Good morning -

I am trying to book a stay at the Hyatt at the Bellevue in Philadelphia for this upcoming Saturday. The Hyatt website shows availability for cash, but no availability for points redemption, and the GP concierge line agrees. Has anybody come across this before? If so, is there any way to use a points redemption? I only have platinum status btw.

Thanks -

Peter

If they say there is none, then there is none unfortunately.

Reach out to Hyatt Gold Passport here on flyertalk. I checked and they are selling standard rooms for cash.

So unless this is one of their one or two blackout dates for the year, they should allow you to book an award. The phone agents usually won't be much help because the cash room is not available for the Hyatt Daily Rate so it shows unavailble to them for awards and they don't know the rules well enough to push the issue.

This has happened in the past and in the case where it wasn't one of the very limited # of blackout nights at the hotel HGP has been able to take care of getting it booked.

hmm that's good to know because I haven't had much luck with @Hyatt_Concierge either.

If the standard room is not available at the daily rate, could the OP be looking at guaranteed availability (since platinum)? If so awards will not be bookable.

Thanks for the insight. I am just looking to book a standard room on points. How would I go about contacting Gold Passport on FT?

Thanks

Peter

Is a standard room available at the Hyatt Daily Rate for your stay dates?

I checked and nope - only package rooms are available.

No it's only available on package rates, but it's not guaranteed availability.

I ran into this at the Hyatt Regency Maui a year or so ago, and HGP was able to get me an award room after the calling the hotel. Here is the message from the boss man himself saying that hotels should not be doing this (and to reach out to them should you encounter it) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18260970-post51.html

Hopefully a discussion with HGP's representatives here on flyertalk will get this taken care of and please let us know what the ultimate resolution is. It sounds like a lot of people at HGP and here on flyertalk are still misinformed regarding this issue unless there was an update since Jeff's post above that I missed.

IMO, unless a hotel is sold out, by definition the daily rate (rack rate) should be available for sale. I wouldn't be surprised if the hotel is trying to implement de facto capacity controls by making it difficult to make an award reservation. The vast majority of GP members would probably give up and not contact customer service.

Note that if the Daily Rate is high due to invoking the elite guaranteed availability benefit does not make an award room become available.

Of course not, since the guaranteed availability rate is essentially an "oversell" rate which could likely lead to another guest being walked.

However under normal circumstances when rooms are available, I do not see why the daily rate would be unavailable. I suspect this might be a stratagem to circumvent the "no capacity controls" policy that allows any available standard room to be booked as an award, and/or to avoid honoring the "My Elite Rate" benefit.

Other hotels have done things like this, IIRC. PH Vendome once did not offer standard rooms for single night stays, even though the nights were available if booked as part of a multi-night stay. This may have been an attempt at controlling award inventory, since award rooms would not show as available if nights were searched for individually.

It may seem fair, but it's not in line with the rules of the program. If they instituted a minimum stay for both cash and award reservations that would be OK, but not in this case since the minimum night requirement only applies to awards.

If the OP wants a room for one night, HGP concierge should be able to get it done.

Obviously , or else there likely wouldn't be an issue with booking the award night. But I think you're missing the point entirely.

By that logic, all hotels could just make their hyatt daily rates have a 2-night minimum and no one could ever book a one-night award. Not saying this would ever happen, but a more realistic scenario would be a hotel doing this for any busy periods when a hotel is expecting higher than usual rates. Which is exactly what it seems like this hotel and the Hyatt Maui are doing.

According to Jeff's post in that prior thread, the underlying package or rate description shouldn't be an issue. If they are selling a standard room for cash (excluding guaranteed availbility of course) you should be able to book an award night.

Hello Peter!

We are more than happy to look into this for you. Can you please PM us your Gold Passport account information and confirm you would like to stay at the Hyatt at the Bellevue this evening, 05/03/14. Sorry for the delayed response.

Safe Travels,

Drew D.-Guest Relations Associate