This morning, I made reservations for a new NYC hotel called the New York/Chelsea Hyatt House. To my pleasure, the Hyatt website listed the property as a Category 2 hotel, and the website had plenty of award availability at 8,000 points – consistent with it being a Category 2. To my chagrin however, the points deducted were 20,000 per night rather than 8,000 and I quickly ran out of points to make more reservations.
I posted about this incident earlier (see, New Category 2 Hyatt House Hotel in NYC!).
Hyatt-House-New-York-Chelsea-W002-Corner-Rendering.masthead-feature-panel.jpg
I spoke to a guest relations specialist – she said, on my side of the computer it shows 20,000 points per night and Category 5. I asked her to look on the website from a public perspective, and she responded oh, this is very strange.
Soon thereafter, the representative called back and left a message that a case has been started. I phoned back and was connected with yet another guest relations specialist. She said that the property is a category 5, not a category 2, and followed up with an email saying
Please note that going forward this Hyatt House is a category 5 property and requires 20,000 points per night for redemption.
Honestly, there was no way for me to know that Hyatt had meant to (but mistakenly didn’t) list the property as a category 5 on the Hyatt website. Nor was there a way for me to know that Hyatt meant to (but mistakenly didn’t) list award redemptions at 20,000 points per night.
I believe that Hyatt will honor the 8,000 point award rate for the nights I already booked. (I think this is the correct response both legally and from a customer relations perspective).
Tonight I looked at the website, and I see that the hotel is no longer listed as a Category 2 property. It has moved to a new home with the Category 5 properties. I’m surprised however that awards still show up as 8,000 points. I even tried to make a sample reservation, but I couldn’t complete it because: you currently do not have have the required points available for the award you have selected.
UPDATE: as of May 6th….
I still love you Hyatt despite your IT glitches.
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
I assume since she didn’t correct the points in your account, that she wouldn’t- yes? Are you Diamond? So, what is your plan going forward- have your account balance decimated until your stays in 2017 and then ask for the correction after your stay? sorry for all the questions- just curious since you said it wiped out your points balance, and the stays aren’t until 2017.
Any further response from Hyatt? I am still waiting for them to get back to me. I’m in the similar case, asking them to refund me 12000 points.