Abuse of Hyatt & Marriott
 

Marriott
$1600 = 20 nights in hotels + 90,000 DL miles

Hyatt
$950 = 10 nights in hotels + 6 award nights + 55,000 AA Miles

I swear upon all that is holy that this is a true story with actual numbers... I'm such a O.C. dork I ran the numbers in a spreadsheet before deciding to plan my hotel stays this summer.

How it was done, if anyone cares:

• I picked the cheapest reasonably located Marriotts and Hyatts I could find wherever I was going
• < $80/night Marriotts (average, incl. tax)*
• < $95/night Hyatts (average, including tax)
• All stays were for exactly one night
• I legally alternated nights between two accounts -- I even told the front desk what I was doing most of the time. One time, I admitted as I checked out and back into the same room, that "I know this is strange." The FD agent looked me in the eye and replied without skipping a beat, "No it isn't." No, he wasn't being sarcastic or falsely polite. And yes, the miles have already been deposited.

So, for $2500+, we got 30 nights in decent-to-great hotels, plus $1500-$2000 in Hyatt nights (they will be used), plus $1450-$2900 in airline miles depending how you value them.

I think these two chains have lost money on us this summer.

Thank you FlyerTalk for letting me know about these amazing promos :D

*FWIW, this includes a few nights in an amazing, breathtaking ocean-view suite upgrade in a FS Marriott given as an apology for checking us into an occupied room.

Well if you had good use of the rooms, it seems like a fair deal. If it was just best bang for the buck, it seems a bit expensive. I did my 5x Hyatt stays for $40-$45 per night ai, using the Costco certs.

I'm using the free nights right now in Hong Kong. Now there is a nice return for your money.

Definitely good use of the rooms. Every night was for business and therefore not even on my dime. If I'd have known about the Costco certs I'd have used them... can you indulge my laziness and point me in the right direction how to get these?

I'm also curious about the Costco certificates.

Costco has been selling two 50.00 certs for 79.99. They are acceptable at almost all of the Hyatt properties and work just like cash. No refund for unused portion so I just use the certs for up to increments of 50 and then pay the rest with a cc. Your numbers could have been a little better than they were... and they were already smokin!

I did the same thing with my wife and paid about 50 per night ai with the certs. Racked up a lot of AA miles, free nights and status. Great promo and am grateful to Hyatt for it.

can you pay for this with your hilton AMEX and it is treated as a purchase and accrues HH points? I thought I read that you cannot buy cash equivalents or gift certs without it being a cash advance. Anyone have any luck with this?

Sure, for the last 8 months or so, US locations of Costco have been selling 2x $50 Hyatt certs for $79.99. So, at least 20% off depending if you're a Costco Exec member or not.

There have been some US Hyatt Place locations of late that are a bit grouchy about taking these. I had one in particular that didn't want to take them on a corp rate. However, most take them with no problems at all.

Being able to stack promos makes these airline/hotel promos so great. You stack the Costco certs with cheap stays, use a credit card to buy the certs. Get airline miles for that, plus Costco Exec 2% bonus, 27.5k AA miles for 5 stays, Diamond amenity points, plus stays towards keeping Diamond status.

I'll even use some Costco certs here in HKG for dining while I'm using my free nights.

I recall figuring that if you did 10 stays at low rates and the certs, you'd get 5 nights worth $350 each, 55k in A miles ($1100), plus 5-10k Hyatt points for Diamond amenity (more if you were at one that a club was closed in) all for $400-$450. So, almost $3k in value, not counting what reupping for Diamond is worth.

I have bought hundreds of these certs at Costco, and at Costco.com (when they were available for a short time), and none were ever treated any differently than a normal purchase.

anyone know if they sell Hilton/Hampton cards?

Not that I've ever seen. Of course, given the big numbers I'm sure that Hyatt has pulled on these certs, it could happen in the future.

Most of the certs that Costco sells are for restaurants, plus movies, amusement parks, See's, etc. The do vary by location.

The Hyatt promo was 5 stays for 27,500 AA miles. If I get this right, you used two GP accounts that earned miles for the same AA account? Or did you split the earnings between two people?

BTW, I agree that we experienced some great promos and I wonder if they will keep having them in the future.

Two different AA accounts. I would venture a guess that you could have used the same AA account as long as the Hyatt accounts were different. But I don't know for sure.

Technically you had to do 12 nights in Hyatt for those 6 free stays
10 stays for the AA miles divided over 2 accounts and then 1 additional stay per account for the bonus BB nights.

He could have gotten the promo "We have not seen you for a while, stay once and you get a free night"

Are you listening SPG???

Merchant giftcards are not a cash equivalent. The merchant who sells it (Costco, in this example) buys the card for a discount from face value. It's the same as any other retail purchase.

Prepaid American Express, Mastercard, or VISA cards are typically sold at a premium to face value. They will be treated as a purchase if bought at a retail store, but if purchased at an American Express Travel Service Office (or other financial institution) they may be coded as a cash equivalent or even as a cash advance :td: .

+1 ^

I don't consider it abuse of Hyatt, though.

They won my ongoing business with this promo. I'm sticking with them now.

Thanks Hyatt.

Well done I say for maximising the opportunity put your way. ^

USA based members certainly have a big advantage over others around the world especially on Hyatt hotel prices.

Same here. I'm very happy with the Diamond status and free nights at the beach.

Hyatt should be happy too. By the end of this year, I'll have spent $4,000 with them which I otherwise wouldn't have.

I have a bunch of Courtyard nights coming up at $45-50 per night.

For two-nighters, I'm hotel hopping between two nearby CY's. I've had mixed results in the past with staying in one hotel and doing a checkout/checkin. Per Marriott rules, it's treated as one stay so I'm not taking any chances.

I'll be using those Discover America gift cards to pay for it.

So at the end of the DL promo, it'll be something on the order of $500 for 12 hotel-nights and 60,000 miles. Plus a small amount of Marriott points and DL miles on the stays themselves (something like 250MR + 90DL per night, I think). Only catch is the lack of breakfast, but it's just me traveling and I'll just figure out where a nearby bagel joint is.

I considered a Hyatt run but my dates matched up better with MR and even the cheapie Hyatts were up in the $80-90 range in the area where I'm doing these CY stays (mostly suburban Dallas).

we, too, did impulse stays at Hyatt (though took the points, credit instead of miles -- too many G bonus etc) .

But it's not abuse, Hyatt's filling the rooms, we've getting rewarded for loyalty. It's a just being "frugal" and mutually beneficial.

I guess Hyatt could consider the use of two accounts for the purpose of doubling up on the promo as "abuse".

That is correct.

I really meant abuse tongue-in-cheek. I'm just using DW's account, and she's even usually with me when I do so :)

Yeah, this let me give Hyatt a 2nd chance. Their locations are so much more limited than Marriott, but they're not bad at all. They're now a legitimate #2 option for me, especially after the status challenge.

I need some advice ...

Currently staying at a Hamton Inn (hilton) here in Raleigh till friday. I am gonna be back and forth between Nashville and Raleigh for the next 3 weeks so I'm taking advantage of the triple/double promo with AA, which is my preferred airline. I am a member of marriott, hiton, starwood, and choice. I have an SPG amex and am waiting on a HHonors Surpass card to get approved. I am just starting to build points in all of these programs, but it's tough for me to recognize cross-promo opportunities.

What would be the best way to maximize my rewards? Hotels must stay under $90/night.
Can these promos be used on Priceline deals?

Added: AA is preferred, but I have CO as well and will probabbly be getting alaska in the near future.

This is off-topic -- this thread isn't really about Hilton. I would have suggested that you repost this question in another thread, but it is too general a question, makes it seem you have done no research, and want us to do all the work for you, and I don't want you to get flamed.

Asking for help is fine if it's a "last-mile" type of question after you've exhausted other options, or if you have contributed to the community before. Just saying "I want miles, how do I get them" is not really a very good question to ask strangers. Sorry.

If you want AA/CO miles, you should use Google to search for AA hotel promos, CO hotel promos, car rental promos, etc. Also, go through AA/CO forums and search/look through stickies for promos for your preferred airlines. Good luck.

The only thing I said about hilton was that I'm staying at one right now and am getting a hilton card soon ... I also said that while I have looked all over for promos for miles, nights, etc. I am still fairly new at recognizing combinable promos though. When you google, more times than not it links to flyertalk threads. I said I am in the choice and marriott programs and could get hyatt GP if it's the best deal.

I asked for your advice cause I want to maximize my miles while on business the exact way you did ... so not really off topic.

What I didn't say was that I wanted everyone to do the work for me. And if I was a frequent contributor and point accruer then I wouldn't really need to ask for advice would I?

maybe they aren't listening because, as the OP stated, these two chains have lost money on them this summer

I LOVE my Hyatt certs! ^

Though we were goldpoint members, we actively became fans of Hyatt via all these promos this year. We now search Hyatt properties first when traveling.^

No question the chains can lose money on an FT'er who pays close attention and maximizes his/her participation in the promotion.

But I think we're the exception rather than the norm. They probably get a lot of business travelers who are comped mid-level status in all the chains and now have a little incentive to try an exciting new <insert chain here> instead of their boring old <insert chain here>. Who knows: maybe both Marriott and Hyatt - the two most aggressive this summer - will end up with a net positive conversion of HHonors and Starwood guests. Those guests aren't scouring for $50 Courtyards - they're just swapping their $150 Hilton for a $150 Marriott.

In other words, I think the promotions can be successful in the market of regular business travelers.

To be fair, I think Starwood's promo wasn't bad. Some people would rather have a near-term stash of Free Nights than a few more airlines miles to throw on the pile.

I thought you couldn't stack the AA and BWB promos :(

I didn't try to stack... it just happened to be that they did stack.

Agreed. I'm just hoping Hyatt & Marriott don't ban me from future promos! :)

I still fail to see where the 'abuse' part is !? :confused:

They were stackable. I earned BWBs on any and all stays I converted to miles, whether AA or UA.

This isn't abuse. This is the very foundation this board was founded on.

I can`t see any abuse, if you follow the rules of the promo.

Find a friend in the US, and you can get some discount certs. I'll be headed down your way in September, so if you want some, send me a PM.

I think the abuse part was more a tongue in cheek type comment.

I just traded two nights of ~$120 Hilton for two nights of ~$120 Marriott. And it worked. It was better than I expected and an experience I'd like to repeat. It's unlikely I'll be in another Hilton for a long time thanks to the Marriott DL promo...

Marriott might have lost money on us but not overall.
2nd qtr profit risis
"Revenue climbed 8 percent to $2.77 billion, thanks to a boost in room rates and fees."