Yesterday I was checking my Hyatt account balance, for no reason at all, and I noticed something off. In your Hyatt Account they tell you your Current Point balance along with your Lifetime Points Earned. For me, the difference shouldn’t be that big as I’ve actually only used my Hyatt points for one stay at the Hyatt Escala Lodge in Park City last year. However, the difference between the two in my account was about 140,000 points which right off the bat did not seem correct.
I looked through my account history and immediately saw the issue. Back in January I booked three speculative stays when the rates for some hotels were changing, and a few weeks ago I went ahead and cancelled them as I knew they would not be needed. Two of the stays were credited back, but one was not. For all three stays I had to call and cancel, but luckily I had a cancellation confirmation in my email for each one. I immediately called Hyatt and explained that I was never credited the points back for one of my stays – they found the reservation and within minutes those 88,000 points were back into my account. A one-time computer glitch, no big deal, but glad I caught it.
So I went back onto my Hyatt account, and still something didn’t look right. A 52,000 point difference and I knew my stay at the Hyatt Escala was either two or three nights – at 15,000 points a night that would have either been 30,000 or 45,000 points total. Still an issue. I went back through my entire account and noticed that back in June I made a reservation for the Park Hyatt Zurich (for a date in November) and those 22,000 points were never credited back to my account although I was positive I cancelled it. Luckily, an email confirmation showed it was cancelled. I was back on the phone with Hyatt and explained the points for the cancellation was never credited to my account. The representative I spoke to was shocked since I cancelled well ahead of the cancellation deadline and it was about 7 months ago. Had I never noticed, I would never have seen those points. I asked if this was common with Hyatt and she explained that in the three years she had been working at Hyatt, she has only seen this two or three times. I experienced this twice in one day!
So to make a long story short, and maybe you didn’t even care about my rant of a story – always make sure to check your Hyatt balance when cancelling a reservation. I definitely do not hold a grunge against Hyatt for this (I personally love their customer service), but it makes me realize that I can’t fully trust their technology and have to do my own due diligence, which is fine.
I’ve personally never had a situation with any of the other hotel chains, but it doesn’t hurt to always keep an eye on your account balance. Make sure you are always receiving the points you are supposed to earn – you’ve worked hard for them!
The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
This has happened to me a couple times. For whatever reason, sometimes their cancellations fail to return points back. If you’re not on top of it, you’ll never get them back. I suspect there must be some manual part of their process.
Sometime I worry about canceling SPG hotel stays and not seeing the points. Always make sure that you check your point balance before and after canceling an award stay.
I also came across a kind of weird glitch a few weeks ago. My friend Natalya had been staying at Hyatts but never registered her online account. She had 15,000 points that were clearly credited in her history, but her actual account showed zero points. Something to keep in mind in case you register the account online after a few stays.
Would AwardWallet help you catch the missing points faster? at least the weekly update email?
e.g. I updated my Marriott points stay (2 night to 1) and checked AW right after to see it properly +7500 back (after deducting 15000)
On several occasions, SPG has failed to automatically credit back the points for my canceled award bookings. This makes booking speculative stays more time consuming because of the due diligence and follow-up required.
@Ethan, after booking and canceling a few nights its tough to keep track of everything. SPG isn’t instant like Marriott.