Cancelling a Hyatt Points Reservation and Using a Marriott Free Night Certificate
I personally love the image above because it looks like Hyatt has a sad face and Marriott has a happy face and all I had to do was add some eyes to both logos.
Anyways, plans change, so booking hotel stays on points or at a refundable/cancellable rate is really important. My US Airways round trip flight from SFO to AMS has had several schedule changes and I was able to book SFO to AMS to LAX (I live in Orange County). Therefore, I needed to cancel my SFO hotel stay at the end of my trip. Luckily, I used Hyatt points and was able to cancel the stay, but it was not easy.
After logging into my Hyatt account, I wanted to cancel this reservation. I saw the cancel button on the bottom, hoping that it would be a simple, quick, straightforward process.
Unfortunately, the reservation cannot be easily cancelled online. I called the Hyatt Gold Passport Award Reservation department at 1-800-30-HYATT (1-800-304-9288) and told the representative that I wanted to cancel the reservation. In a matter of seconds, she was able to cancel the reservation and redeposit the 8,000 Hyatt points back in my account. If it was so easy for her to cancel the reservation, why couldn’t I do it online?
After logging out and logging back into my Hyatt account, I was able to see that the reservation had been cancelled and my points had been redeposited.
I also received the automatic Reservation Cancellation email from Hyatt.
If you read my post from yesterday, I wrote 4 Ways to Tell you have a Free Night Certificate at Marriott with the intention of using my free night at a hotel by LAX. Here are my top 3 options:
The Marriott free night certificate expires February 5, 2014, and I’m flying into LAX on February 1. Ideally, I would want to use my free night certificate at a nicer (aka more expensive) Marriott property, but this is my only chance to use the Marriott free night certificate before it expires. Therefore, the cpp calculations do not influence my decision.
Generally, Renaissance Marriott hotels are nicer than Courtyard Marriott hotels, but I wanted to double check the reviews on Trip Advisor before making my decision.
The hotel has pretty good reviews for an airport hotel, so I chose the Renaissance by LAX.
To redeem Marriott Points or a Marriott free night certificate, click the View Rates button.
Make sure you are on the Redeem Points tab and click the Continue button.
On the next page, there is an option to use points or use your free night certificate. I selected the free night certificate option. I would never buy 20,000 Marriott Points for $250, considering that this hotel costs only $109 the night that I am staying there.
Scroll down some more and you will see my total stay costs 14 cents (dang taxes!)
After making the reservation, I can see, change, and cancel the reservation from my Marriott account. If a better use for the free night certificate comes up, I will cancel this reservation and use the free night certificate somewhere else.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Marriott Free Night – if the free night expires 10/1, can you book for a stay after expiration date? Also, what happened to a booked reservation after 10/1, is it cancellable?
Those are all very good questions, unfortunately I do not have any answers. Your best bet is to call Marriott and ask them directly.
I know Hyatt free night certificates must be reserved and redeemed by their expiration date.
I called and was told that the stay must be by the expiration date.
That sounds consistent with other hotel free night certificates. It’s too bad the free night certificates have an expiration time.
I’ve often wondered the same thing about cancelling Hyatt reservations. It’s so annoying to have to call to modify or cancel when booked with points. Obviously they are hoping you don’t call and lose the points. Horrible customer policy from a usually stellar chain. Going through this right now again. Have to call tomorrow. What a waste of time.
Bummer, I’m sorry you are frustrated with Hyatt. Hopefully the cancelation policy is easy.