Hyatt Gold Passport - Park Hyatt Tokyo keeps on taking my FFN award well in advance of stay

I have earned 2 FFNs so far. I am planning to earn 15 FFNs before December.

I have reserved 1 night at Hyatt Regency Hong Kong TST in early November, 2 nights at PH Shanghai near the end of November, 4 nights at PH Tokyo near the end of December and 4 nights at PH Sydney near the end of March.

The problem is that PH Tokyo keeps on taking my FFN awards in advance so that I don't have any FFN credits available for HR HK TST and PH Shanghai. They are supposed to take the FFN credits 4 days before check-in day, not now! If I don't have any FFN credits available on the day I check into HR HK TST, the hotel has the rights to charge me the rack rate.

I rang Goldpassport twice already. It took me, on both occasions, 20 minutes to explain to them the whole story. They did change it back to normal after I rang them, but then PH Tokyo takes the FFN again after a while!

It's really annoying! What should I do? :(

I rang Goldpassport twice already. It took me, on both occasions, 20 minutes to explain to them the whole story. They did change it back to normal after I rang them, but then PH Tokyo takes the FFN again after a while!

It's really annoying! What should I do? :(

This is a case of Hyatt properties being inconsistent when they take your points / FFN for award reservations - some take them almost "immediately" (like this PH Tokyo) others don't until really close to the stay.

My suggestion would be if you have the points in your account, convert the PH Tokyo (and perhaps even most of the later FFN stays) "back" to one that uses your points so that they will "take" points and not the FFNs. Once you earn your FFNs, you can convert them back to FFNs.

If you don't have points in your account, I'm not sure what to suggest.

This is why I maintain a balance of around 200k in my GP account.

I actually agree what PH Tokyo is doing now. If you don't have enough FFN and points in your account now, you shouldn't even be able to reserve it.

Can we not go back to the discussion of whether Hyatt should allow advance reservation before earning FFN? The current terms & conditions state that I am allowed to and I am just following the rules of the game.

.. They are supposed to take the FFN credits 4 days before check-in day, not now!

Where does it say that?

They are supposed to take the FFN credits 4 days before check-in day, not now!
I've never heard this either... I thought FFN's were always pulled when reservations were booked. At least I think that's been my experience. But if what Peter says is true that also explains why sometimes after a points reservation the points sit there for a few days. I didn't know it was the hotel's unique actions/policies that pulled them.

This is why I maintain a balance of around 200k in my GP account.
Well, we can't all be you, Peter! :p

I actually agree what PH Tokyo is doing now. If you don't have enough FFN and points in your account now, you shouldn't even be able to reserve it.

+1

They are supposed to take the FFN credits 4 days before check-in day, not now!

Source? I have never heard this. I am accustomed to FFN credit being pulled at any time the hotel choses to do so.

In my case, I tried to book a FFN reservation (Hyatt Regency Hakone) over the phone, the FFN gets pulled immediately. I also made another reservation online (Grand Hyatt Tokyo), and the FFN for that stay was not pulled until 3~4 weeks later.

Source? I have never heard this. I am accustomed to FFN credit being pulled at any time the hotel choses to do so.

I've not heard this either - seems like FFN / points are pulled at the hotel's leisure.

If you go to My reservations> View reservation details> Rate Information> Cancellation Policy, it will tell you the time you need to confirm before FFN is charged. For Park Hyatt Tokyo, it's 24 hours; for Park Hyatt Sydney, it's 48 hours.

Remember in my first post, I said that Park Hyatt Tokyo pulled my FFN credits in advance TWICE. The first time I rang Goldpassport CS, the guy told me that "yes, the hotel claims the night in advance". I told him that if the hotel does this, then there will be a technical problem of me not having FFN credit for an earlier hotel stay. He then said that he can take the FFN credits away from PH Hyatt and tag them to the earliest hotel stay. I agreed.

But then I realised that this entails two other problems. Firstly, I have no way of tracking which hotel has claimed FFN in advance and which hasn't. This might not be a big problem for those people who have 2-3 FFNs to claim in one or two Hyatt hotels. But in my case, I am going to have more than 15 FFNs in 4-5 different hotels that spread from November 2009 to March 2010, and this gets really confusing. Secondly, when I redeemed my Diamond suite upgrades, the hotel always take away the credits after the stay.

So I rang the goldpassport CS a second time and told them about the problems. The guy didn't know what the solution is and so he put me on hold. After a while, he came back and said that he will untag all the FFN credits. He told me that "but Park Hyatt Tokyo will confirm the stays with you 4 days in advance and they will take away the credit at that time" which I thought was okay.

Then yesterday night, Park Hyatt Tokyo pulled the credits away again. So I spoke to Goldpassport CS and told them to untag those credits and retag them to the earliest hotel stays. This is probably the simplest solution.

After speaking to Goldpassport CS yesterday night, I noticed one more thing. I don't know if anyone experienced the same situation as me.

About two weeks ago, I tried to claim FFN at Park Hyatt Tokyo during Xmas and New Year time. I was able to book FFN on 27th-30st December and 1st-4th January 2010 online. The only time that was unavailable was 31st December, New Years Eve, so I booked Grand Hyatt Tokyo. I went through the normal online booking procedures, and I received all the confirmation emails.

I thought I was really lucky to be able to book PH Tokyo on 1st-4th January. So I asked my mum 2 days later if she would also like to go to Tokyo during that time, using her FFNs. She said yes, so I went through the same online booking procedures and booked those days for her.

Tonight when I checked the rate information for 1st-3rd January, I noticed that they are not under FFN rate. They are under Hyatt daily rate, which is 65000 yen per night. I thought Goldpassport CS might have accidentally changed the rate details when they untagged the FFNs for me. I rang them, and they said they didn't do anything. Those nights were under Hyatt daily rates all along.

I rechecked the confirmation emails that I received back two weeks ago. I realised the nights for 1st-3rd January are indeed under Hyatt daily rate -- despite the fact that I booked using FFNs. Also, I tried to rebook FFN at PH Tokyo during those times, but of course now they are unavailable.

Now some people might say that I might have made a mistake when I made those bookings. But firstly, I am very computer literate, so I am a bit surprised that I would make such a silly mistake. Secondly, I booked my stays and my mum's stays at different times, so it seems unlikely that I would make the same mistake on both occasions. Thirdly, all the other stays at PH Tokyo, including 27th-30th December and 4th January, says FFN rates. It would seem that if I did follow the wrong procedure, all the stays should be under Hyatt daily rate, not just those for 1st-3rd January.

Since I didn't have any proof that those stays should be under FFN, I rebooked them at Grand Hyatt Tokyo. However, I am just wondering if anyone experienced the same thing as me (i.e. you were able to book FFN at PH Tokyo on 1st-3rd January, but didn't realise they were actually under Hyatt Daily rate).

FYI, PH Tokyo is full between 12/31 - 1/2 for FFN. I know it because I tried to book during the same period of time. There was one availability on 1/2 few hours ago, and I was able to snatch it successfully.

The reason why you could book it during this period was because you booked them as "paid stay" mistakenly.

When you try to book PH Tokyo using FFN from the FFN Award page, and if it shows "Guar Available Park King/Twin", that means there's no more standard room available, hence no FFN availability. If you go ahead and book, they will charge you the Hyatt rate.

In order to book any room using FFN, it has to show "The Next Big Thing Rede Park Twin/King" in order for you to book. Anything else you try to book, you will end up paying for the room.

In short, what I am trying to say here is that Hyatt will show you the rate room when no FFN is available. So look carefully!

Thanks for the advice! Now that you explain it, I think I did see "Guar Available Park King/Twin".

When you try to book PH Tokyo using FFN from the FFN Award page, and if it shows "Guar Available Park King/Twin", that means there's no more standard room available, hence no FFN availability. If you go ahead and book, they will charge you the Hyatt rate.

In order to book any room using FFN, it has to show "The Next Big Thing Rede Park Twin/King" in order for you to book. Anything else you try to book, you will end up paying for the room.

In short, what I am trying to say here is that Hyatt will show you the rate room when no FFN is available. So look carefully!

Maybe a dumb question... but how to you get to the FFN Award page? I know how to do the standard award nights using points but not for FFN. I've always booked my FFN awards over the phone with an agent but sometimes while still in the planning stage I would like to be able to check availability online for various dates without having to make calls after calls.

This is the only way I know -- you need to have at least one FFN credit; go to My Promotional Award> The Next Best Thing Free Night Award> Book Now.

You can do a dummy search this way. You can also book as many nights as you want in advance. The hotels don't immediately pull the FFN credits. In most cases, they don't pull the credits until very close to the stay.

Sorry to hear about your problems Kuponuts with park Hyatt Tokyo.
they are definitely pretaking them. I have 3 nights booked in March, so it is much more than 4 days from the stay. This doesn't affect me, because I earmarked the first three I am earning to the Tokyo stay anyway. I also understand that they are doing this to ensure they don't lose money on phantom bookings, but in cases like your it is an inconvenience.

I think preblocking the rooms for your closer reservations and keeping really good records is what is best for you and let Tokyo gobble up the nights after your other trips.


Interestingly enough this appeared a few days ago after they took my first night, and maybe if it appears in your account, you can see who has cashed in your nights in advance.

In account activity detail it shows
09 Oct 2009 Park Tokyo Award 0 0 0

and in my promo section
Awards
Earned: 2
Redeemed: 1
Available: 1

so I will see how long it takes Tokyo to grab the second night and third nights that I owe them (#3 will be earned by Thursday)