After I booked my October honeymoon in Madagascar roughly six months prematurely, I knew my journey to the East African island would contain an 11-hour layover at Chicago’s O’Hare Worldwide Airport (ORD). As a Hyatt loyalist who holds the World of Hyatt Credit Card, I booked an evening in a Hyatt hotel near the airport with factors. Then I sat again to get enthusiastic about my journey, understanding the planning was achieved.
Think about my shock when, the morning we have been supposed to go away for our journey of a lifetime, I acquired an automatic e mail asking me to verify in on-line — on the Hyatt Place Chicago/Halfway Airport, a 45-minute drive from ORD. How may I’ve made such an apparent mistake? And will I rebook us on the proper resort with out forfeiting my factors?
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What occurred?
To chop myself some slack, the reserving course of for our flights had been relatively difficult. After reserving our flights to Madagascar on factors, we would had loads of hassle discovering flights house because of a quirk in Ethiopian Airways’ accomplice award flight coverage. It had taken a number of days of on-line looking out to get our returning flights squared away — and in that point, I had forgotten the main points of our outbound flight. I knew we flew by way of Chicago, however I forgot which airport.
This is among the few downsides of enjoying the factors and miles recreation. If you use factors and miles to ebook free journey, issues can get slightly extra difficult, making it simpler to miss small errors like this.
Fortunately, my flight left late within the afternoon, giving me loads of time to handle the difficulty.
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Hyatt’s cancellation coverage
I instantly logged into my account to take a look at my reservation. I had redeemed 8,000 World of Hyatt factors for a “customary” night time on the Class 2 Hyatt Place Chicago/Halfway Airport. There was an nearly equivalent property close to ORD: the Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. This resort can also be Class 2, however apparently it classified my date as “peak,” so it value a barely greater 9,500 factors for one night time.
I had no drawback paying just a few extra factors to get a resort the place we may simply crash after our flight landed round 11 p.m. Nonetheless, in line with the resort’s cancellation coverage, if I canceled inside 24 hours of 11:59 p.m. native time, I might be charged one night time’s price. Oh, nicely — I figured I might relatively pay 8,000 factors for my mistake than the $264 I might have paid with money.
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However after I referred to as a World of Hyatt consultant, I realized the cancellation coverage is slightly totally different from what I anticipated. Apparently, whenever you cancel a factors reserving after the deadline, your factors might be refunded — and your card on file might be charged the present room fee for one night time’s keep. Yikes.
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Assist from Hyatt
However simply in case there was a strategy to keep away from paying this cancellation price, I attempted explaining the scenario to the consultant. I did not need to cancel my reserving, precisely; I wished to switch it to a property nearer to the best airport.
The consultant began by checking with the second resort to verify that they had availability. Then she referred to as the primary resort to clarify that I used to be rebooking at one other Hyatt, and so they agreed to waive the cancellation price. They canceled my authentic reservation, and the 8,000 factors instantly appeared again in my account. Thanks, Hyatt!
I did not have sufficient factors in my World of Hyatt account for the consultant to ebook the brand new 9,500-point resort (I had spent all of them on my upcoming European Christmas trip), however I informed her I may switch them from my Chase Ultimate Rewards account. Fortunately, due to Chase’s (sometimes) superfast transfers, the additional factors I wanted have been in my World of Hyatt account a couple of minutes later, and I used to be capable of ebook an evening on the Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. The money fee was $295 earlier than taxes and costs, giving me a wonderful worth of three.1 cents per level (in comparison with TPG’s December 2024 valuation of 1.7 cents for Hyatt factors).
Your complete course of took lower than an hour, and I had the remainder of the morning to pack and put together for my Madagascar journey earlier than we headed to the airport. Total, I am glad Hyatt despatched me the check-in e mail and I spotted my mistake early. If I hadn’t seen it till we arrived on the airport at 11 p.m., it may have been a lot more durable — and extra annoying — to repair.
What if I hadn’t been capable of get my factors again, or the Hyatt I wished had been absolutely booked?
My husband and I would not have needed to begin our honeymoon by spending the night time in ORD, Tom Hanks-style. There are many motels close by. I may have transferred Chase points to Marriott Bonvoy to ebook an award night time on the Marriott Chicago O’Hare, for instance, or paid money on the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport. Worst case, if there had been completely no rooms open round ORD, I may have merely paid for a 45-minute Uber experience to and from my authentic Halfway resort.
However because of Hyatt’s customer support and some additional Chase factors, I used to be capable of make our night time in Chicago as streamlined as attainable with out spending a dime.
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Backside line
Lesson realized: Do not assume {that a} metropolis has just one airport or just one worldwide airport. Do not ebook the primary resort with “airport” within the title, like I did. And whenever you end reserving a visit, double-check all of your reservations to verify the dates and places line up.
Additionally, if this occurs to you, do not merely rebook on-line and pay the cancellation price. It is price making an attempt the telephone helpline first — they could be extra beneficiant than you count on.
Lastly, it is at all times a good suggestion to have some additional transferable points saved up for conditions like this. And we suggest setting up any hotel and airline accounts you might use sooner or later and linking them to your transferable factors account now, as this may pace up the method if you find yourself needing to switch your factors final minute.
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