I’ve seen discussion from several guests on multiple online forums about Grand Hyatt Playa del Carmen dishonoring reservations, because they decided to take on a big group in mid-April and to make that sale they can’t also accommodate transient reservations already on their books. The hotel is contacting guests, offering only that they can stay on different dates. The guests probably already bought their airline tickets!
A hotel like this shouldn’t just be telling you ‘we won’t honor your stay for the dates booked, choose different dates’ and leaving it at that. While that may be their rhetorical starting point (they don’t want to show weakness and reveal that they are going to wind up doing much more), that likely isn’t what’s going to happen here.
In this situation, you need to figure out what will work best for you and negotiate. This is going to take a little bit of time and some back-and-forth. It’s stressful. But here are some basic ideas.
- Consider outright cancelling, in exchange for significant compensation (points).
- Consider agreeing to different dates, in exchange for a free stay – or a significantly upgraded stay with credits or inclusions.
- Consider agreeing to be moved to a different hotel, with their covering all of the expense.
Credit: Grand Hyatt Playa del Carmen
I’ve had hotels contact me to say they had sold out the hotel and needed to dishonor my booking. But I have a reservation! The entire point of the reservation is that they reserve a room for my arrival, on the specified terms!
Any time that it’s happened I have come out ahead and that’s what the hotel needs to shoot for. Even given the hotel’s goal of not negotiating against themselves and staking out a starting point for negotiations that involves giving nothing to the guest, this is a terrible note, “Rest assured, we are not applying any penalties” in addition to refusing to honor your reservation.
This is going to work out for the guest because the economics of the decision to take the buy out in the first place is going to include compensation to displaced guests. When the hotel decides to take the group, part of what they’re going to charge that group is going to be based on the cost (including time and hassle) of make-goods to already-booked guests.
Alila Marea in Encinitas took a buyout from LVMH over my points and suite upgrade redemption dates. After much negotiating they moved me to the Grand Estate Suite at Seabird (!) for the same dates and also comped a future stay in a suite at their property. This took some back-and-forth.
The hotel wanted to do a standard suite at another property and I simply asked them whether they believe that suite, at that hotel, is comparable to their own? And I compared retail prices, suggesting they should be providing me something more valuable/better than what I had, since I was being inconvenienced. And they did, all on LVMH’s tab presumably. Bottom line though is the hotel needs to make guests whole that are being displaced. It was two years before I used my free stay to return to Alila Marea, but it too was fantastic.
I had had some experience with this. The Sheraton Hua Hin years ago did a buyout for a wedding over dates I was supposed to stay there, but gave me a free stay in a pool villa with breakfast thrown in daily and other inclusions at the Westin Siray Bay in Phuket. That worked for me.
I’ve had hotels that aren’t going to open on time, too, and I’ve come out ahead. This is all complicated because it involves the chain and protecting its brand, and it involves the hotel (and hotel owners) footing the bill. There’s negotiating back and forth, and it’s going to matter which ownership group (how much they try to squeeze the guest, even though they’re getting paid) and which chain (for how much they advocate for the customer). Starwood was good with this, Marriott less so in my experience. And I’ve always done well with Hyatt.
This isn’t just my experience, of course. It’s how these things work out for other guests, too. You just have to take a firm position and negotiate, and have patience, which is difficult to do when your planned vacation feels like it’s on the line.
Is this a Hyatt-managed property or a franchise? Is there anything in the Hyatt terms that addresses this, namely is there a requirement the hotel actually has to rebook you at their expense at a different hotel?
Hyatt totally sucks. I lost 110,000 points in their program when they revamped it and I could not figure put how to update my points.
Hyatt is only relevant in the American blogosphere.
Faux “luxury” with limited footprint
This hotel actually kinda blows. The suites are small besides the bathroom, the plunge pools in the rooms are unusable because they are shaded and frigid, the main pools only get sun a couple hours a day and besides that are also unusably cold, and the lounge has hands-down the worst food i’ve ever tasted in a hotel lounge. Imagine purple gelatinous stuff put out at breakfast.
Appalling that the email came from a “reservations supervisor”, rather than the hotel GM. For starters, guests are entitled to a reasonable alternative that does not adversely impact them (for example, if dates are set, hotel needs to respect that.) And then, how about half the additional profits that the hotel enjoyed by accommodating the buy-out? Ironically, the hotel might have a chance to turn this into an opportunity; we’re booked, but we have found you a similar accommodation at the Four Seasons. Expensive, but that’ s the kind of experience that guests will share with others. Oh I guess I’m dreaming……
Well, I like Hyatt and its best redemption rates. Thanks, Gary, I probably wouldn’t have thought of negotiating to such a degree.
Another factor to consider is what your own cancellation clause is. As an example take a $5k stay with a 50% cancellation cost one month out. You cancel, the cost is $2500. I’d turn that around and say that the hotel owes you $2,500 (in addition to a full refund of any prepayments.) Hotels can’t have it both ways, the proverbial “heads I win tails you lose.”
@Richard Newton: You said, “[G]uests are entitled to a reasonable alternative.”
Where are they entitled to that? Is there actually something in the Hyatt terms?
Outside of damage to reputation there typically is no legal recourse against a hotel cancelling a reservation. Sure elite members may have some protections but usually as long as the hotel refunds any funds received they can cancel (just like more travelers can typically cancel up until a few days before the trip). Yes it is bad when this happens but, unless you are at the top of the elite scale, don’t expect to “win” the negotiation as Gary suggests. At any point in time the hotel can just say sorry and hang up. Again, damage to reputation likely means they will try to work something out but never feel you are “owed” anything and if you read the terms of the booking on the hotel website (no one ever reads the fine print) you can see the hotel has broad latitude to cancel for a variety of reasons.
As always, I find that Mexican customer service leaves much to be desired — even worse than the U.S. Consistently bad experiences with brands that generally provide good service.
I had a hotel in Kenya cancel my reservation due to a government group booking. I was offered to change my dates to a week later, which didn’t work for me as I was on a business trip to attend a conference. I asked for a refund and they said my rate was non-refundable – my only option was to change my dates to the new dates they proposed. I said no, please cancel. They didn’t respond. The new dates passed and they charged my credit card anyway for the stay even though I didn’t accept the new reservation and obviously didn’t show up. I tried to do a chargeback with Chase, but they eventually sided with the hotel for the cancellation fee (one night) and refunded the rest.
You can try to argue and negotiate, but as the guest you hold none of the power if the hotel simply doesn’t care to make amends. So yeah, stressing that no penalties apply is pretty important in this case.