Question: Does World Of Hyatt Have Blackout Dates?
Our question of the week: Does the World of Hyatt program have blackout dates? It shouldn’t, right? So then why is our reader having this issue trying to use his free night certificates? And why did the hotel tell him something weird on the phone? Here’s a look at the World of Hyatt program and whether or not they have blackout dates.
The Question
Our question of the week comes from Moshe in our Facebook group:
So i have 3 Hyatt free night awards that I’m trying to use. I want to stay at the Hyatt Sedona Pinion Point, which is a cat 4, I check online and I see availability for 15k per room. I called twice to try to book it and they are telling me there is availability if I book with points but no availability to use the free night certs.
I point them to the terms and conditions where it says “Free Night Award applies only to available standard rooms as defined by each hotel or resort and is not subject to blackout dates at Hyatt hotels and resorts”.
Their response is it’s not a blackout date it just isn’t available for use using the free night award on my specific dates. Sounds like a blackout date to me!
Any way to get around this?
There are 2 parts to Moshe’s question:
- Does World of Hyatt have blackout dates?
- If this isn’t a blackout date, then why can’t I make the booking / how can I make the booking?
World Of Hyatt Policy – No Blackout Dates
As Moshe has correctly pointed out, there are no blackout dates on standard rooms when using your points and free nights in the World of Hyatt program (info here). So why is the hotel telling him he can’t use his free night awards? Especially with rooms showing availability on points!
Even though all rooms should be available, hotels do weird things with their inventory. With the advent of the “Pay My Way” feature, booking rooms with Hyatt was supposed to become simpler. In many ways, it has, since you can now making a booking with a free night award for night 1, cash for night 2, and points for night 3–all in one reservation. It doesn’t seem to be helping this time around though.
With free night awards, there is sometimes limited availability in the system. We can’t explain and don’t really understand why, but it’s a fact. So how can we get around this? Here are 2 ideas.
Option 1 – Book With Points Then Switch To Certs
The first option is to make the reservation using points and then reach out to Hyatt. To do this, you obviously need to have enough points in your account. Hyatt’s Twitter team tends to be one of the best in this hobby, and I’ve sent them private messages to help with all sorts of tasks. If you make the reservation using points, send them a DM with all of the relevant details and ask them to switch your points booking to a free night award booking.
Option 2 – Make Separate Bookings
The other option, if you just want to make the reservations and be done with it, is cutting it into pieces. Trying searching for just 2 nights. Can you book it using your free night certificates? Then book the 3rd night separately. Maybe you need to book each night individually.
Search for the nights you want, but do it one at a time. If they all show up, it means yes, you can use your free night certificates. It’s a bit of a mystery why this happens, but this is a workaround to get what you want in the end. Afterward, you can contact Hyatt or the hotel to merge the reservations, so you don’t have to check out/check in again or change rooms during your stay.
Final Thoughts
The short answer: no, World of Hyatt doesn’t have blackout dates on standard rooms. Their system tends to have some oddities with “can’t use your free nights but can use points” and also even hotels we’ve seen with “cash rooms available, points rooms not available” (mostly at Hyatt Residence Club). Thinking a little bit outside the box can help you fix this. You can either book with points then swap for free night awards or make a few smaller bookings. After you make your reservation, their customer service team should be able to help you. If you are a Globalist then your concierge should be your first stop as well.
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After the devaluation and / or denial of loyalty program benefits, there is now an ATTACK on even the use of points. All hotel networks are doing it — not just Hyatt. The hotel loyalty programs have become a mug’s game — and we’re the mugs. It’s a dirty, dirty business.
While there are no black out dates, property owners are allowed to limit award inventory. Imagine a specific property’s award inventory being 1 standard room per night . . . period. When that 1 standard room is booked, there’s no more award inventory for anyone else. As a practical matter, this concept of “award inventory management” is the breaking of a promise. Marriott no longer lists “No Black-Out Dates” as a benefit in the Bonvoy description . . . but, in the Bonvoy terms and conditions, it is listed along with an explanation of award inventory availability.
I just had my own issue with Hyatt blackout dates using points. Last night I attempted to book a Hyatt Place hotel in the Columbus, OH area for tonight, 9/24/21. It was going to be a one night stay. They had regular king rooms available for cash but when I attempted to use my points the website said that there were no rooms available for points. The only thing I can deduce is that they were attempting to capitalize on tomorrow’s Ohio State football game. Most hotels in the area were sold out and those that did have rooms were charging above market rates. Apparently they didn’t want to sell a room for points when they felt they could get much more by forcing customers to use cash. Chain hotels from many different brands appear to be playing fast and loose with the rules because they can. Hyatt, Marriott, Hilton and others are letting hotel owners get away with these practices and so are consumers. It really makes me question the value of hotel loyalty programs in this current environment.
I’d definitely send the data on this (hotel info, what you saw) to Hyatt and ask them what’s up.
Many properties have put on so many restrictions on inventory for award stays they are de facto blackout dates. Just because they don’t call it that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
“can’t use your free nights but can use points”
This seems to be the hotel playing games with room types, saying one type of room with very limited availability is the “standard room”, while another nearly identical room that goes for the same points price isn’t the standard room. If I was them I would contact Hyatt and complain, maybe they can manually force it through.
hyatt is going so downhill lately. treating loyal people like garbage. doing fake black-outs. putting breakfast caps on breakfast where you cant even get a coffee and meal.