We’ve been seeing an incredible amount of angst in this forum over the past few days by newcomers, frustrated when their points don’t post concurrent with leaving a property. I thought it would be useful to have a thread devoted to how you get your points and miles. I welcome some of the experienced Hyatt members weighing in on what I have missed.
Hyatt rarely gets bonuses right the first time
Seasoned Hyatt pros expect missing bonuses. Hyatt Place properties are particularly bad, though even full service properties often get it wrong. Hyatt is one of the worst hotel chains at getting the extra points the first time, but is the best hotel chain at making it right.
Here is what you do:
1. When you book your stay, book using the proper Gx bonus. You can only book using one bonus, but there might be a couple that are available. If so, note the second one in the notes field.
2. When you check in, make sure that the agent adds all bonuses to your stay. If you are a diamond member, you can chose a points bonus for North American properties. They will use the code 1W to enter this. It is 1000 points for full service and 500 points for Hyatt Place. If you are choosing miles for your stay, you will not be eligible for the Gx bonus.
3. When you check out, check your invoice. There is a field which shows which bonuses are listed. You can ask for a correction at this point – or simply wait to call. Don’t even struggle with Hyatt Place on this.
4. Hyatt stays typically post in 2 days. Til recently, Hyatt Place stays only posted 1 or 2 days a week. Hyatt has recently sped up the posting. When your stay posts, check to see if you got the appropriate choice of miles or points. In either case, if you are diamond, you are entitled to your diamond bonus. If you chose points, you are entitled to any Gx bonuses.
5. If you wanted miles but points posted, wait until your stay posts; then call Hyatt. It is very easy for Customer Service to reverse a points stay and make it a miles stay. It is not as easy to do the reverse. Once the miles are sent to the airline, it cannot be reversed.
6. If you have missing bonuses, ask Customer Service to post them. Any Gx bonuses should post at the time of the stay posting. If they haven’t, it is very simple to correct with a call.
7. You have to chose points for your stay in order to get any Gx bonus. You have to chose miles for your stay to get any Ax bonus.
8. If you have chosen miles, it requires a manual posting to receive your diamond amenity. Many agents do not realize that you get your diamond amenity when you chose miles, but the Gold Passport Concierge has confirmed that we do.
Faster Free Night credits
Hyatt sweeps for FFN credit daily. It is not concurrent with your stay posting but generally within a few hours. If you don’t receive your credit, check your account summary. Look at the details for the individual stay. You should see something like this:
Qualified Night(s): 1
If it says 0, then you need to call Customer Service and determine why the stay did not qualify. Priceline stay or a stay made on an alternative booking site to Hyatt are examples of nonqualifying stays. In those cases, you would qualify for incidental expenses but not the stay credit.
You can easily see how many FFNs you have been credited. Look in your account:
Awards
My promotional awards
If you are a diamond, you will see your suite awards listed first, then the HP award we were recently given. Below that is the accounting for FFNs.
You can then book any unredeemed awards online. There will be a blue box saying BOOK NOW when you have FFNs available. Click it, then chose your location and your date. If there is a FFN award available, you will see something like this:
The Next Big Thing Rede Twin Room
BOOK
Rate Details
The Next Big Thing Rede King Room View Room
BOOK
Rate Details
Airline Bonus Miles:
Hyatt sweeps for airline bonuses daily. It is not concurrent with your stay posting but generally within a few hours. This has always occurred automatically for me.
The airlines extract the bonus miles from Hyatt only a couple times a month. It can then be several more weeks before the airline posts the miles.
Credit Card Bonus:
Hyatt has historically had a strong relationship with Mastercard. We recently finished a promo period with MC. Each stay will indicate if it was paid with MC. IT for Hyatt Places did not discriminate between Visa and MC, and required a call.
Advice:
Chill. Hyatt Customer Serivce is great. Is it annoying that things don't post properly the first time? Sure. But Hyatt is extraordinarily generous with its promos and bonuses, as well as having some stunning properties. It is worth the effort. Make a list of anything you are missing and call periodically. There really is no need to call after each and every stay. Hyatt has always been very customer focused, and will handle these things for you. They handle it for you while you are on the phone, right then and there. There is no contacting the hotel and waiting for a week or more for points to straggle in.
Priceline and Third Party Bookings
If you are on an award stay or third-party channel stay (like but not limited to Priceline bidding channel, consolidator one-price pre-paid vacation product, or anything were you are paying somebody other than Hyatt for a Hyatt stay), you should still get Diamond recognition, Diamond arrival points, and points for incidentals. (Stay credit, G bonus, and pick of rooms probably not).
You much improve your odds of actually getting them without hassle if you make sure and create a transaction for your stay. Meaning, never run a zero balance. One or more dining or drink charges are better, even if primarily dining elsewhere (the server wants the tip and will be sure to run it through), and throwing in a few phone calls can't hurt. Otherwise a well-intentioned not-fully-versed back office person may think there is no reason to upload the stay history at all just to save work.
Call Hyatt and add the GP number well before arrival and most likely the Diamond packet will still be waiting for you. Ask for the points and club access if its not. Eventually you may get an attitude either on the phone or at check-in, but do it anyway.
Thanks SanDiego1K. I've been a Hyatt member for less than a month, but have not had any problem at all with them posting miles or points.
I will add that those of you who are new Diamond member like me through a status match, call the Diamond line to get your questions addressed. The Diamond agents are much more competent than the regular GP agents when it comes to adding bonus points or miles. I will not post the phone number here, but you should be able to get it from any GP agent or from your Diamond card.
Programs: AC*E, SPG*P, Hyatt Diamond,HH*G, IC Plat AMB
Posts: 5,331
Echo the sentiments -- a very useful thread!! Thank you very much for posting this!! I also echo the sentiment that Hyatt is one of the most frustrating chains when it comes to posting stays/bonuses/etc to my account -- I am now a de jure Diamond member as I have completed the stays needed; just not a de facto Diamond member as the stays have not posted yet (grrr......)
__________________ I am a poor man, I have nothing, therefore, I give from the heart
Programs: UA 2MM, DL 500k, SW CP, GP 1M, HH Gold, Miracle Fruit-su Club
Posts: 3,918
Thank you hugely, SanDiego1K.
Just to put the "soft product" in bas relief...
I did three challenge stays with the Hilton family in September. Problems with every one of them. Called to follow (clean) up. Issues as fixable as double dip airline points not posting in HHonors, even though the stay was there. The 500/1,000/1,500 bonus point promo wasn't applied, even though the stays posted. Etc. Then I was given a case number for each one, and I would hear back "in up to 10 business days".
I'm not sure where to post this, but I'll put it here for now. Feel free to move it to one of the UA-specific threads.
I'm a newbie to Hyatt and to hotel points in general. The FFN + UA miles promotion caught my attention, and thus, here I am. This means that I am starting from scratch, and have read what seems like 100 threads to figure out what I need to know to get started. Here's what I did to attempt to earn all the UA 1K + Hyatt bonuses:
1. Register with Hyatt
A. Go to hyatt.com and create a GP account
B. Choose to earn Free Nights (not Bonus Points)
C. Receive immediate email confirmation, stating that you are earning FFNs
2. Register for UA 1K offer to earn 5K UA miles for each stay
A. Follow link from UA 1K website.
B. Enter UA FF number
C. Print confirmation page
3. Register for UA 2500 bonus miles
A. Find link here
B. Enter UA FF number
C. Print confirmation page
4. Make reservations with local Hyatt Place
A. Enter GP number
5. Check-in at Hyatt Place
A. Request to earn miles, not points
6. Repeat 4 and 5 next weekend
7. Check mile balances at UA and GP. Expect to wait a couple days for miles to post.
8. When FFNs post (or perhaps before?) call Hyatt to book FFN stays. Personally, I checked availability for the properties I wanted now, before starting.
9. Show up and stay in some of the best hotels!
Expected earnings: 5000 UA miles per stay, 500 UA miles per stay, 2500 UA miles per every second stay, 1 FFN per every second stay
Hence, after the second stay, I should have 13500 UA miles and 1 FFN.
Do I have this right? Anything else I need to be aware of?
Programs: UA 1k mm, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Diamond, SPG Plat., Marriott Gold, Avis Chairman, PPS Club wannabe
Posts: 1,764
Thank you SanDiego1k.
hobo13, I think you have it correct, but you have to wait longer (weeks or even longer) for your UA miles to post to your UA account. Good luck. You have a plan.
Moderator: GLBT Travelers, Hyatt Gold Passport & National
Join Date: Jan 2000
Location: CVG
Posts: 7,963
Quote:
Originally Posted by kevino
hobo13, I think you have it correct, but you have to wait longer (weeks or even longer) for your UA miles to post to your UA account. Good luck. You have a plan.
And since we're talking about HP properties, they'll probably be clueless about entering your UA number so it will probably post as points, you'll have to call in to convert the stay to miles (UA) and the bonuses will post automatically with the sweep time.
