Mary2e

IMHO, it's not worth the aggrevation to save such a small amount of money. I have no intentions of buying any others until tighter controls are in place.

cdancer20

Definitely a case of to each his own. I'm a huge person that believes in saving money wherever possible. Therefore the chance to save 10-25% on a hotel stay is a great benefit to me and worth it. I am just learning to be more careful now. I don't buy to "Save up". I only buy when I know I have travel coming up very soon.

Mary2e

It's not unheard of for me to buy several thousand at one time, so this is a big issue for me. I think my all time high was $5k, and I know of someone who bought even more than that.

cdancer20

Did any of those cards get compromised? Early through mid last year, I was buying to stock up but then stopped after all these reports came out. Luckily I made my way through most of them before the end of the year.

Mary2e

No, it was a few years ago. Since, I've only purchased a few thousand worth, and it was before all this started happening.

I also had stocked up when Costco had them for 20% off.

Reid

Bought 4 cards from Cardcash on March 21st. One was empty when received. Received a refund March 29th. Checked the balances again and now another card has been emptied.

Brendan

I bought 2 ($200) Hyatt physical GCs from Cardpool.com, which I received on March 22. I checked them on arrival by phoning 1-866-784-0540 & again just now. They're both OK. . .so far. I will use them on April 9 & 13.
Just like Cdancer20, I will buy only what I need in the next few weeks. No more stocking up. And if I have a bad experience or 2, I'll stop because the hassle won't be worth the ~15% savings.

UPDATE: I've just arrived at the HR downtown Louisville, which has debited my GC $174 upon check-in for the cash portion of my 2-night P&C stay. I asked her to do it now because of this FT thread.

UPDATE #2: I used the last $26 of that GC tonight in Columbus OH without a problem. My other GC still has $200--untouched.

SportsTech

Never used Cardcash, but your message made me look them up. Other than the security breach issues, have you had any problems redeeming Cardcash cards at Hyatt properties? Thanks, ST

cdancer20

Nope. They are just like every other Hyatt GC.

orca1114

Purchased a $500 e-gift card on eBay for about a 20% discount. When it arrived, I called Hyatt to verify the balance. Not only would they not tell me the balance, but they also told me I couldn't use it unless I knew who had originally purchased it and when. I explained that I bought it from a reseller, and they told me that unless the reseller wanted to give me the requested info, the card would be useless to me. EBay processed a prompt refund for me, but sounds like there are all kinds of problems going on here.

I used to buy the certs at Costco and had no problems. Now, when you try to check gift card balances online, the link is nonfunctional, and you're prompted to call in. I'm glad to see that they're cracking down on potential fraud, but then again, there are going to be tons of angry customers if they thought they had purchased legit gift cards, but when they try to use them on property, the guest is subjected to 20 questions which will likely ultimately result in an unusable gift card. Sheesh.

Renard

I have had problems with a couple of different gift cards purchased from two different big online gc resellers. Calling hyatt about the problem gets you nowhere... once hyatt was quite nasty to me saying that buying from resellers is not allowed--I'm like well shut them down it's not like they're in the wide open. The second time they were nicer but not much help. The companies that I bought them from took care of it but it was stressful as it involved a sum of money--one was close to $500. I don't seem to have problems until after I've used part of it. They remainder gets drained. The second time I called before leaving and found out it was drained--much less stressful and embarrassing than at the front desk. Hyatt clearly has an issue here and I'm out of the hyatt gift card business--just too risky and too much hassle

cdancer20

Was the card drained? Otherwise you don't need to speak to a person to get the balance. It's an automated system that you call into.

orca1114

When I tried to call, it routed me directly to a person rather than the automated system. Though when I just called the same number again today, it directed me to the automated system. For kicks, I entered the numbers on the card and it has a $500 balance. We'll see what happens when I try to use it on-property in a couple weeks.

cdancer20

As long as it has balance, you should be OK. The hotel will not try to verify that it's in your name.

Brendan

Earlier in this thread I guessed that Hyatt was selling cards directly to GC resellers to drum up business. Worse: Maybe dishonest Hyatt employee(s) are selling them, then letting their friends use the same number. Or selling the same GC several times!