Originally Posted by
SifuGinSaing
My experience is contrary to others, I have seen separate inventory for FNCs than standard award availability. My experience is that FNC availability is even more limited than standard award availability. With that being said, I've seen some tricks to booking with FNCs. You might want to try using Pay My Way to book with FNCs.
I've been running into this for months. Technically according to the terms and conditions, if there is standard room availability, then there should be both points award availability AND FNC availability (Assuming it's not on the list of
Standard-room Award Ineligible Properties). I was running into an issue using my 1-7 where there was points availability showing but not letting me book with the 1-7 (tried the pay-my-way trick and also tried calling to book). All of the phone reps told me to keep checking back because the hotel needed to open FNC availability even though it was showing points availability for my date. They weren't sure why they couldn't force the reservation through on their end but they clearly figured that the hotel was not abiding by the correct rules and they couldn't force them to open the availability like they should. Many agents even tried to tell me that "if there's no FNC award inventory there's nothing we can do" - this is wrong and I pushed them to follow through with the T&Cs since there was clearly standard room availability showing. After literally 3 months of checking every day and numerous calls to Hyatt, I finally was able to be escalated to a sympathetic agent who just took my cert and gave me the points to book the room.
So, yes, even though it should be the same, on the hotel end it is two different inventory buckets and they need to have them both turned on. I'd like to think it's just some operator who doesn't realize they need to switch both on, rather than something more nefarious. Bolded parts of the T&C below for reference:
(A) one (1) standard-room Free Night Award redeemable at a category 1-4 hotel or resort (“Category 1-4 Free Night Award”). (A list of participating hotels and resorts, sorted by category, can be found at hyatt.com). The Category 1-4 Free Night Award is valid for one hundred and eighty (180) days from the date of issuance and must be redeemed for a reservation with a checkout date on or before the expiration of the award. Awards not redeemed prior to the expiration date of the award will be forfeited. Redemption of Category 1-4 Free Night Award is subject to standard-room availability at the selected hotel or resort and to all redemption terms generally applicable to Award Reservations as set out above in this Appendix B. Category 1-4 Free Night Awards are not valid at any property classified by Hyatt (in its sole discretion) as category 5 or higher or not included in the category 1-8 classification system or at any of the Standard-room Award Ineligible Properties. Hyatt reserves the right to reclassify any hotel or resort at any time for any reason in its sole discretion. May not be redeemable where a hotel or resort imposes a minimum-length-of-stay requirement. Other Free Night Awards, including those valid at category 1-4 hotels and resorts, may have different expiration and other applicable terms.