flyer7162

I have 2 Cat 1-4 Free Night Awards that I’m trying to use for a Cat 4 hotel. It has availability on points (ie, for a Standard Room) on both of the nights I want to book, but the issue is that the hotel (a Small Luxury Hotel) has a 2 night minimum stay on weekends and so the nights can’t be booked one at a time online.

Since the Hyatt website only allows Free Night Awards to be applied one night at a time, I figured if I called in then an agent could help make the booking for me.

Unfortunately the agents are just telling me that it’s not possible, and that even though the Standard Rooms are available on points, sometimes it’s just not possible to use Free Night Awards. They seem pretty confused as to why it’s not possible - at one point it’s that it’s the discretion of the hotel, at another it’s that maybe SLH’s can choose to accept points but not FNAs, at another point it’s just that FNA’s can never be used together.

My understanding is that Free Night Awards are intended to have the exact same availability as points - on the Hyatt FAQ it says about Free Night Awards: "World of Hyatt Standard-Room Free Night Awards are available when hotels have standard rooms available at the Standard Rate."

I haven’t found any other terms or conditions that indicate that sometimes FNA are arbitrarily not available even if there is a Standard Room available. One of the agents that told me that I can't make this booking spent a while looking for the relevant terms of the program that prevent me from using the FNAs but couldn't actually find any.

Very frustrating as I was really hoping to use these certificates for this particular weekend and am very surprised I can’t use them despite there being availability. I really feel like it's just an edge case where the FNA's have a technical limitation of one night at a time and this needs to be a 2 night booking, so I'm surprised the Hyatt agents can't just make the 2 night booking using both certificates.

Any one else dealt with this? Or any other suggestions of how to escalate, or am I wrong that I should be able to use these Free Night Awards?

gleff

Hang up, call back. Get an agent who knows how to make a reservation and apply two free night awards to support it. I have one such booking myself for next month.

HHonors OUTSIDER

Yes agree it can be done

Bellyssimo

Did you try "Pay My Way" amigo?

Matt4200

How can Hyatt do it though? Their system only allows them to book category certificates 1 at a time. If it were a Hyatt property they could call the hotel provide a code and have the hotel book it, however since it’s an SLH their system is completely different and unlikely to get it processed.

I don’t see this ending favorably only because it’s an SLH which is more of a loose partnership than anything.

skj

Doesn't work for SLH properties ...

kpott

Try booking the two nights with points as a single reservation. Then call and ask them to switch out your points for the certificates…just a strategy

flyer7162

Yes sadly Pay My Way isn't an option here otherwise that would be perfect.

But good to know that there are examples of it working for others! Gives me more encouragement to keep calling back

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Although based on what I've been told so far I do wonder if this is right and they just have an entirely technical limitation that they can't overcome with an SLH...

wrldwide1

Hyatt doesn’t own SLH, no pay my way and Hyatt can’t override the system to make it happen. If there’s a Hyatt-owned property in the area you’ll need to switch to one of those and no problem.

wrldwide1

Even if the hotel allowed it Hyatt cannot force the reservation through. Strictly technical issue.

HHonors OUTSIDER

Convert one or both of the certificates to points to get past the technical issues.

Matt4200

That’s 10k points each so 20k points.

Reservation cost is assuming 30k net loss of 10k.

skj

It's likely this isn't possible. There are reports that Hyatt will give 10k points for Cat 1-4 certs issued by Hyatt, but this isn't until the cert has expired. If one of the certs is issued by Chase, no points will be offered.

Schnit

Did you try this? As long as its cancelable it cant hurt to try

TerryK

SLH may have different availabilities for points vs certs. Even if rooms are available for points, with 2-night minimum, it may not be available using certs at all. This is different from normal Hyatt properties where you can swap certs for points.