When I made a reservation for October Honeymoon in Madagascar About six months ago, I learned that my trip to the East African island would involve an 11-hour layover at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). As a Hyatt Loyalist, world of hyatt credit cardI booked one night at . Hyatt hotels near the airport With points. Then I sat back down knowing the planning was complete and excited about the trip.
Imagine my surprise on the morning I was scheduled to depart for the trip of a lifetime when I received an automated email asking me to check in online at the Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway Airport, a 45-minute drive from ORD. please. How could someone make such an obvious mistake? Also, can I rebook a suitable hotel without wasting my points?
Related: Mistakes to avoid when booking a vacation trip
what happened?
To give you some leeway, the flight booking process was quite difficult. After booking a flight to Madagascar with points, I had a very hard time finding a flight home due to the peculiarities of Ethiopian Airlines’ partner award ticket policy. It took me several days of searching online to find my return flight, during which time I had forgotten the details of my outbound flight. I knew I flew through Chicago, but I forgot which airport.
This is one of the few downsides to playing points and miles games. Things can get a little complicated when you use points or miles to book free travel, and it’s easy to overlook small mistakes like this.
Thankfully my flight left in the late afternoon so I had plenty of time to address the issue.
Related: Chicago O’Hare vs. Midway: Which Chicago airport should I arrive at?
Hyatt cancellation policy
I immediately logged into my account and confirmed my reservation. I was redeeming 8,000 World of Hyatt points for a “standard” stay at the Category 2 Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway Airport. There was a nearly identical property near ORD, Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. This hotel is also in the second category, but apparently I classified my date as “peak”, Therefore, the price was a little high at 9,500 points per night.
I had no problem paying extra points to get a hotel where I could easily crash after the plane landed around 11pm local time, but according to the hotel’s cancellation policy, it was 11pm local time. If you cancel between 59 minutes and 24 hours, you will be charged for one night’s stay. Oh, well, I figured paying 8,000 points for my mistake was better than paying $264 in cash.
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However, when I called a World of Hyatt representative, I learned that their cancellation policy was a little different than I expected. If you cancel your points reservation after the deadline, your points will be refunded and your card on file will be charged for the current night’s stay. oh yeah.
Related: A guide to booking refundable travel
Support from Hyatt
However, just to be sure, I explained the situation to the person in charge to see if there was a way to avoid paying this cancellation fee. Honestly, I didn’t want to cancel my reservation. I wanted to transfer to a property close to a suitable airport.
The agent started by checking the second hotel for availability. She then called the first hotel and explained that I was rebooking to another Hyatt and they agreed to waive the cancellation fee. They canceled my original reservation and the 8,000 points were immediately credited back to my account. Thank you, Hyatt!
The representative did not have enough points in her World of Hyatt account to book a new 9,500 point hotel (she used them all on her next appointment) europe christmas trip) but I told her she could transfer them from my account. Chase the ultimate reward account. Thankfully, thanks to Chase (usually) Super fast transferAfter a few minutes, the extra points I needed were added to my World of Hyatt account and I was able to book a night at Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. The cash rate was $295 before taxes and fees, an excellent value of 3.1 cents per point (compared to TPG December 2024) evaluation 1.7 cents as Hyatt points).
The whole process took less than an hour. We spent the morning preparing and packing for our trip to Madagascar before heading to the airport. Overall, I’m glad Hyatt sent me an email to check in and realized my mistake sooner. It might have been harder and more stressful to fix if I hadn’t noticed it until I arrived at the airport at 11pm.
What happens if my points are not redeemed or the Hyatt I want is fully booked?
My husband and I wouldn’t have had to start our honeymoon by spending the night at ORD like Tom Hanks. There are many hotels nearby. could have been done Transferring Chase Points For example, book an award night at Marriott Chicago O’Hare with Marriott Bonvoy or pay cash at Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport. In the worst case scenario, if there were no rooms available at all around ORD, I would have only had to pay for a 45-minute Uber round trip to my original Midway hotel.
But thanks to Hyatt’s customer service and some extra Chase Points, we were able to spend our evening in Chicago as efficiently as possible without spending a dime.
Related: Last minute strategies to achieve World of Hyatt status
conclusion
Lesson learned: Don’t assume a city has just one airport, or just one international airport. Don’t do like me and book the first hotel with “airport” in the name. Once you have completed your travel reservations, please double-check all reservations to ensure dates and locations match.
Also, if this happens, don’t just rebook online and pay a cancellation fee. It may be worth trying the telephone helpline first. They may be more generous than you expect.
Finally, it’s always a good idea to have extra Transferable points Save money for situations like this. and what we recommend is Set up a hotel or airline account You can use it in the future, but linking it to a points account that can be transferred now will speed up the process if you need to transfer points last minute.
