In the past I’ve written about Hyatt’s “Passport Escapes” award redemptions, which can be a good value. Through this you could redeem not only for free nights, but also include daily breakfast and several dinners during your stays, as follows:
As a point of comparison, here’s the normal award chart not including the daily breakfast and dinners:
So on the high end you’re basically paying a 35,000 point premium for daily breakfast and three dinners on a five night stay. In most cities I’d say that’s not a good deal, but at a resort where you’re “captive,” like the Park Hyatt Maldives (though in fairness all guests get free breakfast at the Park Hyatt Maldives), I’d say it could be a pretty good value given the cost of food.
Unfortunately as of November 1, 2012, this redemption option will be eliminated. That’s definitely saddening and at first I was confused as to why they would eliminate the option since I can’t imagine it cost Hyatt all that much, though Gary shares an email he received from Hyatt Gold Passport President Jeff Zidell, which has the explanation:
We are making investments in those benefits that customers value and use. In this case, we had approximately 100 members a year redeem a Passport Escape award, and it did not make sense for us to maintain the training and communication infrastructure needed to support a benefit with such low usage.
And I’d say that’s a perfectly good explanation. Properly executing these benefits takes training, and they’d rather not offer it all than confuse guests and associates, which makes sense given the few people that used the benefit.
If you still want to make a Passport Escapes booking, though, you have about a week to do so.
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