OceanBreezes

My plastic cards are locked in a safe and have been since I got them. I just received an email saying my cards were compromised (I checked the balance in April and it was all there...checked again yesterday and my cards were drained...a few trailing dollars). They said they would be reissuing with a pin. Glad they notified me as it would have been a huge surprise when I tried to use for an upcoming trip to NYC.

Brendan

By checking Giftcardgranny.com I notice that the supply of Hyatt GCs for sale has pretty much dried up & discounts are smaller on days when cards are offered for sale.

cdancer20

How were you notified? Do you have them setup with a gift card balance tracking website?

ibling

Lets give this another shot;

My recent stay at the Andaz West Hollywood in Los Angeles was incredible in many ways. From the exceptional service standards and the grandeur of the property, the stay was close to perfect. Unfortunately, the checkout experience derailed the perfect ending to this story. Until I was compensated with 50,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points.



I had booked a points+cash rate (10,000 + $125 USD/night) for 4 nights at the Andaz West Hollywood. A few weeks later, I jumped on an opportunity to buy discounted e-Gift Card (e-GC) via cardcash.com . With a specific use in mind, at 17% discount, bought Hyatt e-GC worth $600 USD for my stay and planned to use it towards the cash portion of my booking. I promptly received the e-GC in email and verified the balance on the cards through the Hyatt system, multiple times before my stay. All checked out fine.




During check out my request to use Hyatt e-Gift card (e-GC) was denied by the staff quoting recent fraud activities. When I challenged that decision and asked to speak with the manager, the front line manager reiterated the recent fraud activities as the reason. He also said it would not be an issue if these were physical Hyatt gift cards but they were unable to accept any e-GC at this time. Manager’s dismissive attitude towards the e-GC was rather odd and felt condescending. When I pulled up the Hyatt e-Gift Card Terms and Conditions and shared that the property was listed as one that accepts e-GC, the manager deflected the onus on the General Manger and said he was instructed to not accept e-GC’s, especially ones issued by third parties (cardcash.com in my case). Realizing this conversation was not going anywhere, I settled the final bill with my credit card and decided to take it up with Hyatt Corporate.



I sent a detailed email of my experience to [email protected] and requested that my money be refunded in full, back on my credit card in exchange for the e-GC. In a few days, received a call from a person claiming to be from Hyatt Relations and acknowledged receipt of my email. He mentioned that my case was being evaluated and wanted the digits to my e-GC, to ascertain legitimacy and verify the balance. Obviously, did not give that up over a an incoming phone call, instead took down his details, a call back number and hung up. I called the Diamond line and was able to verify that the person was in fact a Hyatt staff member, and was transferred directly to him as well. Upon noting down the digits of my e-GC, he assured a call back with a resolution. After two days of nervous waiting, I heard back from Hyatt relations again. Balance on my e-GC checked out as expected but they were unable to determine if it was issued by Hyatt to begin with. I was offered 40,000 gold passport points as compensation. My counter-offer was 50,000, for the charade this had turned out to be. I was put on a quick hold and the representative confirmed the 50,000 points being added to my Hyatt gold passport account. They confirmed my e-GC’s had active balance that I could use for my next stay, but each property was within their right to decline a gift card issued by a third party. Didn’t want to question that at the time. Said thank you and hung up.



I did not want to go though this ordeal again and decided to contact customer support for cardcash.com and requested a refund for the e-gift card transaction since Hyatt had declined to accept them. Expected a lot of back and forth but was pleasantly surprised with their prompt and professional customer support. I was contacted within 48 hours with specific instructions to process a refund. Refund posted on my credit card within 3 business days.
Hyatt corporate and the twitter team have always come through with their incredible customer service, kudos to them! If you find yourself in a similar situation, keep calm, verify the terms of usage and contact the corporate office or customer relations for a resolution.

OceanBreezes

Hyatt sent me an email saying they discovered a compromise and to notify them to let them know whether I wanted plastic or email replacement and where to send it. They also ensured that no personal information was compromised I emailed them to ask them if all my gift cards purchased that day were compromised or just one (I checked the balance and all 5 were compromised...but, they only were emailing about one). I have sent them another email indicating it was all 5 of them. I have 1 purchased on a different date that has not been compromised.

I checked the balances by calling 866.784.0540.

I can only imagine how much they have lost due to this issue.

moretimeoffguy

Considered burning 100K Amex MR points by redeeming for two $500 Hyatt gift cards. Unfortunate the T&Cs say that can only be used in the U.S. (and Canada perhaps), but thought about using them at restaurants in the Grand Hyatt on Kauai. Has the security changed, or is there still a significant risk to purchasing new Hyatt GCs redeemed for Amex MR points--or acquired anywhere.

Aquired anywhere = high risk seems to be the consensus here.

cdancer20

The purchase point of the GCs are irrelevant. They are all equally at risk. However, I can see there be a slightly higher risk to buying 3rd party if you have a crook that sells the same GC number to several people. That's true of any 3rd party GC purchase though. However, all cards are getting compromised. Even those sold directly by Hyatt. You would probably have a better recourse of reimbursement though through Amex than a 3rd party reseller.

josephstern

I'd say the third-party once are significantly more risky - especially now.

If some joker buys a Hyatt GC at OfficeDepot and then sells it to CardCash or one of the many retailers, but holds onto the number, then there's someone else who has that specific info.

Sure, this might seem like a consistent risk with any gift card, but add in that Hyatt is now known for making these bad GC holders whole. So there's potentially less risk to the original buyer and to CardCash since Hyatt may just pick up the cost. If Hyatt eats it, there's no pushback to the reseller and the original buyer.

Scammers recognize this and buy more Hyatt GCs to offload.

moretimeoffguy

Interesting. So, the risk is a bit overstated in practice. I'm very tempted to purchase one or two $500 Hyatt GCs (50K MR points each). I see there are two delivery options: an eGift card or a Gift card--wonder if one would be more risk prone than the other. However, not sure I'm going to worry at all about this.

The Hyatt $500 GCs being offered from Amex using 50K MR reward points seems a lot more favorable than other Hotel GC Amex MR redemptions, e.g. a $500 Marriott GC costs 71,429 MR points. A Hilton $500 GC is 53,572 MR points, etc.

MSPDeltaDude

There is SOOOOOO many better ways to use 50MR points then redeem at .1 for Hyatt gift cards. Not trying to be a jerk, just selling yourself short. Trasfering to a airline partner doesn't work for you?

cdancer20

LOL I said that the 3rd party stores have higher risk but not more than any other card which has nothing to do with Hyatt itself. Hyatt GCs as a whole are at risk even when the 3rd party seller is legitimate and honest. And actually Cardcash does pick up the risk. Within their terms, they have to refund the buyer for the compromised GC. This is why I think we've seen such a huge decrease in cards on 3rd party sites, i.e. non-existant now. They no longer want to pay out.

moretimeoffguy

Not jerky at all, I'm all ears! Considered redeeming for BA avios (still might); but even with the current transfer bonus, people don't seem to believe it's worthwhile for my particular needs. I list some of my balances lower down on this thread page:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...-2016-a-2.html

I have a zero Delta SkyMile balance (redeemed recently for tickets to Hawaii) and no substantial balances with any of the the other MR airline transfer partners. If you've got any good advice, the other thread may be a better place to weigh in. Or a PM if you'd like. I'd really appreciate any help I can get on this--especially if Hyatt GCs are widely considered a low value MR redemption option.

The other issue is that, for domestic airline transfers (or at least North American airlines), Amex seems to levy a fee per point that could make domestic airline transfers expensive. Considered starting accumulating AeroPlan miles--since we typically end up flying to Europe using United Miles with Air Canada being the partner. But believe they charge a high fee per point to transfer.

I thought it might be nice to acquire more Avios, as they can also be used for hotel stays. Might not be a super value; but handy for filling a lodging need somewhere at some time. Current goal though is getting from RDU to Asia, and thought Avios, using CX as a partner, might work well.

Also have around 241K Hawaiian Airlines miles; but again, unless I'm mistaken (and I may well be), I thought Amex levied some ridiculous per-point fee to transfer MR to North America-based airlines.

Kalboz

I bought two Hyatt gift cards from eBay (Seller: elizabethperez55) one on 12/29/2015 for $425 (value $500) and the second for $320 (value $400) on 1/1/2016. I received the Hyatt eCerts via US mail the actual paper certificates and when I checked with Hyatt, the combined value of $900 for both cards was there. Paper certs did not have an expiration date on them.

Ending a stay at the HROC on 5/30/2016, I checked out and tried to use the paper certs I bought as above. To my huge disappointment (not to mention embarrassment), there was zero value in both paper certs! I paid using a credit card and when got home I called and checked with Hyatt to be told these Hyatt certs don't have any monetary value in them!

I paid $745 for these cards and got nothing in return. I contacted eBay which is very hard to do and they said sorry nothing they can do. I also contacted PayPal which credit card records showed they processed the payment to no avail. Further, I emailed the seller and requested a refund and she laughed at me in her email response!!! I was left to assume that this was fraud and she used the US mail system to perpatrate this fraud. I gave her 7 days to refund me but she did not respond. Therefore, I had to report her to the US Postal Inspection Service. I received an email form letter from the Inspection Service which did not say anything specific to the situation at hand.

Until today, I have not received any refund or compensation of any sort!

What should I do next? Who to contact?

seawolf

I think you are out of luck.

Mary2e

I agree with the above. It's nearly 8 months since you purchased. Hyatt has been very good about taking care of these, but it appears that they have now stopped unless you purchased directly from them.

You're also probably out of Ebay's guarantee period.