Turning Hyatt Gold Passport into Diamond

Park Hyatt, Carmel Highlands Inn
Hyatt Gold Passport Category 5 hotel
18,000 points/free night

My Hyatt Gold Passport account reads Diamond membership as of today.

Getting my Gold Passport stamped required a little prodding from this loyalty traveler. Six hotel stays at full-service Hyatt Regency and Grand Hyatt hotels posted to my account within two to four days after checking out of the hotel. Nearly all seven hotel stays at Hyatt Place and Summerfield Suites required a full two weeks to post. A week ago, April 12, I sent 8 email credit requests for missing stays and bonus points through the link on the Hyatt Gold Passport member account page.

In fairness, Hyatt Gold Passport does have a statement on the member’s account detail webpage for “Past Stay or Bonus not credited? Please allow 2 weeks after check-out to request missing credit.”

When you file a request for missing stay credit, there is this statement
“Your account will be updated with the appropriate eligible credit within 2 weeks. Please allow up to 4 weeks to receive credit for stays outside the U.S. and Canada, at Hyatt Place, Hyatt Summerfield Suites, and our Hotel partners.”

My Gold Passport stay counter progressed steadily and rapidly during March. The stay counter hit 10 on March 25, 16 stays by March 30, and then was stuck on 18 from April 4 for a while, and then notched up to 20 when the March 28th stay posted. Technically, all my stays posted within two weeks except for Summerfield Suites Belmont on March 29 and the Hyatt Place Fremont on March 30.

I made a phone call to follow up on the emails of the week before. The rush for diamond membership is the closeness of my next Hyatt stay this week.

Then, the Hyatt Gold Passport phone representative spoke the dreaded words, “stay is ineligible for points”. He told me the Hyatt Place Fremont stay of March 30 was notated as ineligible for points. This is the stay from the Best Rate Guarantee night I wrote about in this post.

I duly pointed out the terms of the Best Rate Guarantee state “The number of Gold Passport points awarded to you if you are a Gold Passport member will be based on the room rate actually paid by you at checkout.”

The point which was uncertain to me is whether a Best Rate Guarantee room night actually counts as an eligible stay for credit. Technically, I didn’t see any statement in the Best Rate Guarantee terms regarding Stay or Night credit on a Best rate guarantee discounted rate. Hyatt Gold Passport awards points for Hawthorne Suites and AmeriSuites stays, however, stays at these Hyatt partner hotels are not eligible for elite qualification membership. I realized the Hyatt "Best Rate Guarantee" hotel stay may not necessarily be an “eligible” stay for Hyatt Gold Passport “Stays Count Double” promotion.

But, Gold Passport did count the "Best Rates Guarantee" $71 Hyatt Place stay as an eligible stay and the stay was doubled for the "Stays Count Double" promo.
And I am now Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond.

There is still a matter of a missing 1,000 points from the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport Gold Passport Bonus Offer reservation.

And it looks like the “Stays Count Double” did not trigger the additional Platinum Extras awards for every 3rd stay. The counter for Platinum Extras awards is confusing because it starts after reaching Platinum membership level with 5 stays, which required 3 stays with “Stays Count Double”. My 13 actual stays only triggered 3 Platinum Extras Awards for my 6th and 9th stays (Platinum Extras Award for 3rd and 6th stay was good for 1,000 points each), and I received the third Platinum Extra award yesterday for my 12th stay (Platinum Extras Award for 9th stay good for 1,500 points). Although my Gold Passport Stay Counter reads 25, I have not received the higher value Platinum Extras awards at Stays 15, 18, (2,000 points) and 21 (Regency Club upgrade).

Friday, March 14, 2008 I checked into the Hyatt Place Fremont for my first Hyatt hotel stay of 2008. Five weeks later (and $1,500), as of Friday, April 18, 2008 my Diamond membership shows on my online account webpage. This coming week will be my first Hyatt stay as a Diamond member. Phoenix, here I come.

On a side note: Hyatt’s website is generally really slow compared to the other major hotel brands I spend time viewing. I need cool rims on my browser so I can at least be entertained watching the circles spin while waiting for Hyatt to load another webpage.