Hyatt has extended their coronavirus travel waivers so that prepaid bookings remain refundable through June 30. This matches a move already made by Hilton and Marriott.
Existing reservations for upcoming travel through June 30, 2020
All existing reservations (booked April 1 or before) for arrivals through June 30, 2020 can be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival. This includes Advance Purchase Rate reservations.
New reservations for any future travel:
With some very limited exceptions noted below, reservations you make between April 1, 2020 and June 30, 2020 – for any future arrival date – can be changed or cancelled at no charge up to 24 hours before your scheduled arrival. This includes Advance Purchase Rate reservations. The only exceptions are reservations booked after April 1, 2020 at Destination Residences and Special Events Rate reservations booked after April 1, 2020. The cancellation policies for a Special Event Rate will be noted in the rate’s Rate Rules section when booking.
Existing Advance Purchase Rate non-refundable reservations for travel through June 2020:
As announced earlier, special exceptions are in place for all Advance Purchase Rate non-refundable reservations made directly with Hyatt on or before March 8, 2020 for arrivals before June 30, 2020. Guests holding these fully prepaid reservations who have decided not to travel may still opt, at least 24 hours before their stay, to receive 10,000 World of Hyatt Bonus Points compensation in lieu of both their stay and the offer above (if eligible). World of Hyatt points may be used toward future travel at any of our 900+ hotels across 17 brands globally.
There are, however, no new World Of Hyatt updates. So points are still set to expire again starting in June, elite status has only been extended for Asia Pacific members (who are not at this point in the epicenter of virus spread), and free night certificates have not been extended at all and continue to expire (although you should be able to convert expired certificates into points).
For elite status Hyatt’s statement remains that it is ‘too early’ to address, though the facts on the ground are more extreme in Europe and the U.S. than they were in Asia at the time it wasn’t too early to address it there.
Outrageous! They could/should have done it already. Why Australia? Just ridiculous. Push on them Gary. They need to catch up with reality. Thanks for bringing it up.
Hyatt, as a “smart company”, I trust to do the right thing.
Marriott, as a “dumb company”, not so much.
Relax.
Then there is Hilton, which is much-maligned but has left the competition in the dust with no-nonsense policies designed to benefit its loyal members during this time of great uncertainty: (i) automatic 2019 AND 2020 elite status extensions for everyone, no questions asked; (ii) points expiration paused; (iii) weekend certificates extended; (iv) no penalty for cancelling ANY (i.e., existing or new) reservations between now and June 30.
Is it not time to wake up and smell what a truly member-centric, rewarding hotel loyalty program smells like, instead of continuing to drink the kool-aid of delusion?…
Hyatt’s going to burn a bunch of goodwill if they don’t extend expiring free night certificates. Even Marriott has seen how obviously necessary that move is.