nhwiki

On the one hand, I tend to think that sometimes these policies seem pretty draconian. In addition, it is Flyertalk, and most of us are here because we're looking for information, usually on a good or great deal, and sometimes we become something akin to Talmudic scholars looking over various T's and C's for that extra angle or edge. But. On the other hand, and I could be wrong about this, but if a fair amount of the OP's relative short history here on FT is on the MS forum, I have little sympathy for them, especially since many of them are quite good at reading the fine print when it comes to screwing companies out of a fair amount of cash.

I am certainly not a champion of corporate greed, by any means, especially credit cards and banks who for the most part remain very profitable and often prey on the most needy with fees and such. But I'm also not going to feel too bad if an someone doing manufactured spending to get around the idea of a FF program is then snagged by a very obvious policy they ignored. Perhaps that might provide them the opportunity to reflect a little on their expectations of themselves and others.

GUWonder

Unless the Hyatt customer has broken a law, I don't see what the relevance of the customer's background has to do with this.

Hyatt should make it explicitly clear during the actual booking process what the financial penalty will be in the event of a no-show on award nights, or Hyatt is really inviting themselves to be the target of litigation over such matters.

dlandz

I don't really care what their terms are, it can't be whatever they come up with in their wildest dreams. If I book an airline trip with miles, they don't charge me the cost of a last-minute seat if I don't show up.
Nonetheless, if you are polite and someone who the hotel would like to see come back as a customer in the future, they are not going to gouge you. If they did charge some crazy rack rate or anything additional to you, you would at very least win in a credit card chargeback dispute as you have no contract or any sort of terms which define what you will be charged, just a generic term that the penalty is at the individual hotel's discretion.

Also some bookings, even using points, are non-refundable. My New Years booking was done over a month in advance using cash + points, and for that night specifically they made it a non-refundable rate. I assure you they would not charge me $500 for a 4000pts+$50 room which was booked a month in advance as non-cancellable.

nhwiki

Sure. Usually, I'm not a fan of unclear policies, and if it had this happened to someone making an honest mistake, it would be a high price to pay. All I'm saying is that the MS'ers spend A LOT of time working the angles and reading the T&C's at a level of granularity that is often bordering on the insane. But then to feign being "surprised" by such a basic cancellation policy when at other times they discuss this or that BlueBird package, you know, the one with the ">" in the third character, and then only go to the cashier on the fourth old terminal on Tuesdays, come on. If you could be bothered with those details, then you should also be bothered with the details that don't go your way. And while I get the legal angle, FT is not a courtroom, but reading yet another whiny post about something that's pretty obvious, and not all the useful or interesting, I don't know. Just gets old.

And I've been hit with cancellation fees before, but because I've actually stayed at these properties before, and usually called the day of, they've been waived. But if you're going out of your way to hit the special BJ's with the old cash registers to MS your this or that card, and yet you couldn't be bothered to call, and in the meantime that award room could have gone to someone who might have actually wanted to stay there, no sympathy and no lawyers for me.

RTW1

Well you should. They are perfectly legal and you commit to them by making the booking. They are making an offer, accept it or go somewhere else.

For 99.9% it's not a problem anyway. Just for those that cancel too late... and if you need to cancel don't make a booking with a cancellation policy you don't agree with.

dlandz

I assure you they cannot charge you "whatever they want". Because Hyatt is the exclusive booking agent of the hotels, they should be responsible for telling you the cost based on the individual hotel's policy (or to come up with an official Hyatt policy).
Do you believe a hotel could charge you $1 million for not showing up? or even $1,000? They never state your liability for no-show during the booking process nor at any point is this visible anywhere, aside from the terms which may say cancellations are only allowed within 24 hours. Comparably an airline clearly defines a cancellation/change fee + obviously the price difference of the new ticket.
You claim this is legal, so why wouldn't the exclusive booking agent (Hyatt) be able to state exactly the policy is? It is a ridiculous argument to blanketly say that the hotel can charge you any dollar amount they wish. If the terms are not made readily available to the person making the decision to book, then they are hidden terms. You shouldn't have to go to several different sources just to gather all of the relevant terms and conditions to your reservation

You also ignore the case I mention of a points+cash booking done a month in advance, but labeled as non-refundable. By the terms, even if I try to cancel a week in advance, they would just be able to charge me whatever they please on a whim (ie $1,000 instead of 4,000 points + $50). I assure you they cannot do this

peteropny

I do agree that Hyatt should be clearer about the penalty for a no show / late cancellation for award stays. SPG spells it out pretty clearly and the cash penalty is the rack rate for the room you are in (even suites that you are upgraded to - my upgraded suite at the Grand Bretagne in Athens had a penalty charge of nearly 1,000 euros on an award stay). I believe that eith SPG you can ask that it be reversed after the fact - refund of the cash and they take the points.