pronichkin

I would give them the benfit of a doubt and assume it was a genuine miscommunication, e.g. between the marketing department (who drafted the promotion terms) and the IT folks (who were tasked to implement it.) And when they found the disconnect, they figured it's easier to "fix" it by aligning terms instead of changing the code, and they thought it's no big deal. And then there was all that pushback, and they had to back off.

(I of course have no idea what happened in reality, that's purely my speculation, based on the observations of how various large companies sometimes screw up.)

Matt4200

I feel like that’s an accurate assessment, but for all the people that were told they were SOL and basically that Hyatt reserves the right to alter the promo that’s a pretty bad sting. Then to just have them change it back.

notquiteaff

That would be my guess as well. And hopefully they learned a lesson and either future terms are a bit simpler or they invest more effort into understanding their own terms across participating teams (marketing, customer support, IT).

The way I look at it, if you need a FAQ for people to actually understand the terms, perhaps the terms aren’t clear or simple enough and should be revisited. And it’s especially bad when companies are able to anticipate frequently “asked” questions before they have actually released the terms and no one has actually asked anything.

Matt4200

As far as the FAQ I think it’s just the difference between hotel brands. Some run things one way others another way.

Typically for Hyatt a stay beginning outside of the promo period, but ending inside the promo period would count based on their last 5 years of promos. For this promo that was not the case, same with the Bilt promo. So it’s good to have an FAQ to refer to in these situations so there is more clarity if one needs to reach out to customer service.

myperks

no different than any other Hyatt promos… stay beginning outside the promo period but ending inside the promo period still counts… except this time it counts as your first stay for this current promo earning you zilch.

notquiteaff

My gripe is that apparently they (hotel companies in general) can’t write terms that are clear enough that they feel the need to write a second document.

I grew up in at a time when FAQ existed on Usenet that summarized actual questions that were frequently asked on Usenet groups, to reduce the clutter due to the the same questions getting asked over and over again. I just find it silly that companies nowadays consider a FAQ a standard collateral when releasing products (or in this case, a promo). I have tried to explain this to product managers - if you can anticipate what questions your customers will ask frequently, why is that? Perhaps your regular product documentation or data sheet or product announcement just sucks?! (because it is full of nonsense marketing jargon, and someone then needs to fix that with a FAQ?)

/rant

Visconti

Not an IT or code guy, but is there any reason why they just can't count the promo on the actual dates? For instance, promo dated March 1st to May 30th, and just count the actual nights on said dates rather than messing around with the check in and check out stuff.

Seems simple and intuitive, am I missing something?

pronichkin

I see it the other way around. Assume you have formal terms. They should be exhaustive and comprehensive, in the sense that they make clear and authoritative explanations of all possible scenarios, in generic terms. But they are perhaps long, elaborative and use complex language. This is where the FAQ comes in. It explains the same, but in a simpler form, and in the context of certain, most common use cases. E.g., if you cannot be bothered to read the terms in full and comprehend the whole thing, then at least you can find your specific case in FAQ and get the idea of what happens in this particular scenario.

In other words, it's not that you have to read both terms and the FAQ to get the whole picture. It's more like you read the terms if you have time and knowledge and want to be technically correct in all cases. Or you read the FAQ if you don't need to understand the whole picture, but only need an answer to your specific question.

pronichkin

I guess the complexity originates from the virtue of hotel business. It has nothing to do in the code in particular. It's how you define and interpret the terms.

Assuming we were talking rental car companies, it's simple. You start your rental on one day, and end on another day. And all you can count are the days. And how they relate to the dates of promotion. For every particular day, it's either the one you're billing for, or not. So, if you get billed for day X, and it's within the promotional dates, this day counts. Otherwise, it does not. Simple, right?

but case of hotels, they don't actually sell "days". What they sell is nights. And this is where confusion comes from. The promotion terms are defined in dates, but what you get billed for are "nights." So, each date (in terms of promotion) is not what you're billed for. There's not a generic "day." In the context of "night", a date can be either a check-in or check-out date. And they might be treated differently. This is where confusion is ultimately rooted from.

like, here, we're starting the promotion on date X. But what does it mean? For a given customer they might have either check-in or check-out on the very same date. So, does it count if date X is my check-out date? (And, therefore, the check-in was before date X.) Or does it only count if date X is my check-in date? (And, therefore, both check-in and check-out are after the date X.)

so, how you actually code it a secondary question. The main question is how you communicate, interpret and understand it. And apparently, there's not an easy solution that works for all here.

Zorak

While I get where you are coming from, IMO no matter how simple something is*, people are going to ask about edge cases like stays straddling the beginning or ending of the promo, do award/points/FHR stays count, etc. This could be from people looking to push the envelope, or just have stays that line up that way and want to be sure, or are maybe inexperienced and just want assurance no matter how clearly it may seem to be spelled out already. So to me the presence of a FAQ, even pre-emptively, doesn't necessarily mean the promo is too complicated...

*and I am speaking in the abstract; although I do think the current promo could be simpler, I don't actually think it's all that complicated either, but this is irrelevant to the point I'm making

VegasGambler

I think it's more that precise terms are going to be long, and most people won't read them.

How often do people ask questions here that are clearly answered in the WoH terms? The problem is not that the answers are not in the terms, or that the teens are unclear. The problem is that the terms are long and people don't read them.

FAQs have the advantage of being shorter and easier to search. The downside is that they are not as precise, so the full terms are still needed in order to cover the edge cases.

DELee

Marketeering folks don't necessarily care whether the promo that's being offered is hard to program into actual algorithmic logic. Or to read some silly FAQ that doesn't credit them with saving Hyatt because of their all important newest promo or that they didn't get credit for the FAQ in the first place.

David

Fluff Ermine

I feel slightly dumb doing expensive mattress runs at ~$80 a night at my local JdV for this promo to make up the difference to 60-night Globalist again this year, but after calculating what it'd take to fly out to Vegas and do 5 night stints at Excalibur, it's roughly the same cost. Someone please tell me I'm irrational (or not ) for spending $1K to get 12 nights and ~22K points.

VegasGambler

The difference is that you would get a vacation in Vegas in addition to the status.

I've always been one to avoid mileage and mattress runs but I've done some small ones when I was very close to getting status. I've always made a short vacation out of them, and they have actually turned out to be some of my most enjoyable trips.

If Vegas is not your kind of place go somewhere else. Spending an extra couple of hundred dollars is not going to break you and will be well worth it for an enjoyable trip IMO.

notquiteaff

Ok, so apparently some WoH members are really stupid. The registration page tells you by when you have to register. Then the T&C start with

and then the FAQ #2 is



Maybe some corner case could be a FAQ, but this is really not going to be a frequently asked question.

And there are others that simply rehash the promo page or terms in identical or similar wording. Someone in Hyatt marketing gets paid for this nonsense. And frankly, by having the same redundant information two or three times on the page, all they achieve is that people don’t read any of it because it’s just too damn long.

And writing the same thing three times helps?