Hotel Gives Away Free Nights, But With a Twist

(MoneyWatch)  In a twist on free-stay giveaways, Bayside Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., plans on giving out 2,000 reward certificates to "do gooders" in a promotion the hotel is calling "Bay It Forward."

Unlike most hotel free night stays, which are awarded once you've stayed for a minimum number of nights, Bayside's gimmick is to give out 2,000 certificates good for $50 off standard room rates to SoCal firefighters, teachers and "other unsung community heroes," who are encouraged to pass them on to others. The hotel will then announce via Twitter, a tool many other hotels are using for promotion these days, when those certificates would be good for free stays at the hotel. It's charity meets promotion meets social media - good for public relations, but will it really work for business?

For one thing, I thought the Twitter campaign would mean the hotel would announce a time period when all certificates would be good for a free night. But the first tweet from @BaysideHotel about the promotion went like this: "Free room here we go: 1st person with a bay-it-forward certificate to DM gets 1 free night on either Aug. 2nd, 3rd, 9th or 10th! Let's go!!" ("DM" means "direct message," or a private message sent between two Twitter users.) So only one person gets a free night? That's not as generous as I thought a promotion based on the Pay It Forward concept would be. Though with only 34 Twitter followers, the odds of winning a free night are good, as are the odds that Bayside will win out in the end (potentially 2,000 certificates and only 34 people paying attention?).

However, standard room rates start at $149 a night, so $50 off could mean a hotel room just steps away from the beach for $100 a night. That's not a bad deal. Of course, there are only 44 rooms in the Bayside, so pickings at the lowest price might be slim. And we're talking about firefighters and teachers who are getting these discounts, right?