I’ve been covering the benefits of Hyatt’s Gold Passport program over the last few weeks. One of them being the Hyatt Diamond Challenge which unfortunately has been done away with for anyone who hasn’t already taken advantage of the promotion.
In the past Hyatt has offered to match top-tier status levels with a competing hotel programs with a free 60 day Diamond status trail. Given that Hyatt gave anyone who took the challenge full Diamond benefits for 60 days it was almost overly generous.
Once enrolled in the Diamond Challenge members had full Diamond benefits for 60 days, including four confirmed suite upgrades valid on stays for up to 7 consecutive nights. On top of that Hyatt was handing out an additional 1,000 bonus points for the first six nights stayed during the challenge.
To complete the challenge and earn Diamond maintain status until February of next year all you have to do is stay 12 nights within 60 days. This was incredibly valuable given that Points + Cash nights were eligible and you could leverage Hyatt promotions at the same time to both earn status and points.
Hyatt Diamond Challenge Discontinued
The last Hyatt Diamond Challenge was set to end on October 31, 2014. In the past Hyatt has always renewed the Challenge with a new promotional period as soon as one ended. However, this time around Hyatt did not do so.
The response from Hyatt regarding this confirms that the Diamond trial promotion will no longer be offered:
“We appreciate the overwhelming enthusiasm for Hyatt Diamond elite status. The Diamond trial promotion that began on May 1, 2014 has run its course and has been discontinued as of October 31. We very much appreciate all of our members who were able to take advantage of this promotion and have continued to stay with Hyatt throughout the year. We are currently evaluating the best path forward with these types of promotions. As always, we welcome your feedback.”
I can’t say for sure why Hyatt ended the Diamond trial, but they may have realized the offer was just a little TOO generous. Handing out full Diamond benefits for 2 months meant anyone with a handful of upcoming stays could easily and quickly earn status AND get confirmed suite upgrades.
What Now?
It’s too bad Hyatt has decided not to extend the Diamond Trail offer at this point, but for anyone who currently has Diamond status it also means less competition when vying for upgrades. And maybe Hyatt got what it wanted out of the promotion—lots of publicity and potentially many new guests trying out Hyatt properties.
In either case, it’s too bad to see the Diamond Challenge disappear. As with many things in this game—take advantage of the good offers while you can, and don’t expect things to last forever!
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