Hyatt Annual Free Night Problem & Extension
I have written before about mistakes that I have made. The truth is that I have so many wheels in motion that sometimes my wires get crossed. (Double idiom!) Recently that happened with the annual free night from the Hyatt credit card.
Last year my wife actually decided to cancel the Hyatt credit card, but the free night had already posted to her account. Back in November we made a booking with the night, however ultimately we decided to cancel that and the certificate should have gone back to her account.
About a week ago I hopped online to book the free night and noticed that it was greyed out. The system showed that it was already redeemed. I knew this wasn’t the truth, so I called up Hyatt and they had to manually release it from the cancelled reservation. Apparently this is a common problem.
Hyatt Annual Free Night Extension
While that issue was easy enough to solve, the certificate was about to expire and the agent informed me the stay had to be completed before the expiration date. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason I thought it only had to be booked by then. A simple mistake to make, but a potentially costly one.
I asked the agent very nicely if there was any way to get the certificate extended. Unlike other companies that would make you squirm, Hyatt knows a thing or two about customer service and the agent told me without hesitation that she could extend it 30 days. I pushed to see if she could go any longer, but unfortunately that was the most she could do. 30 days is better than nothing!
Conclusion
It is possible to get Hyatt to extend the annual free night certificate from their co-branded credit card, although long extensions may not be possible. This is a good reminder to ensure you redeem your annual free night and if you ever cancel a reservation it is tied to, login to check that it has been released back to your account.
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I tried getting mine extended without luck
It seems based on your report and the experience of others that they may have tightened on extending these certs.
I need to have you guys call for me. I tried to get the free night extended, but they claimed it was a Chase thing that didn’t allow them to extend it.
Maybe try calling back a second time. It was offered to me without hesitation, although I was 1 day away from the expiration. How far away is your expiration date?
Hyatt also allows one other adjustment which may benefit some. If you find you are not able to use the 2 Free Nights which come with the CHASE VISA, then call Hyatt. There are a few stipulations, but they will convert those free nights to points. Not surprisingly, they will give you a much reduced value of only 10,000 points per night. But that’s a lot better than nothing. In my case, I had several business and personal reasons for not being able to use my 2 free nights. But, that being said, it was nice of Hyatt to at least offer SOMETHING.
Thanks for sharing Billy!
Your timing for this post was perfect! My free night was due to expire at the end of May, and I was able to extend it to the end of June. Thanks!
Glad it helped!