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Trick to Avoid Hyatt Late Cancellation Penalty

It’s a bummer having to cancel travel plans at the last minute. You get all excited and play out the upcoming trip in your head over and over… but then life happens and plans have to change, whether you like it or not!

If a trip cancellation wasn’t already depressing enough, most airlines and many hotels have policies in place to penalize you for late changes/cancellations.

THOSE JERKS!

Hyatt, for instance, will typically charge you one night penalty for cancelling any less than 48 hours in advance. Keep in mind, this penalty applies to both paid rates and award nights!

In some cases, as we will cover today, this 48 hour cancellation grace period can actually extend much longer… like an additional 88 days longer!

The Park Hyatt St. Kitts Cancellation Policy – BEFORE the Trick:

I have been dying to visit the brand new Park Hyatt St. Kitts! I even applied for the Chase Hyatt Visa in anticipation of the Grand Opening and have been reserving my 2 free night certificate sign-up bonus to redeem at this hotel! Once I had my 2 nights reserved on certificates, I decided to speculatively book a 3rd night on Points + Cash, just in case the 2 nights wasn’t going to be enough time at the property. Well, plans change and I needed to cancel that 3rd night.

I logged into my World of Hyatt account and was about to hit cancel, when I noticed the cancellation policy…

That’s right people – apparently there are some Hyatt reservations where you must cancel 90 days in advance to avoid a one night penalty!

This seems crazy, right!? But here I was…

So, rather than click cancel and incur the one night fee (and then subsequently try to argue for reimbursement), I decided to try my luck with a service that has helped me out with all things Hyatt in the past…

THE TRICK – Hyatt Concierge via Twitter:

I thought maybe (just maybe) my good friends at Hyatt Concierge would be able to help me out of this sticky situation. I contacted them directly via Twitter message, and here is our conversation:

Initially I just wanted to cancel the reservation without penalty, but based on my communication it seems that the Hyatt Concierge CAN’T waive fees specifically at this hotel (Park Hyatt St. Kitts).

What the Hyatt Concierge CAN change is the date of the reservation, up to 13 months in the future… meaning I could change the date of stay to extend past the current cancellation period of 90 days!

From there, I searched Points + Cash award availability at Park Hyatt St. Kitts  well out into the future, and came across a random date in May with availability.

I requested the change, and it was reflected as such…

The Park Hyatt St. Kitts Cancellation Policy – AFTER the Trick:

Here is my new reservation within my World of Hyatt account shortly after contacting Hyatt Concierge via Twitter direct message and requesting the date change!

Not only was I outside of the former reservation’s 90 day cancellation period, but my new reservation came with more generous cancellation terms of 14 days prior to arrival!

The Cancellation – NO CHARGE, NO PENALTY:

I let the updated reservation sit for a couple days – since it was now all the way out in May 2018 with 14 day cancellation terms – and then came back and CANCELLED WITH NO PENALTY!

Cancellation success! No cash penalty paid! No points lost!

What a sweet trick!?

Final Thought

Cancellations happen and you can’t always get your non-refundable amounts and schedule change/cancellation penalties back…

But when it comes to Hyatt, you just may be able to use the Hyatt Concierge via Twitter direct messaging in order to change your reservation to a future date outside of the cancellation period, then subsequently cancel for no penalty!

Have you ever utilized Hyatt Concierge on Twitter? Have you been able to have late cancellation penalties waived by using this very trick!?

Happy Travels!

DW

2 Comments

  1. Love, love this trick!! I really enjoy reading your blog – keep posting!

    Mary Bahr (tell our Dad hi from Steve)

  2. A few years ago I tried to cancel a Radisson reservation within the 24 or 48 hour time. I called the main Club Carlson 800 number. The agent called the hotel and the hotel refused to waive the penalty. The agent came back on the line and said he was disappointed by the hotel’s refusal to honor the cancellation request. The agent himself then offered to move the reservation to a date in the future so I could then cancel it.

    I’m pretty sure that I blogged about this, but it was a few years ago and I don’t want to search for the post.

    But the point is this is always a viable way (I don’t call it a trick or a hack) to deal with this situation with any hotel or hotel chain.

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