I recently had a 3 night reservation booked at the Hyatt House Miami Airport hotel for New Year’s. Considering Miami Beach hotels were ridiculously priced (~$500 and up), this was a good opportunity to book on points. I booked the Hyatt House for 8,000 Hyatt points a night for a total of 24,000 points. It was a good redemption as the daily rate was over $300/night, actually a bargain compared to other hotels.
The hotel’s cancellation policy was that if you cancel by 3PM EST 24 hours prior to arrival, there would be no penalty. However, any time after that would be forfeiture of 1 night payment which in my case would be 8,000 Hyatt points.
The 3pm deadline came and went and we were all packed for our trip. On the morning of our trip, due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to cancel our trip. Luckily, our flight was on Southwest (booked on points), which was easy enough to cancel. I quickly cancelled the flights and the points were immediately deposited back into my account.
What to do about the hotel?
I knew I had to cancel the hotel last minute, but I was bummed that I was going to lose 8,000 hard earned Hyatt points. As I googled how to avoid hotel cancellation fees, I ran across just what I was looking for, an article from Lifehacker which basically said that I should change my dates instead of outright canceling the reservation.
You see, there is a penalty if you cancel the reservation, but there is no penalty if you change the dates of the reservation and then cancel days later.
I thought it was worth a try. However, I thought it might be awkward to talk to a representative on the phone to try to change the dates last minute. I reached out to @hyattconcierge on twitter to see if they could help me out. Just a few minutes after I reached out to them, they took care of the change for me and confirmed that there was no penalty to do so. A few days later, I called the reservation department to go ahead and cancel the reservation. So, this little trick saved me 8,000 Hyatt points.
In summary:
- Always try to book a hotel that is refundable in the first place.
- If you have to cancel last minute, reach out to the hotel on twitter to see if you can change your dates of arrival. Do not just cancel the reservation as you will likely take a loss.
- Once the dates are changed, your clock has reset and you are free to cancel your hotel again without penalty.
- This trick does not apply to all hotels. Many hotels will not let you just change the dates last minute. Always read the fine print on your confirmation. If in doubt, you can always ask to clear up the cancellation policy.
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