Some time last year Hyatt started emailing people who had stayed at a lots of different properties in their group giving them a free night. Initially it was after 50 different properties, but the latest offer appears to be based on 25 different properties since January 1995.

The problem is that only specially selected people are chosen for the award. Hyatt says its marketing is a ‘secret sauce’ and so won’t say who is chosen nor why.

However, it is fun to work out whether or not you might qualify. To do this the Hyatt Web site helps. It allows you to go back only to 2009 (it used to be longer), but you can download your stays by accessing your account information:

1. Pick Hotel Stays
2. Choose the oldest date you can
3. Leave as latest stay date
4. Click View All.

You will get a web page with a long list of stays.

(The offer requires you to have spent a $1 to qualify).

Copy and Paste the list in to Excel and you can then manipulate the data. Check for duplicated lines by sorting on stay date and delete those line.

You should up with a list like this:

Did you get a free night?

(I didn’t!)