MarkOK

I decided to put this in its own thread vs just going further off tangent of the HP St. Paul thread.

To recap: Last Tuesday, I had a reservation for a 1 night stay at Overland Park HP - Metcalf. I made the reservation late July on a pts+cash rate and indicated 'late check-in'. (cat 1 hotel, 2500 pts+50$, the rate was something around 160$ otherwise making the pts value nice and high).

I arrived at the hotel with my wife and kid at 11:30PM, (after I accidently went to HP Overland Park-convention center first which was about 2 miles away) and the HP Metcalf was booked up and I got 'walked' as they call it. The front desk person was pleasant, apologetic, and I was too tired to give him any cross looks. He had a paper ready for me to give to the Holiday Inn about 4 miles away for my room, told me everything is taken care of, I won't get any charges.

I make the drive up the Holiday Inn Overland Park West but I had to plug it into my navigation because it wasn't real close and the front desk person at HP seemed directionally challenged when I asked for its general direction (I know it is just a cat 1 HP, but hint, give me some directions). At the holiday Inn, the front desk women were kind, but perhaps too 'friendly' in that way that is not-quite-professional (calling me poor sweetie, for example. I am 34, I look a little young for my age, and I rather like it that way, but both my wife and I are advanced degree'd professionals (me a professor, she's a corporate recruiter) that value professionalism, efficiency, and even a sort of cold-yes-sir/maam respect when it comes to customer service and the batter was somewhat irritating though I know they 'mean well'.) They needed my credit card in case of 'incidentals' (whatever that could be at Holiday Inn) so I handed them my Hyatt Chase card (another round of unnecessary and annoying ahhh, that so cute, type of batter). We got a double queen room, which was fine and we slept fine even if the bed was a little softer than we like (hyatts seem to have firmer beds which we much prefer). The night shades still let in a lot of light, the ac unit was noisy, the room and hotel was 'clean' but definitely aged, all fine enough but worse than any HP we've stayed at. In the morning, they had the bill slipped under the door (Btw, props to Hyatt for not doing that, something about it seems tacky to me like they are saying "hey, its 4 AM, here is your bill, now get out"). The bill/invoice showed the room charge (~$130) and a line that shows my credit card was charged for it. We were eager to get on the road up to St. Paul where we were staying the next two nights. Going downstairs, I found out that they don't have a complementary breakfast (it was connected to a Green Mill restaurant, and we'd have to pay), and I talked to the front desk about the bill, the guy was rather professional and told me that the room is being charged to the HP and apologized for the invoice/receipt and crumpled up the invoice and threw it away. We checked out, found a Dennys and then a Starbucks (which was within a rather decent looking Marriot). And at Denny's, I pulled up the CC online and I saw on my chase card that Holiday Inn had a 20$ pending charge and a ~$110 pending charge that summed to exactly the room charge I saw that morning. My thinking is that the 20$ was the hold for incidentals and then they pended a charge for the room and so I was thinking great, they are going to charge me, and then I am going to have to deal with this later without any paper-trail about what happened since I don't have a copy of the marching orders or anything else.

We all made it to the HP St. Paul -- great hotel, the best limited service hotel I have ever experienced in my (compared to many of you) limited experience. Was greeted everytime we went in and out, got a suite upgrade, the rooms were absolutely beautiful, better than normal breakfast, had both local and national papers to grab, etc. etc (see hotel review thread for that). After that, we had to go to the AmericInn in Hutchinson MN an hour and some west of the Twin Cities for a wedding that weekend for one of my many cousins. The AmericInn was friendly (in that I know they mean well, but the chatter and casualness annoys me), had a mediocre breakfast, bad coffee, very outdated rooms but clean, etc., and was still well over 100$ a night, and again reminding me how much HP and HH beats out the competition.

Anyways, on account of the traveling, I didn't get back to looking at the issue in Overland Park until Sunday night, upon which I found that my Holiday Inn pending charges disappeared. I didn't have any charges on my credit card used to hold my reservation from HP either still, confirming at least the front desk at HP was honest about the totally free night, don't worry about any charges, promise. But this was a pt+cash stay, and my Pts were deducted when I booked and they were still deducted with the booking date in my transaction history in my profile, while the rest of my reservation disappeared altogether and I wasn't given a night credit.

So, I wanted my Pts back and if possible a night credit as I like having a little buffer to ensure if something else changes in my upcoming stays, that I will get my globalist challenge (globalist is worth already about 60 breakfasts at full service Hyatts booked for next year between my family and me and a couple hundred in waived resort fees).

I emailed World of Hyatt late on Sunday asking if I can get those pts back and get a night-credit. I made the email nice but informative of my dissatisfaction overall (about how I have moved nearly all my stays to Hyatt recently, aiming for the globalist status, enjoy the brand, was disappointed in being bumped late at night with my wife and kid when we already indicated a late check-in, was taken care of at the HOliday Inn, but without breakfast there I think HP Metcalf needs to be careful using it as an equivalent, etc.).

Well, I got a response this evening that 1. I get my 2500 pts back for the pt+cash reservation. 2. They gave me 5,000 bonus pts for my troubles, and 3. Sorry but they get can't credit me the stay.

I am happy with the resolution overall -- I got a free night's of sleep and some recognition that I was inconvenienced and though I don't have a night towards status, I really won't 'need it' ,-- even if I have to cancel a planned 2 night trip this fall (leaving me 1 night short), the year is young enough and I am in an -okay- location for a low cost mattress run. Staying at the Holiday Inn and the AmericInn and experiencing that kind of 'service' and the lower quality hardware made it hard for me to build rage against Hyatt anyways. The three days to respond I think was timely enough (but perhaps I am just getting used to being jaded by terrible customer service living in a po-dunk college town. For example, my mail hasn't been delivered for over a month because the mailman thinks some rocks I put on my grass to stop him from driving ruts through my lawn as he circles around the cul-de-sac is 'in the way' of the mail box which is 20 feet down the curb, and despite 4 times marching down to the post office to collect my mail, show pictures about how clear my mailbox is, and getting promises that they will 'investigate', I still haven't had anyone come 'investigate' and resolve the argument either way; another example, a part of my new in-warranty pool cleaner broke in June and I am STILL following up with my pool service to replace the dang thing. Everything time I talk to them, they promise they will get right on it and two weeks pass without anything happening before I call them/stop by the store to ask whattheheck is up?).

Anyways, some important take-aways:
1. Though normally I don't see the point, 'checking in' online early is a smart thing to do, especially when arriving late.
2. I am unimpressed that I had to ask for my pts back, it didn't happen for 7 days on its own, making me think it might not ever happen on its own.
3. Hyatts won't give you night credits towards status if you get walked. This alarms me, because what if you are at 59 nights, make a 1 night reservation for Dec 29 to secure your globalist and you get walked to another hotel because of overbooking. Do you really get denied your suite upgrade certs, cat 1-7 stay, and globalist benefits because you got walked?? Yikes. Just like when it comes to pt nights, award nights, etc, Hyatt needs to loosen up on counting nights towards status.

zombietooth

In the past, I did a lot of nights at HPs and got "no-show"ed on many occasions, sometimes as early as 2230. Your resolution was fantastic compared to several instances where I had no room at all and had to sleep in my car, or just got back in the car and kept driving to another town.

Anyway, HP has a practice of "no-show"ing you if you are a late arrival (and they can sell the room to a walk-up, etc.), so you need to always call them early, usually by the last shift change, and make them check you in or annotate your record, "late arrival-do not no-show".

Here's an old thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...e-calling.html

Good Luck!

HoustonConsultant

Before I can comment on the situation, I think I need a few more details.

What color shirt were you wearing when you talked to the front desk person at the original HP?

Maybe it's because I'm Diamond/Glob, I've never been no-showed or walked at a HP (or anywhere else for that matter). It sounds like they handled it as well as would be expected but the points should quickly be placed back in your account.

MarkOK

Funny. I am used to writing in long form essay, my apologies for the book chapter above entitled "Mark went for a walk".

That was the first time I've been walked, seems that it is somewhat rare but not unheard of, thus, I wanted to share.

The smallest state

Great post first of all.

Hyatt's IT is pretty shoddy. One reason I gave up on Hyatt and went to Marriott was the effort it took me to keep status. I loved the clubs, the rooms and the properties.

When WoH came about, one of my big exasperations was not only did I stay in HP's when a Marriott or Starwood would have been way more closer, but the fact I had to follow up on so much with Hyatt. Points not posting, pending credits that stuck on my card for days, stays not credited. I figured I spent 30-45 minutes a week just checking up on Hyatt.

jayer

As noted above as Takeaway 1; what has changed at HP is you can now check in online, which was not previously the case and was restricted to FS locations.

Not saying it should be necessary but it is a way to make your intentions clear.