Conventional miles and points wisdom is to register for every promotion just in case you end up having eligible travel. I can’t lie; I don’t always follow that advice. But if there is even a 10% chance of future travel that aligns, I usually register right away, especially when you can do so with one click in the app or on an email. In this case I was happy I did because I earned a surprise 30,000 Hyatt points from an offer I completely forgot that I had registered for.
I received this email on October 20th, about a week before an expensive stay at an all-inclusive property:
I didn’t get too excited because typically with these promotions you have to register, then book, in order to get the bonus. In this case I had booked with a Best Rate Guarantee many months in the past, so I was not going to cancel and rebook at a higher price for the last minute. Just to be safe, I went ahead and registered since the promotion was good for 90 days.
Positive Surprise!
After returning from my trip (reviewing coming soon), I checked my Hyatt app and was shocked to see over 59k points added to my account! Clearly the previously booked stay was enough to trigger the bonus and with the 3X points I easily maxed out the 30k bonus potential.
Even though I had done so just days before the trip, I had completely forgotten about the quick 1-click registration, but I am very glad that I did it. The points earned from this trip should pretty easily cover about $1200 worth of future stays, valuing the points at around 2 cents each. While the trip was quite expensive, the value of the return was very strong at 24%.
The moral of the story: always register for promotions even if you aren’t sure you will take advantage of them. You never know when you might accidentally stumble into a great haul of points!
TL;DR: A forgotten promotion with Hyatt earned me 30k bonus points for a recent trip. I am glad I signed up for a 3X points earning promotion to earn valuable Hyatt points and already put those points to good use for a future stay. Always register for promotions even if there is just a small chance you will take advantage of them.
