Originally Posted by moretimeoffguy

Since I may not receive my certs (by emai)l before I need to book flights for a particular trip, is there any way to check free night cert availability with having the certs in advance? Or are there no actual blackout dates for standard award rooms? In which case I could just check hotel availability for the dates I'm interested to gauge likely availability when the certs do come in--no guarantee, but more of a comfort factor.

Award travel (flights) can be expensive to change or rebook. But the trip is also predicated on having those free nights available to me when I want them. So it's a bit of a Catch-22.

What do folk advise in this situation other than waiting for the certs to arrive before booking flights? Coming up against a Hyatt situation as well, e.g. many 22K properties go up in cost after midnight tomorrow--and using Hyatt free nights is part of my strategy for this trip, in addition to Hilton free nights.