasterrelief.

Safe travels,

Gold Passport Concierge, the donation page is not working properly. I am trying to make a donation and get the following error:

There was a problem processing your request
Minimum Donation Amount of $10.00

The donation I am trying to make is larger than $10. I have tried three diferent amounts and I always get the same error.

Hello,

I will be happy to see if we can look into the issue. Once I receive a response, Brock or myself will send you a PM.

Sincerely,

Nick B.

I just completed a donation. It processed mine without flaw and I've gotten a receipt back from the Red Cross.

I just tried again and it worked. Thank you to Hyatt for matching the donation.

Good Afternoon Flyertalker's,

Thank you all for your donations to support the communities affected by the massive tornado in Oklahoma. It appears that the page is functioning properly.

Safe Travels,

Brock S.

Sorry for being a downer, but why don't you offer similar relief funds for communities, or countries that need it most where there is little or NO government help?

A US$10 donation goes a lot further in Third World countries than the USA!

An interesting point, but to be fair, and since you're a diamond, perhaps you should know that often when you call the diamond line, you're often talking to people in the vicinity of . . .

You could google it, or, you could simply look at the address of the standard Hyatt bill request/complaint.

http://www.hyatt.com/hyatt/customer-...ll-request.pdf

Plenty of trouble around the world, but for Hyatt, this one did hit close to home.

Disaster Relief
 

Yes, this one hit very close to home. Hyatt has an accounting office in Moore, OK.

That was also the first thing I thought when I saw the announcement. The second was why make a public statement, just donate the money and not make a PR statement about it.

The statement "where our associates, guests and neighbors have been affected by this disaster" also seems a bit too polished. Just state that your own staff (or whatever they are) were affected. That would really be a bit more honest and would justify what made this disaster different from others..... But I guess those PR people have to justify their existence and see opportunities everywhere :-(.

Still appreciate the gesture but was also left wondering why just this one....

The public announcement encourages other citizens and companies to help. I don't begrudge Hyatt some PR value, and even more so if it helps the tornado victims attract more assistance.

Charity or Profit Vehicle?
 

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.

:rolleyes: Who values GP points at five cents?

I thought the valuation for the donation at 0.5c/point was embarrassing.

Besides the fact that I think the valuation is high on her calculations, and that its really more of a cost savings than profit, I dont think esme is interpreting the donation correctly?

Hyatt says they will MATCH donations (either direct cash or points converted to cash) up to $25K.

So that's $75K *plus* the total number of points to cash conversions...and there is no maximum stated in the T&C's