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Standard rooms available at hotel -- Hyatt says GP rooms 'not available'

Old Jun 4, 2015, 3:39 pm
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Last edit by: Kacee
Hyatt hotels that are currently cheating award bookings by moving standard rooms out of Hyatt Daily Rate inventory and into package-only rates (which can't be booked using points): (Additional suggestion: please also show when you checked (eg 6/5/15) for stay period of (eg 7/1-4/15):

Hyatt XYZ - checked 6/5/15 for 7/1-4/15

Andaz West Hollywood
Hyatt Regency Austin
Driskill Hotel, Austin (standard rooms only available on B&B rate for certain nights and hotel refused to budge after phone call from WoH)
Hyatt Atlanta Midtown
Hyatt Vineyard Creek
Hyatt Regency Embarcadero SF (6/25 - 6/26)
Andaz San Diego July 17-19 (SD Pride) - all rooms avail w/Best Avail
Hyatt Santa Barbara (7/17/15 - 7/19/15) - resolved with phone call to HGP
Hyatt Regency Toronto (8/13-8/16)
Andaz Maui (1/5-1/11) - standard garden room avail on AS/AA package
Grand Hyatt San Francisco (dates throughout November 2015)
Hyatt Regency SFO
Park City Hyatt Centric
Hyatt Place San Francisco

Additionally, Hyatt Place hotels are now apparently able to hide rooms from point redemption by claiming they're 'high floor' rooms. Here are those offenders:

Hyatt Place Saratoga/Malta -- checked 6/22/15 for Aug 1-Aug 15 (all dates blacked out for redemption, despite having plenty of rooms)
Hyatt Place Cleveland/Independence - 7/10-7/12. Only offering 'high floor' rooms on a 6 story hotel.

Please email [email protected] regarding the Hyatt Place High Floor issue; they said that there were too few complaints to warrant any change.
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Standard rooms available at hotel -- Hyatt says GP rooms 'not available'

Old May 4, 2015, 6:36 pm
  #1  
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Thumbs down Standard rooms available at hotel -- Hyatt says GP rooms 'not available'

I'm a Diamond member going on 5 years and (if true) this is the first I've heard of this...

I was just told by Diamond Concierge (and supposedly confirmed by someone in guest services) that full-service Hyatt hotels are "allowed to have capacity controls on how many Gold Passport point rooms they offer, regardless if a standard king/double room is available."

Allow me to give my situation... Hyatt Regency X has plenty of rooms currently available over a popular weekend in their city, although the rates are on the higher-end (around $425+) and no free nights are available (at 15,000 points). The hotel does not have standard king/double rooms listed under their daily rate, but does have standard rooms listed on another rate plan (bed & breakfast), indicating they do have standard rooms available in the hotel on those dates.

As all of us frequent travelers know, many hotels already do everything they can to get out of offering points rooms (such as calling standard rooms 'river view,' 'ocean view' or 'preferred' rooms) to extremely limit their quantity of standard rooms as-is. I never expected HGP to side with the hotel though!

Have I really missed this in all my years with Hyatt? What's our incentive to continue accumulating points when at least SPG (and possibly Marriott?) forces their hotels to accept points 100% of the time, if standard rooms are available? Please let me know if this really is the policy at Hyatt... I honestly don't see the value in all these points if their hotels can simply say 'no thanks,' they don't want to take points on any given weekend.
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Old May 4, 2015, 6:44 pm
  #2  
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Hello moulder3,

The policy is that if there are standard guest rooms available at the Hyatt Daily Rate, then there should be rooms available using Gold Passport points. If the standard rooms are only offered under a different package or rate plan such as the Advance Purchase rate or Awaken Package, then the hotel is not obligated to offer rooms using Gold Passport points.

I hope that helps to clarify!

Thanks,

Sarah
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Old May 4, 2015, 6:50 pm
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by moulder3
I'm a Diamond member going on 5 years and (if true) this is the first I've heard of this...

I was just told by Diamond Concierge (and supposedly confirmed by someone in guest services) that full-service Hyatt hotels are "allowed to have capacity controls on how many Gold Passport point rooms they offer, regardless if a standard king/double room is available."

Allow me to give my situation... Hyatt Regency X has plenty of rooms currently available over a popular weekend in their city, although the rates are on the higher-end (around $425+) and no free nights are available (at 15,000 points). The hotel does not have standard king/double rooms listed under their daily rate, but does have standard rooms listed on another rate plan (bed & breakfast), indicating they do have standard rooms available in the hotel on those dates.

As all of us frequent travelers know, many hotels already do everything they can to get out of offering points rooms (such as calling standard rooms 'river view,' 'ocean view' or 'preferred' rooms) to extremely limit their quantity of standard rooms as-is. I never expected HGP to side with the hotel though!

Have I really missed this in all my years with Hyatt? What's our incentive to continue accumulating points when at least SPG (and possibly Marriott?) forces their hotels to accept points 100% of the time, if standard rooms are available? Please let me know if this really is the policy at Hyatt... I honestly don't see the value in all these points if their hotels can simply say 'no thanks,' they don't want to take points on any given weekend.
If the points don't have value to you, I'll offer to take them. Thank you!
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Old May 4, 2015, 8:53 pm
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Originally Posted by Gold Passport Concierge
The policy is that if there are standard guest rooms available at the Hyatt Daily Rate, then there should be rooms available using Gold Passport points. If the standard rooms are only offered under a different package or rate plan such as the Advance Purchase rate or Awaken Package, then the hotel is not obligated to offer rooms using Gold Passport points.
Then what is to keep a hotel from moving all of the standard rooms to different rate plans on high-demand weekends? Since the hotel obviously makes more $ from selling the room than allowing point bookings, what requires them to make standard rooms available via the Hyatt Daily Rate? Why not simply game the Hyatt system as this hotel is doing?
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Old May 5, 2015, 8:00 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by moulder3
Then what is to keep a hotel from moving all of the standard rooms to different rate plans on high-demand weekends? Since the hotel obviously makes more $ from selling the room than allowing point bookings, what requires them to make standard rooms available via the Hyatt Daily Rate? Why not simply game the Hyatt system as this hotel is doing?
Yes the property is gaming the system but even if Hyatt tightens the rules, the T&Cs allow each property to opt out of allowing award redemptions 2x a year (for I believe a week each) so they could go that route for periods of high demand.

As a whole, most properties do comply. If you don't mind saying which property, then we can build our (and Hyatt corporate) knowledge base on which properties tend to play games. This was a common tactic in the past at HR Maui, but there hasn't been many reports lately. Could be the result of corporate cracking down. Years ago (close to 10), GH SIN used to routinely deny club access to Diamonds, now not only do they grant access, they usually upgrade Diamonds to the front tower deluxe rooms (which are really suites). That's a complete 180 IMO.
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Old May 5, 2015, 10:02 am
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Originally Posted by peteropny
As a whole, most properties do comply. If you don't mind saying which property, then we can build our (and Hyatt corporate) knowledge base on which properties tend to play games. This was a common tactic in the past at HR Maui, but there hasn't been many reports lately. Could be the result of corporate cracking down. Years ago (close to 10), GH SIN used to routinely deny club access to Diamonds, now not only do they grant access, they usually upgrade Diamonds to the front tower deluxe rooms (which are really suites). That's a complete 180 IMO.
Great idea! The hotel in question is Hyatt Regency Austin. They're currently gaming the system for the upcoming Austin City Limits (first two weekends in October), but I've since learned they apparently have run this scam for awhile on other high-demand weekends, such as SXSW.
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Old May 5, 2015, 12:38 pm
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I had a similar issue as the OP at Green Bay property, with the 2 bedded standard room being available for money under the "bed and breakfast" package, but no 2 bed room available for points. I just took my business elsewhere for that trip.
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Old May 5, 2015, 12:41 pm
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moulder3-

Thanks for the heads up about HR Austin, it's always good to know what's going on with the HGP redemption world... as for high-traffic weekends like ACL or SXSW, these things are sometimes unavoidable...

Good luck.

-AD
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Old May 5, 2015, 12:55 pm
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Originally Posted by moulder3
Great idea! The hotel in question is Hyatt Regency Austin. They're currently gaming the system for the upcoming Austin City Limits (first two weekends in October), but I've since learned they apparently have run this scam for awhile on other high-demand weekends, such as SXSW.
You just listed probably the two most high demand weekends in Austin...if you really cared that much, I would have booked the room on points a while ago and canceled if I couldn't get tickets.
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Old May 5, 2015, 2:19 pm
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Originally Posted by pillow25
You just listed probably the two most high demand weekends in Austin...if you really cared that much, I would have booked the room on points a while ago and canceled if I couldn't get tickets.
Respectfully, you're missing the point. Of course it's a high-demand weekend but--at the moment--the hotel still has standard rooms. They've just moved all their standard rooms out of the 'Hyatt daily rate' inventory, so they don't have to offer free night redemptions, which is cheating the system. The hotel isn't sold out (yet), they've just hidden their standard rooms from point redemption.
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Old May 5, 2015, 4:41 pm
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No, they are simply trying to get more revenue.... The most likely reason they do this is to get that guaranteed revenue for breakfast (or any inclusive rate) during those peak weeks. Why leave money on the table...

Your points redemption would still get them a substantial amount when the hotel is booked, this simply brings in more.

And surely those rooms were available on points earlier, or they might even be later if demand is slow..... There has to be a bit if a balance in this. And the points availability with GP is hardly anything to complain about. But you might have difficulty during peak demand at some properties. Accept it and move on.
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Old May 5, 2015, 10:05 pm
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I love Hyatt as much as the next person, but I don't understand the "What do you expect it's a peak weekend or who cares about a one off property?" sentiment. This is a ridiculous loophole that any property that wanted to could use as a way to completely disallow standard award stays. I know this isn't happening, but I don't think anyone could argue that a property could very easily do this based on what we've been told. There are at least a few properties that do this regularly and it completely undermines the program IMO. Now if this was how properties went about enforcing their limited number of blackout days so be it, but it's never been explained like that. When this first came up Jeff Zidell himself commented that this shouldn't be happening and to let HGP know about it if we encountered it. Since then, HGP concierge has basically endorsed the practice and doesn't add much more than a quote about the "Hyatt Daily Rate" each time it's mentioned.

Peak times are exactly when I (and I'm assuming a lot of other FTers) want to use points and the points at this hotel in particular are usually a terrible value unless there is some event going on so if this became a regular practice my points would become much less valuable. I would agree that the sky isn't falling, but this loophole is complete crap and I don't understand how anyone could argue otherwise.
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Old May 6, 2015, 1:14 am
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Don't get me wrong, I like to maximize my point as the next guy (being outside of the US that even applies a lot more).

But, even with the sporadic exception, I've been able to do that without much problems with GP. And I also understand the balance there needs to be that properties actually make some money at local peak times. If all standard rooms were snapped up with points use those properties might be gone the next time you want to be there.

And in reality, if you plan ahead, you will very, very rarely not be able to use those points when you want. Major events normally do require some planning to get a decent rate or using points. and it's been stated before, properties have the ability to opt out . Guess at what times they use that option....

So, no I don't think it devalues the program when it happens on that rare occasion. And availability on points tends to be rather decent with GP.

Last edited by RTW1; May 6, 2015 at 1:24 am
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Old May 6, 2015, 5:52 am
  #14  
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Originally Posted by moulder3
Great idea! The hotel in question is Hyatt Regency Austin. They're currently gaming the system for the upcoming Austin City Limits (first two weekends in October), but I've since learned they apparently have run this scam for awhile on other high-demand weekends, such as SXSW.
Originally Posted by pillow25
You just listed probably the two most high demand weekends in Austin...if you really cared that much, I would have booked the room on points a while ago and canceled if I couldn't get tickets.
Breakfast? Wow. I ran into the no-daily-rate exception at the HR Austin last fall at an even busier weekend - Halloween and the Formula One race. The package that weekend included only these extras: internet, a bottle of water, a newspaper, and turndown service.

I had a lovely stay at the Hyatt Place downtown instead.
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Old May 6, 2015, 6:15 am
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Originally Posted by peteropny
Yes the property is gaming the system but even if Hyatt tightens the rules, the T&Cs allow each property to opt out of allowing award redemptions 2x a year (for I believe a week each) so they could go that route for periods of high demand.
Are you sure that you're not confusing award availability with guaranteed availability?
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