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

*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???