SUCCESSFUL UPDATE: Hyatt's Seemingly Shady Practices To Offer Less Award Rooms

Since I wrote about this story last week, I realized I had a few details down incorrectly. Additionally, a few bloggers covered the topic as well, so I wanted to post an update with what's going on. I started writing this before there was a final resolution, so let's catch up on what's been going on.

First off, I had Hyatt's T&C quoted incorrectly. If you go to the Hyatt Gold Passport (HGP) overview page, you'll find the T&C I quoted last week:

Members are welcome to any available standard room when booking a free night award with no blackout dates.

I mentioned that The Points Guy quoted those T&C in his post about Hyatt not releasing award rooms properly, but honestly, it had been a while since I read his post, and I didn't realize that he had also quoted Hyatt's full T&C on the matter. The quote above is what you'll find if you happen upon the Hyatt page describing what their membership program is about. On that page, they conspicuously leave out one "minor" detail from their seemingly "generous" award booking policy. One would have to go to the full HGP T&C page, scroll down to the section on "Redeeming Points for Hyatt Gold Passport Awards" and read item number 3, which says:

Hyatt Gold Passport Free Night Awards apply when standard rooms are available at the Hyatt Daily Rate. Standard rooms are defined by each hotel and are not subject to blackout dates. Hyatt Gold Passport Free Night Awards cannot be redeemed for packages.

So now, you don't just need to find an empty standard room at the hotel, it also has to be offered at the standard "Hyatt Daily Rate". If you do a random search for hotel nights, you'll see that Hyatt (like all hotel chains) offers different rates for the same room called "packages," such as a breakfast or parking package. The full terms clearly indicate that even if a standard room is currently vacant for your night, it has to be offered at the base level price; if they're only available at special package rates, then you're out of luck. The T&C clearly don't hold Hyatt responsible for releasing award nights in this case. Is there anything you can do? Let's take a look at what other bloggers have written since I wrote about it last week.

1) In last week's post, I mentioned that Nick at One Mile At A Time wrote that he was having this issue at the Hyatt Olive 8 in Seattle. Standard rooms were only available as part of special packages, and therefore, not bookable with points.

2) Later that day, Travis from One Mile At A Time wrote that he was actually successful in booking that same Hyatt Olive 8. Originally, he faced the same issue that stonewalled Nick. So, what did he do? He called the special phone number for Hyatt Diamond members (their highest elite level), informed the rep about his great standing with Hyatt and convinced her to call the hotel directly to see if they would be willing to open up a room for him to book with points, and he was successful. In the past, I've heard that getting in touch with the right person at a hotel could work, but in my personal experience, I've never been successful. Is it crazy to think that perhaps his success was due to the fact that he has Diamond status? Travis wrote that he believes anyone probably could have done it. "Hmm..." is all I could say when I read that.

3) In the meanwhile, I blogged my story and sent out a tweet. I was humbled the next day to find that the Senior Vice President of HGP, Jeff Zidell, actually responded to me!

@creditcardmogul @HyattTweets Summer is a very busy time in Seattle, and they have the US Open. Regardless, we are checking into it.

— Jeff Zidell (@jeffzidell) May 28, 2015

What does "checking into it" mean? I'm not sure, but it was nice to know that he cared enough to at least let me know he was looking into it.

4) Nick then wrote a follow up post where he announced that award space was back open for the Hyatt Olive 8, the same hotel that had no availability just a day earlier! Whether it was his and Travis' posting on a very popular travel blog or perhaps my calling Jeff Zidell's attention to it (hehe, look at me thinking I'm a big shot), it seems like the standard rooms were "freed" from their special rate packages and were now bookable with points. Nick never really explained what actually "did it," but hey, whatever it was, it worked.

5) The final blogger who I saw mention this issue was Mommy Points, who wrote that she was having the same issue I hypothesized about in my original post, but at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines near Austin, Texas. As someone who had stayed at this hotel many times in the past, she felt that a conspicously high amount of rooms were being called by new names - names that would change the room from a standard room to a "special" room, exempting it from being able to be booked by award members. In my original post, I mentioned that I felt the Andaz Maui was perhaps doing that by calling some of their standard rooms "Mountain View" rooms, while in reality, those rooms are just regular rooms with the same views as the hotel's official standard room, the "Garden View" room. Mind you, Jeff Zidell kindly replied to Mommy Points' tweet as well, telling her he's looking into it.

BUT FINALLY, I have some great news!!

For a little while now, I've been looking at specific dates at the Andaz Maui, yet no award nights have become available. I get it. It's the summer, and Hawaii is always a popular destination. BUT, from my little research here, I realized that the standard "Garden View" rooms were in fact available (and not completely sold out) if booked as a special package - the same issue Nick faced. After too many unsuccessful calls to HGP trying to convince them to open the rooms (even though I admitted that I knew the T&C said that rooms available as part of a package don't have to be released to award bookings) or to have the rep call the hotel directly and perhaps convince them to open the rooms, I decided to try my luck myself at the hotel. I had previously attempted this, but gave up after the front desk clerk couldn't help. This time I made sure not to just deal with the front desk clerk, but to get in touch with someone of higher authority. After listening to me and checking out the situation, he agreed to open up a Garden View room even though they were currently only available to cash customers as part of a special package!!

Wow. I honestly did not believe I would be able to follow up this story with a super happy ending, but I sure am glad to be able to!

So, what's going on at Hyatt? 3 different properties (and even more based on the comments on some of these blogs) have seemingly been holding back award rooms - either by possibly changing the names of some of their standard rooms or by locking in those rooms as special cash packages. Because we don't know how many standard rooms a hotel has and how many of those rooms are actually already booked, these issues are not really resolved just yet, and we'll likely never know if - and to what extent - a hotel is "locking" those rooms against award bookings. However, in those scenarios, calling the Hyatt Diamond line (if you have the status) or the hotel directly and trying to get through to the right person might just help you succeed in your quest for an award stay.