Once I booked my October honeymoon in Madagascar roughly six months upfront, 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 score Card, I booked an evening in a Hyatt resort close to the airport with factors. Then I sat again to get enthusiastic about my journey, realizing the planning was achieved.
Think about my shock when, the morning we have been supposed to depart for our journey of a lifetime, I acquired an automatic e mail asking me to test in on-line — on the Hyatt Place Chicago/Halfway Airport, a 45-minute drive from ORD. How might I’ve made such an apparent mistake? And will I rebook us on the proper resort with out forfeiting my factors?
Associated: Errors to keep away from when reserving vacation journey
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 might had lots of hassle discovering flights house resulting from a quirk in Ethiopian Airways’ companion award flight coverage. It had taken a number of days of on-line looking 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 Chicago, however I forgot which airport.
This is without doubt one of the few downsides of taking part in the factors and miles recreation. If you use factors and miles to e-book 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 deal with the difficulty.
Associated: Chicago O’Hare vs. Halfway: Which Chicago airport ought to I fly into?
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 “normal” night time on the Class 2 Hyatt Place Chicago/Halfway Airport. There was an nearly similar property close to ORD: the Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. This resort can be Class 2, however apparently it categorized my date as “peak,” so it price a barely larger 9,500 factors for one night time.
I had no drawback paying a number of extra factors to get a resort the place we might simply crash after our flight landed round 11 p.m. Nevertheless, in response to the resort’s cancellation coverage, if I canceled inside 24 hours of 11:59 p.m. native time, I’d be charged one night time’s payment. Oh, nicely — I figured I would relatively pay 8,000 factors for my mistake than the $264 I’d have paid with money.
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However after I known as a World of Hyatt consultant, I discovered the cancellation coverage is slightly totally different from what I anticipated. Apparently, once 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.
Associated: Your information to reserving refundable journey
Assist from Hyatt
However simply in case there was a approach to keep away from paying this cancellation payment, I attempted explaining the state of affairs to the consultant. I did not wish to cancel my reserving, precisely; I needed to switch it to a property nearer to the suitable airport.
The consultant began by checking with the second resort to verify that they had availability. Then she known as the primary resort to clarify that I used to be rebooking at one other Hyatt, they usually agreed to waive the cancellation payment. 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 e-book the brand new 9,500-point resort (I had spent all of them on my upcoming European Christmas journey), however I advised her I might switch them from my Chase Final Rewards account. Fortunately, due to Chase’s (usually) 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 in a position to e-book 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).
The 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 observed it till we arrived on the airport at 11 p.m., it might have been a lot tougher — and extra worrying — to repair.
What if I hadn’t been in a position to get my factors again, or the Hyatt I needed had been totally 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 accommodations close by. I might have transferred Chase factors to Marriott Bonvoy to e-book 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 might have merely paid for a 45-minute Uber journey to and from my authentic Halfway resort.
However due to Hyatt’s customer support and some additional Chase factors, I used to be in a position to make our night time in Chicago as streamlined as attainable with out spending a dime.
Associated: Final-minute methods for incomes World of Hyatt standing
Backside line
Lesson discovered: Do not assume {that a} metropolis has just one airport or just one worldwide airport. Do not e-book the primary resort with “airport” within the identify, like I did. And once 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 payment. It is value attempting the cellphone helpline first — they might be extra beneficiant than you anticipate.
Lastly, it is all the time a good suggestion to have some additional transferable factors saved up for conditions like this. And we suggest establishing any resort and airline accounts you might use sooner or later and linking them to your transferable factors account now, as it will velocity up the method if you find yourself needing to switch your factors final minute.
