? Re: Possible Clawback
 

In February I booked two separate future stays at Hyatt properties. One for July and one for December.

They were prepaid, non-refundable stays. I used my Chase Hyatt card.

Total for both stays was about $10k charged to the card.

I earned 30k HGP points for the purchase.

Due to a personal issue, I am unable to keep the reservations and both hotels were kind to cancel the reservations and refund the full amounts to the credit card. This just happened today and the refund will not post for a few days.

My question is...will the 30k points get clawed back? They have been in my HGP account since March.

Should I use the existing points balance now to book a reward reservation before any potential clawback? Will that work?

If so, must it be an immediate stay to be used while this refund is processing or can a future stay lock out a clawback?

Finally, I had 2 stays and 10 nights credited to my account. Are these likely to get clawed back?

welcome to ft!

in general, a refund will trigger a negative point credit pushed to your hyatt account which may lead to overall negative balance if you dont have enough points in..
While you can in theory abandon this account and open another one, some random audit may lead to shutdown and investigation - not smth i would want to deal with over paltry 30K points

2 stay 10 nt credit is prob from cc - the stay (even prepaid) doesnt post until completed

That doesn't sound particularly ethical. Why would you do that? If you could afford to drop $10,000 on nonrefundable hotel reservations, why are you concerned about trying to use a relatively small number of points before clawback? Surely that $10,000 you spent and got refunded could buy more and better hotel rooms than 30,000 points can, right?

I'd just let it go and let them take the points back on whatever schedule they have rather than try to hope you can pull a fast one on Hyatt before they catch on. Why have the stress of worrying about a clawback?

^^ It doesn't sound ethical because it clearly isn't.

You didn't "earn" the points, so why should you be able to keep them?

Easy now folks. I wasn't trying to scam Hyatt. I've enjoyed a wonderful long-term relationshhip with them.

I was trying to figure out what is going to happen to two upcoming reservations booked with points if the prior points are clawed back. I don't want to lose the reservations. I have pending points greater than 30k that will post in 3 weeks.

I've called both Hyatt and Chase and alerted them to the situation. All is fine and above board.

Thank you all for your responses.

This answered my question perfectly and was confirmed by HGP. Thank you.

Also, it's not really a "clawback." You spent $10k on a credit card, got rewarded for it, and were then refunded, so the 30k points will be negative on your next credit card statement.

I've never experienced it myself, but I've read more than one report that Hyatt will let your account go into the negative.

It probably will not be a problem if the account goes negative for a period of time, as long as there are sufficient points in the account shortly before the award stays. At least, that was how things used to work...

You are sort of mixing apples and kumquats. Not saying it is impossible for Chase to pull points back, but, I have my doubts they easily can or will try unless they decide it was all a fraud. Meaning Chase bought the points and sent them to Hyatt on your behalf. That transaction is over and would require manual intervention to alter.

The one and only time I had a negative balance on my monthly credit card statement because of a big return they just ignored it. But I don't churn the card, I've had it for years, and it is regularly and heavily used. I was back to owing them money soon enough. Presuming yours is an active and well-used account I expect the same thing happens.

The spend bonuses? Same thought.

I would suggest you have an obligation not to abandon the card till it all evens out, but if you already had earned the first half spend bonus, and it sounds like you did some time ago, won't you be caught up and even soon enough? Beyond that keep using the card and don't worry about it unless it comes up. Which I doubt it does if you have regular spend continued over a reasonable time.

Presuming as I am that you are substantially younger that me, before I fly off in my annoying parental free-advice helicopter, please consider there is seldom a deal so much better that booking the no-cancellation rate makes sense. Maybe for a one-night mattress run to save status, but not a lengthy and expensive trip.

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but in your OP you still seemed to have those 30k points in your account and were looking for ways to protect them:

Yeah, those two posts didn't sound like the same situation at all.

If OP is in the situation described in the second post (and will generate enough spend to put the Hyatt balance positive within 30 days/a single CC statement), I doubt anyone's going to freak out too much (you could probably call and explain to Hyatt and Chase). But that's fundamentally different than "hey, my balance is about to go negative, should I book some stuff to keep the points?"

+1 Everybody esp. Jayer who has covered all the bases.
Peekie, if you view your Chase Visa statement & click on items listing the refunds, you will see a negative for points earned. When your statement closes, those will be subtracted from all the points you've earned from spending that month. If the grand total is negative, Chase MIGHT claw back that number of points from your Hyatt GP account.
IF this puts your GP balance into the negative, Hyatt may leave it alone & trust you to earn the points. If not, I hope Hyatt would phone you, not just automatically cancel an existing ressie. To be safe, you can phone Hyatt as soon as it hits & ask them to trust you. Worst case, get a friend to transfer Hyatt points to you to bring you back to zero--or buy GP points.