SanDiego1K

I am Hyatt Diamond. It's been about 3 years since I was walked. Hyatt did nothing, not even give me stay credit. I was told that if at the end of the year, that one stay would have made a difference, to call back. It would be awarded to me then. I love Hyatt and have had many wonderful experiences with the chain. This is one area they need to improve. Their walk policy is weak compared to their competition.

dank0014

Agreed, had this happen once late last year. I arrived after midnight, but I remember the look on the front desk persons face was priceless when I showed up and she noticed she made a mistake.

To her credit, she did find a suitable place for me to place my head down for the night, but more importantly, enjoyed the fact that as I left the hotel, not two minutes into my drive the GM was calling me to apologize. I won't say what the compensation was, but I was taken care of. The hard thing about Hyatt is that they don't have a clear policy on how they determined who gets walked and what they receive - it's left to the hotels to make the call at least in what I have seen.

coolmaster

Same drill as most hotels, gets you in to other hotels nearest, and when you come back you get a better room. Depending on how upset you are you get 'approptiate' comprnsation.

LIH Prem

did the property pay for your night at the other hotel?

Which property was it?

-David

pshuang

I was walked from a Hyatt earlier this month for the first time in 100+ stays (and at 50+ different Hyatt properties... thanks Hyatt Gold Passport for the unexpected award night certificate celebrating my 50th property).

I found it rather surprising as a Diamond member that I would have been selected to be walked. This was a Hyatt House (former Summerfield Suites) property that I had stayed frequently at before. They even proactively reached out to me in advance and wanted to know if there was anything that they could do to show me better hospitality. Ironic, isn't it?

When I showed up in the lobby, they were quite apologetic about the fact that I had been selected to be walked. They had a nearby property in mind which met the requirement of being a comparable quality property. Since I had a rental car, I didn't bother checking if they would have offered me a shuttle van ride over. They did not do a good job of handling the hand-off to the other property, but the other property's front desk agent was all over taking good care of me, noting that she needed the Hyatt House to FAX over an authorization letter which they should have given to me to bring over, but that she would have that taken care of and I should feel free to head up to my room.

My 1-night stay at the other property (I returned to the Hyatt House for my second night) was master billed to the Hyatt House, although not surprisingly they did ask for a credit card to be swiped to cover incidentals. I entered my frequent guest number for The Other Chain and have received a stay credit and expected points earning for the full rate room price shown on my folio when I checked out.

Lastly, the Hyatt House manager on duty promised that I would receive sufficient Hyatt Gold Passport points to be redeemable for one night at that property. I inquired about getting a Hyatt Gold Passport stay credit and she promised she would look into it. Thus far, nothing has posted, but granted it has only been a few weeks.

Too bad Hyatt Gold Passport doesn't publish benefits comparable to what Marriott Platinum members are promised -- such generous benefits certainly should motivate property managers to work really hard to not walk their top level elite members.

RTW1

Diamond status seems to be something that's ignored by most Hyatt Houses and Hyatt Places...guess that's part of the problem. Really bad form though to walk a regular guest and with a reservation for multiple nights.

jayer

Just because I have to ask, did you come away with any impression what had happened and should we assume you were not particularly late? When I was high travel and a super regular at the same small handful of hotels they would not even let me volunteer to help them out of oversold situations. Walking a regular strikes me as even more surprising than walking a Diamond.

Jimgotkp

Yeah I agree that the HH and HPs rarely ever recognize Diamond status. I find it surprising that the property would walk a regular guest as well. However, after working at a few hotels, I'm not surprised that they would walk a guest with more than one night than a guest with only one night. The reason is because you can bring the guest back to the hotel on the 2nd night and try to get on the good side again, either through upgrades or comp. F&B, etc.

pshuang

I had stayed about half a dozen times at this Hyatt House over the past 12 months. I wouldn't quite call that stay pattern as making me a regular. Especially since the property was a Hyatt House, so they probably have what I would call real regulars, consultants or contractors who stay week after week for months at a time.

I arrived about 10:00pm. I get the sense that enough people had actually arrived that they had to work their way down the list -- probably at about 9:30pm they had a decision to make about whether to preemptively walk a no-status guest who was physically standing there in front of the desk, or give them a room and take the chance of walking me (hoping for the chance that I might no-show).

I'm not sure that I want there to be an absolute rule. I'd prefer that the rule be one that gives the hotel property manager some flexibility, but heavily biased toward convincing them that walking top level elite members is a last resort. Hence my allusion to the Marriott Rewards policy when a Platinum member is walked. (That policy says the guaranteed Ultimate Reservation Guarantee compensation in addition to a free night at a nearby comparable hotel is $200 at the higher tier brands or $100 at the lower tier brands PLUS 140,000 MR points if walked from a Ritz and 90,000 points if walked from any other Marriott Rewards property.) With a similar policy in place, for example, I think this Hyatt House should have started calling their Diamond members earlier that evening to check on whether we were going to be able to make it or not.

Interestingly, a small contributor to this situation may be an unpublished benefit that may mostly accrue to Diamond members: in my 100+ stays, on something like five occasions, I've failed to cancel a reservation until after the published deadline for that particular rate, and have never actually been charged for 1 night stay in abstentia, that being what is usually listed as the late cancellation penalty. This benefit might interact poorly with a hotel property manager's ability to interpret whether a Diamond member can be counted on to actually arrive, since it might encourage Diamond members to not be as vigilant about managing reservations and making sure unneeded reservations get canceled ASAP. (In my approx. 5 times, mostly it's been a flight delay causing me to stay overnight at my origination airport instead of getting to the destination airport and heading to the hotel where I held the reservation.)

WCT3U

Unfortunately, no (at least I didn't get any).

If you do get walked, suggest where you want to go. It's a tense situation and the front desk will be relieved to accommodate a reasonable request. In my case someone must have reserved the entire hotel because the staff at the entrance wouldn't even park or unload cars -- they just gave knowing looks and directed everyone to the front desk first. I guessed what was up and while others were being moved to the Intercontinental I got myself walked to the Hilton with executive level to match my Hyatt club room. I didn't want to be checked in to the same place along with the disgruntled Hyatt guests :-). It worked to my advantage since Hilton happened to have a third night free sale. I was planning to hotel hop for stay credits at the Hilton anyway and Hyatt paid for the first night there, I paid for the second and I got the third night on the house. But I did need that Hyatt stay credit and so was behind a bit.

pshuang

Further follow-up:

The promised points for being walked didn't post and so I called the hotel to follow up. Talked to their operations manager who apologized that I should not have needed to follow up to get the points, and she doubled the offer, so enough points for two nights at that property. That did post within 24 hours of my phone call.

When I had checked out after what should have been my second night at the property but was actually my first night, the desk agent had difficulty figuring out how to apply the balance from a Hyatt gift card, and the manager on duty apologized for the delay and offered half a night's worth of points. Those did post along with the points for the stay. So, in total I got bonus points good for 2.5 nights for a couple of operations glitches.

The aforementioned operations manager also noted that she didn't think that she could get me the stay & night credit for the first night. Since I chose to return and did get a stay credit for the second night, it didn't seem worth generating a huge fuss about it. In any case, the manager that first night only promised she'd look into it, and was reasonably clear at that time that she wasn't sure it was possible.

I've passed details of this incident to my Hyatt Gold Passport Private Line representative; she got back to me after researching and concluded there was not a policy in place. She said she would pass along my commentary including my observation of Marriott Reward's documented generous policy giving assurance to their top level elites that they were not likely to get selected to be walked by a given property's manager.

Lastly, the search functionality on this site generates too many hits for "walked", but by refining the search to titles only, here are a couple of other threads on this topic:

First Time I have been "walked"
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...en-walked.html

My first experience getting "walked" as a diamond.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...d-diamond.html

Did we ever get an answer about Hyatt policy when elites are "walked?"
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...es-walked.html

SCEflyer

I agree, but at the same time it is no different than Marriott. The limited service properties, in most cases, are slow to recognize my Plat status. But at the same time, what can they reasonably offer me? They already offer free breakfast, upgrades in a CY, especially to a suite can be nice, but otherwise the rooms are all the same.

sethb

I've found they recognize Platinum, not that there's anything they actually do for it.

hailstorm

I just found this. I have no idea whether or not this has always been there.

https://help.hyatt.com/en/faqs/reservations.html

Wonder if this implies that they are not obligated to give you anything if your room is not prepaid?

MSPeconomist

In the past, AmEx had pretty tough rules for hotels that walked a guest who had a reservation guaranteed (not necessarily prepaid) with an AmEx card. I don't know whether this is still the policy.