Hyatt Change Cancellation Terms of Reservation
A while back Extreme Hotel Deals covered an amazing rate at the Hyatt Place Charlottesville. While I wasn’t able to secure the $9 rate they found, I did manage to snag a couple of reservations with a $24 nightly rate. Not bad for a Globalist who is always looking for nights to re-qualify for status.
One of the reasons I snagged two reservations was because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to use both, but wanted some flexibility. You see, when I booked the rooms the cancellation policy was flexible. Here is the cancellation policy as per the confirmation email I received.
An Email from the General Manager
A couple of weeks after this mistake rate was booked, myself and many others who booked the rate were emailed by the General Manager.
This is what the email said:
Thank you for making a reservation at Hyatt Place Charlottesville (confirmation numbers 3****** & 3******).
We recently experienced a system error that resulted in the display of incorrect room rates at our hotel. This was our mistake, and we have addressed it.
While the Hyatt.com terms and conditions permit Hyatt Place Charlottesville to cancel reservations in this situation, Hyatt Place Charlottesville has decided to honor the rate, date(s) and name(s) for which your reservation was originally booked*. We look forward to welcoming you to our hotel, but please do note that any change to the date(s) or name(s) on your reservation will affect the rate.
Mr. Coomer, we thank you in advance for your understanding and look forward to welcoming you to Hyatt Place Charlottesville.
Notice the asterisk above after the word booked. It might seem like this was their way of wiggling out of the terms, but actually it was the opposite. This was their way of enforcing them. Here are the terms for the asterisk.
All terms and conditions, including the hotel’s cancellation policy and the applicable Hyatt.com terms and conditions, still apply to your reservation. This includes the prohibition on reselling or distributing rooms. The reservation is not transferrable. At check-in, identification will be required. This reservation may not be combined with other offers or award or certificate redemptions.
A Change of Cancellation Policy
Despite very clearly spelling out that the terms including that the cancellation policy would be enforced as per the reservation, the hotel (or perhaps someone else) has gone in and amended the cancellation policy. Yesterday I was browsing my account and I happened to look at my two reservations. Here is what shows for the cancellation policy.
I have confirmed with at least one other person that the same thing happened to their reservation as well. I feel so violated. 🙂
Thoughts & Takeaways
This doesn’t just happen unless someone goes into the reservation and changes it. In my opinion it is completely unacceptable for this to be done and I’m not even sure why someone would be allowed to change the terms to something other than what was shown to a customer during booking. It is very important to always make sure you get a booking confirmation with the full terms at the time of booking and especially important that you keep it.
Conclusion
I have reached out to that General Manager for an explanation as to what happened here and I’m fairly confident it will be switched back. While that will be fine, this is a really bad behavior and one that I hope Hyatt and this hotel will address.
Did you book this mistake rate? Did your cancellation terms change on the reservation? Please let us know in the comments!
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Interesting…mine was canceled…and I have no idea why. I pre-paid mine and that was refunded as well. Now I’m curious as to why mine was canceled and refunded yet others are still intact. I did reach out to Hyatt via twitter and they told me to contact the hotel. I haven’t had a chance to do that yet. But now I am going to since it seems it should not have been canceled.
Saw this article today, and just checked my Hyatt Place Charlottesville reservation for next June. The cancellation terms were modified on my ($6/night) reservation also.
Originally… “48hours Prior To Check In To Avoid One Night Fee”
Now says… “Full Prepayment/No Refund/No Changes”
I’d have booked it as non-refundable anyway and do intend to go (live in northern Virginia and have wanted to visit Charlottesville), but your beef about the terms being changed w/o any notification (or consent) is valid.
Ok, I booked the $6 per night and the rate stated at the time of booked, Pre-Payment in Full, no refunds. I remember distinctly, I was willing to gamble like $36 for the deal. Nor sure if you booked another type of rate but the $6 was only available as Pre Payment when I booked.
Mine was definitely refundable but I paid a higher rate. The screenshot in the post is of my confirmation clearly showing my rate was refundable.
Booked Hyatt Embarcadero, San Francisco on points. Hey had a 72 hr cancellation policy. It was fine this trip, but so could never agree to that for a business trip. (Former diamond now otherhotelist).
Wish I’d seen this mistake deal when it first appeared. Happens I live in Charlottesville. 🙂 (and wife and I have actually stayed at this very nice (and new — ground up) HP. (only thing missing is a whirlpool)
Rather stunning they’d be so brazen to tell you one thing one day, then change it without informing you. Bad form indeed! Hope they make this right, asap. (If they don’t have a few local PR and consumer ideas for follow-up)
PS, Say Shawn, if you (and others) are actually coming to Hoo’ville anytime soon, let’s do a travel hackers meet-up. (and I can show you ’round my L’University….. most esp. Monticello & that TJ statue) 🙂
ps #2 — if you’re not interested in UVA or TJ or Tikki torches, we could go in search of sites where Drew Macomber used to haunt…. j/k )
A bit confused here. These are super cheap hotel rates. I get you might want to cancel, but isn’t it unfair to the hotel if they can’t market the room at a prevailing rate because you decide not to cancel until one or two days prior. Not saying I agree that what they did is right – they should have said upfront this is a mistake rate, we’re honoring it, but you can’t cancel it either.
The reservation had 48 hour cancellation when booked. They certainly could have given an option to cancel the reservation or keep it as nonrefundable but that didn’t happen. Instead, they said they were honoring it as is and then reiterated that it was bound to all of the original terms. Changing this without informing customers is the bad act here.
Same here. All my reservations were honored but now they put them as NONrefundable. Does someone have the email address of the GM at the property? Thanks!
I got in on this as well. $6 for June 6, $16 for June 7, and $18/nt for June 9-12.
Not sure I have a reason to go to Charlottesville. I wasn’t planning on carrying tiki torches and parading around.
That’s really shady.
thanks for posting this. I just checked mine and mine changed to the same thing as yours. Please update us. I will contact them as well.
It could be that an additional party beside the named guest checking in is sort of paying a difference between “the mistake” price and some prevailing rate. It may even mean earning more points than expected. But this is just a guess of sorts.