Hyatt Mistake Rate Cancellation Policy Follow Up
Last week I wrote about a mistake rate I booked for the Hyatt Place in Charlottesville, VA. At the time of booking my reservations had a 48 hour cancellation policy. Later, that somehow changed in Hyatt’s system to show that my reservations were non-refundable. That was a bit frustrating since I have never had this happen before. Many others also confirmed the same thing had happened to them.
Before writing that post I had reached out to Hyatt to find out what happened and to make sure my original terms were going to be honored. It took them a few days to respond, but here is what they had to say.
Dear Mr. Coomer,
Thank you for message regarding your upcoming reservations at Hyatt Place Charlottesville.
Hyatt.com shows the cancellation as a full prepayment and non-refundable as the Member Advance Purchase Rate normally requires this. However, I confirmed with the hotel’s management team that they will be honoring the 48 hour cancellation for your reservations as long as you don’t make any changes to the booking.
Good so they are honoring the original policy as they should, but this doesn’t explain how my reservation was changed. I followed up for more of an explanation and received this.
Dear Mr. Coomer,
Thank you for your response.
I certainly understand your concerns with this and assure you that no one went into your reservation to change the cancellation policy. This was a systematic change that was caused when the Member Advance Purchase rate was adjusted. I know that the cancellation policy shows as a full prepayment online, but our system and the hotel’s system show a 48 hour cancellation and is what we are honoring.
Indeed the Advanced Purchase Rate is normally non-refundable, so this explanation makes sense. Not only was the nightly rate a mistake, but the cancellation policy was as well. When they batch updated these bookings, apparently the system changed the cancellation policy to the norm, but the hotel and Hyatt have the old one noted. I’m good with that.
Conclusion
Whenever something like this happens it’s always nice to have an explanation and an assurance everything will be honored. In this case Hyatt’s explanation makes sense and I’m glad to know these changes weren’t intentional. If you have one of these bookings then the original 48 hour cancellation should be honored and the hotel is aware of this.
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Following
Now that I got fed up with Marriott/SPG, I went back to Hyatt/Hilton. I noticed my anniversary night certificate was missing from my account when Chase charged the annual fee on 8/1. It should have showed up around the middle of July. I messaged Hyatt and Chase and Hyatt got it to credit to my account and they also proactively credited me 5000 points for the trouble. Not bad for just a Discoverist whose only stay the past year was the anniversary night certificate redemption in late 2017.
Marriott, on the other hand, meh, not even an apology for the missing anniversary night from the Chase card.
Thanks for reaching out for us all.