Kudos to Hyatt
 

I booked 7 nights at Hyatt Centric Park City for a ski vacation. Unfortunately, my daughter took a bad fall in our first few hours skiing and fractured four vertrbrae. We spent the the next 18 hours at Utah University Hospital. Thankfully, the doctor's predict a full recovery. We flew home the next day. Hyatt graciously refunded the points for the unused nights despite being far past the cancellation date.

Oh no! So glad she'll be ok - and best wishes for a quick recovery!

But I would actually expect any hotel to refund points in such a situation.

No sense of entitlement. Please do not think you can read into every comment.

I just thought that hotels would do the right thing in such an extreme circumstance. Maybe I'm wrong.

The "right thing" is having travel insurance when on a ski holiday.

One of the major issues in the travel industry is people thinking that the travel companies should cover risks that insurance is supposed to...

I had insurance on the ski passes. I don't think any company will insure an award stay. I've been an insurance agent for 40 years so I'm a big fan of insurance :-)

I believe the hotel staff did the right thing. It's great they showed compassion to your family in an incredibly difficult and unexpected situation.

Overly harsh comment, IMO.

Also, they'll have no problem selling the room precisely because it's peak season. It's Park City, not the Maldives.

I have many decades under my belt with Hyatt and I have to say its the rare Hyatt that won't do the right thing for the guest in an emergency situation
Though there are no guarantees however I feel reasonable trust with Hyatt overall all things considered in matters like this.

In agreement with the poster above - I've never encountered a hotel that would not be flexible in an emergency situation. But, nevertheless, great on the hotel in question here.

Some of the other comments on here are a little harsh.

Sorry to be a "hard nosed business person" here but where do you draw the line? A points stay is, essentially, a pre-paid reservation. I'm not sure if they are considered non-refundable but I assume they are by the time you have checked in.

Crap happens. Accidents happen. So the hotel should waive its contract all the time when such things happen? How bad does the crap or accident have to be?

What happens when they hold firm and wish to retain the payment for the service they agreed to provide and you agreed to accept? Is that really wrong? Should we just do away with all contracts if "something" happens?

For us business owners this is a slippery slope.

Its about reasonable empathy here in making the right call with your customers when guests have an issue/event
Today we see so many horrible airline decisions where people die or stranded due to the airlines fault and they still say no.
Its really shocking to me how many airlines conduct their business in a heartless manner
Its affected much of my spending even when I read about others experiences

When you go into a restaurant and they burn your steak its the restaurants fault and assumed liability to make things right
When the steak is cooked perfectly and the guest still sends it back due perhaps to their expectation in flavor, preparation,quality that's another issue that some establishments have to endure no matter who is right.
Its really all about relationship building.CRM
Does the restaurant say no or do think of the good will and possible long term relationship benefit in pleasing the customer
I know a restaurant on the East Coast that takes a credit card at time of booking.No shows are charged 150 dollars to cancel up to 24 hours before arrival
You have to be really desirable,highly popular to do that

What about rental cars? To this day it amazes me there isn't a penalty for a no show charge when paying at time of rental pick up.
At the end of the day running a good business means making exceptions sometimes on a case by case basis even if there may be some occasional losses incurred.
In a well run business profits should exceed any potential losses and that's how I look at it with my real estate investments even when I lose some when folks wiggle out of signed contract
Am I still making considerably more than I lose? When I sell a property it won't even be thought about down the road

Empathy and gratitude is good for everyone in and out of the business world and unfortunately its not easily taught or learned unless you have had good role models and teachers in your life
Speaking for myself more comes from a goodwill gesture above and beyond and how it translates to my personal loyalty and spend from my wallet in and out of the hospitality world
Costco and their overly generous policies come to mind.I've been fiercely loyal to them over the years
I can say that Hyatt Hotels have taught me a lot in how to handle my own customers and tenants over the years.Not everything can be learned in school
Quite frankly they have had some legendary talents pass through many of their hotels through the years
I've been privileged to know and learn from a quite a few of them

Lighthouse206, I think you are a bit over the top with this. It doesn't have to be a debate. We all agree, hotels have absolutely no obligation for late changes or cancelations, and Park City definitely went above and beyond and was accommodating at a difficult time for this family, which they appreciated.

The reason I said I would have expected that outcome was that, like 777, I have found Hyatts to be exceptional in emergency cases. I've never had anything this extreme happen, but over the years I've had a handful of late changes to personal reservations for unexpected situations. Every time, I was surprised that they were so accommodating. So it seemed logical that with such a terrible accident that they would do the same.

And FWIW I have had such cases maybe 3 or 4 times in 20 years as Diamond/Globalist, but the accommodations in such cases has helped solidify my loyalty to Hyatt. It would have been perfectly fine if they had not made an exception, but their flexibility in such situations makes me want to give more business to both Hyatt and those individual hotels.

During peak season, why would the room go unsold?

I just had a ski-area hotel in Austria agree to cancel and refund money for a non-refundable booking during its peak ski season week. Before an hour had passed after the cancellation, the hotel had sold the room for a higher price.

Flying in (or driving in) to go skiing at Park City need not be something planned long in advance in every regard.

Glad to hear your child will make a full recovery and that the hotel did the hospitable thing for the circumstances.

I have found that some foreign home insurance coverage can be rather more generous than what I would get from the insurance policies sold to me in the US. And if the award stay were to be spoiled due to covered circumstances and had resulted in a charge that was say dollar-denominated, then there may be hope for not being out all the points and more. And I know Hyatt has charged dollar-denominated amounts for no-show reservations that were supposedly "free nights". :D

The simple and obvious answer is that you draw the line wherever you think you should draw the line. That's what customer service is. Arguing that there is a slippery slope and therefore no accommodation should ever be granted is the the very definition of the complete absence of customer service.

Step back for even just one second and think about what you're really saying here. A guest of a hotel, engaging in the very activities that the hotel stay was purposefully booked for, had a daughter hospitalized with four vertebrae and your response is, "but it's a slippery slope". :eek: I own multiple businesses and I can't think of any circumstance where, if a customer/client called me and told me that he would be unable to satisfy some obligation because his daughter was in the hospital with four broken vertebrae, that I wouldn't want to be as accommodating as possible.

The hospitality industry is implicitly and primarily a customer service industry. If you want to learn more about the industry and the approach to customer service, a good starting point is introductory books like Solomon/Inghilleri's Exceptional Service, Exceptional Product or Michelli's The New Gold Standard or do a web search of the concepts within (e.g., both spend a lot of time on Ritz Carlton's 2000 rule).