Hyatt's Seemingly Shady Practices To Offer Less Award Rooms

Hyatt, a hotel brand whose own Gold Passport (HGP) points program took home a Freddie Award last month for "Best Elite Program," has come under criticism recently for not releasing as many rooms for points bookings as they probably should. Although I try to be skeptical, not cynical, it's a bit hard to do so here. Let's take a look...

In February, The Points Guy (TPG) posted that the Park Hyatt Paris wasn't allowing him to book a stay with points, claiming that no award rooms were available. In his post, he quoted HGP's Terms and Conditions that state:

Members are welcome to any available standard room when booking a free night award with no blackout dates.

However, the hotel's "standard rooms" were in fact available for cash-paying customers but not award customers. He called up HGP, read them their own T&C, showed them that standard rooms were available for cash bookings and got them to open up the space for him. Impressively successful, but does raise one's curiosity just a bit - why did he have to go through all those hoops to get it done?

Today, One Mile At A Time posted that Hyatt at Olive 8 in Seattle wasn't showing any award rooms available for his dates. Their "standard room" was not available for cash customers either (so a different scenario than TPG's), but it was available if booked as part of a package rate - for example, if booked with a "Parking" or "Breakfast" package. Calling up HGP didn't help him get the rooms opened up for awards.

Recently, I found that the Andaz Maui didn't have award rooms available for some dates I was checking out. Their "standard room" is the Garden View room which was not available for awards or cash. However, they did have a Mountain View room available for cash. Both room types are basic rooms facing away from the ocean, just in different areas of the hotel. Only Garden Rooms can be booked with points, as those are the "standard rooms". Coincidentally though, if you look around, nights that have Garden Rooms available (and therefore award nights), never have Mountain Views available (for cash bookings). Nights that have Mountain Views (for cash bookings), never have Garden Views available... Hmm... Additionally, at the Andaz Maui, you can often find nights that have Garden Views available for cash booking, but not for awards, which is just like TPG's experience highlighted above.)

Sneaky, sneaky Hyatt, eh?