A Hyatt elite guest reports that recently been asked to change rooms to have their late check-out requests honored.
- At the Park Hyatt Saigon they had received a complimentary suite upgrade on arrival, but were told they could only have 4 p.m. late checkout if they left the suite at noon and used a “courtesy room” until 4 p.m.
- At the Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok they confirmed a suite at booking on a points redemption and were similarly told they had to downgrade to a standard room for the last four hours of their stay in order to have late checkout.
I’ve never experienced anything quite like this, and I’ve stayed at both of these properties.
A couple of years ago the Hyatt Regency Amsterdam extended me a complimentary day use room for early check-in. My room wasn’t available yet when we arrived at the hotel before noon, and they weren’t obligated to do anything, but they agreed to provide a room to use until our suite was ready. That was fantastic!
On my first visit to the Intercontinental Manila, back when I was a Royal Ambassador member (with early check-in a guaranteed benefit) my suite wasn’t yet available either. The hotel had relatively few room types, and their policy was a two category upgrade. So booking a suite with a great rate there confirmed me into their Presidential suite. There was literally one room I was waiting for, so they complied with program rules by giving me a room to use on same floor until the suite was ready.
And the first time I visited the Park Hyatt Maldives, they offered a spa cottage to use for late check-out. They needed our water villa but this was a great solution. Hyatt’s elite late check-out benefit isn’t guaranteed at resorts.
In all of these cases, the hotel was complying with program terms or going above and beyond with hospitality. That’s different than telling a guest they can only have their guaranteed late check-out if they change rooms.
- Hyatt Globalists are guaranteed 4 p.m. late check-out
- However it is subject to availability at hotels with a casino, Destination Residences, and Hyatt resorts and not offered at Hyatt Residence Club resorts.
- Both the Park Hyatt Saigon and Grand Hyatt Erawan are guaranteed late check-out eligible properties.
However, none of the late checkout benefit language says that it must be in the sam eroom! It defines the time and which properties are exempt and never thinks to specify ‘no downgrades’. Most hotels would prefer not to move you, though, because that means housekeeping for an extra room.
That said, “4 p.m. checkout” generally means staying in your room until 4. Here, a guest has to pack, move and re-pack. Hyatt’s published benefit language doesn’t clearly forbid the downgraded room workaround, but it also doesn’t clearly bless it. The rule is about time, while the dispute is about implied meaning.
Now, it can be a reasonable compromise. You still get late checkout, a private place to stay and a shower. It can be considerate to the next guest, so the room can be turned rather than delaying their check-in.
And if the issue is flagged in advance then it might be o.k. for a complimentary upgrade? “We can offer you a suite if you’ll check out of it by Noon, as it’s booked by another guest, but if you’d prefer we’d be happy to extend 4p.m. check-out in your standard room.” (Although this creates bad incentives to always insist on this with suites.) That’s also different from a confirmed suite at booking.
Perhaps the right ‘courtesy room’ is for the arriving guest waiting for a suite, rather than the departing one, like I had at the Intercontinental Manila and Hyatt Regency Amsterdam.
Ultimately late check-out does present challenges. Last year Andaz 5th Avenue gave me 35,000 points when my room wasn’t ready at check-in time. Over a third of the rooms they had turning over that night were occupied by Globalists taking advantage of late check-out, they explained.
And it’s harder with confirmed suites, because there are usually fewer suites than standard rooms. They need to have enough housekeepers to turn rooms over quickly. But 4 p.m. check-out also conflicts with 4 p.m. check-in, if everyone arrives right at the start of check-in!
I find Hyatt actually to be the best at actually honoring promised late check-out. I’m almost always proactively offered late check-out at eligible hotels when I arrive, I don’t have to ask and it’s never denied. I cannot say that for Marriott. Hilton hasn’t even promised it before, though they say they will do so for their new Diamond Reserve members. At IHG, it’s subject to availability, even for Diamond guests.
Ultimately I do think that the guest in the room is entitled to the room until 4 p.m. when being granted late checkout, and if the hotel wishes to deviate from that they ought to offer something that works for the guest – in other words, be generous and suggest something like a spa treatment, meal or points and request the favor of the room downgrade?
In other words, the default should be you keep your assigned room until 4 p.m. where 4 p.m. is not subject to availability. If the hotel needs your room earlier, they should offer something to take care of the guest and not make it a downgrade.
This is an interesting case, but the bigger scandal remains the Park Hyatt Washington refusing to serve coffee via overnight room service—even when asked.
Housekeeping standards are well known: 20–25 minutes for a standard room, maybe 45 for a suite. The fix isn’t complicated—give the arriving guest a temporary room and comp a drink at the bar.
There’s no reason that suite shouldn’t be ready by 4:30 or 4:45 p.m., assuming a 4 p.m. arrival.
Friends, if they let you stay in any room until 4PM, even if you have to swap, those extra four hours are still an incredible benefit, especially when hardly anything with these programs is ‘guaranteed’ these days (except FHR). Hyatt is still miles ahead of Hilton, IHG, and most certainly Bonvoy…
The Marriottification of Hyatt begins.
If Marriott retracts their 4 PM checkout for their highest tier Bonvoy Elite members, we will be done with Marriott (and we control a meaningful amount of business and leisure travel, and more importantly, meetings, receptions, and events).
Marriott is hovering over the bottom of the barrel. Hotel owners are in the driver’s seat, not Marriott, and Marriott succumbs to the hotel owners, who are Marriott’s customers, not Marriott’s guests.
Had this happen at the HR Waikiki, however that is a resort so it was understandable. I received a 1 pm checkout if I stayed in my room, which was fine with me.
I had this exact issue happen at the Andaz Miami Beach yesterday, and I wasn’t the only one dealing with it.
That would be fine with me.
@Gary Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and other properties in Asia have been doing this for years. The “now say” part is wrong – they have had this policy for at least 10 years. Given the rule-following nature of Hong Kong hotels I highly doubt they are playing fast and loose with the terms of the program.
@ 1990 — Ambassador and Royal Ambassador BOTH receive Guaranteed 4 pm checkout. Nothing spectacular here.
@ Gary — We have had countless early check-in temporary rooms at InterContinental over 20 years as a Royal Ambassador. It is not a special thing for a Royal Ambassador. We’ve also been granted similar at Hyatt several times, which was highly appreciated, the most memorable being when we camped out on the PH Zurich’s sofa near check-in/by the Christmas tree. It didn’t take long for their 2,000 CHF per night upgrade offer to turn into a temporary room.
The problem with Hyatt’s late checkout (and many elite perks): there’s no compensation if the hotel doesn’t honor it. That makes the benefit essentially meaningless.
Hyatt’s Globalist benefits are clear: you get an upgrade to the best available room including standard suites AND 4 pm checkout. Not “or”: “and”. So whether it’s a suite upgrade award or a complimentary upgrade at check-in, it should be treated the same. (And indeed, if you have to “check out” of your suite at noon and move to another room, that violates the principle/spirit of guaranteed late checkout. The purpose is that you can sleep, work, relax, etc without interruptions like having to pack and move rooms.)
The only exception would be if the guest was upgraded to a *premium* suite (or specialty suite, etc), something above a standard suite. “We can upgrade you to the presidential/VIP suite, but you’ll have to leave or switch to a standard room by noon; otherwise, we can give you a standard suite and you can stay til 4 PM” is perfectly acceptable, IMO. But that should be communicated and agreed upon at check-in or earlier. (And if the guest actually booked a premium/specialty suite in advance, either by paying outright or using a points upgrade, then they get it until 4 PM.)
In the Reddit post, I don’t think OP mentions whether they were given a standard or premium suite at each hotel. But tl;dr: if OP was upgraded above a standard suite, then it’s fair; else, based on the rules, OP should’ve been entitled to stay in their suite until 4 PM.
@Rendezvous, the Andaz Miami Beach is a resort property, so late checkout isn’t guaranteed. If they allowed you to stay after standard checkout time, even if you had to move rooms, they were actually doing you a favor.
The Hyatt Regency in Mexico City did the same thing. They basically ask you to downgrade if you are checking out of a suite late.
Fine with me. You get a room upgrade or a late check out. But not both at the same time.
@Chris W.: Where does Hyatt disclose what properties are resort properties? This is a game fake resorts under Marriott have played.
Here’s one for you. I was upgraded before arrival to a suite. I checked in using the Hyatt app and received a digital key. The key didn’t work. The front desk told me it didn’t work because I had been downgraded to a non-suite. I arrived about 5 hours past the published check-in time. In other words despite giving me a key through the app for a suite I didn’t get a suite. Hyatt just shrugged their shoulders.
@Nick, if you go to the Andaz Miami Beach page and scroll down to the list of amenities (you’ll have to click “See More”), it lists “Resort Property”; that’s the indication that it’s designated by Hyatt as a resort. Thankfully much more transparent than Marriott! You can also filter by that amenity on Hyatt’s search page.
@Tom, like I said above, there’s no “OR” in the benefits list… it’s an “AND”. Hotels don’t get to pick and choose which benefits to honor on a given stay. Unless they gave them an upgrade above and beyond what they were entitled to (so above a standard suite) with the agreement that they’d be out of that suite by noon, they do in fact get both.
Nah.
You can only check out from the room you checked into.
Guaranteed if they move you to a new room they record it as a new occupancy ie a new check in.
This is not honoring the purpose or intent behind the benefit.
This happened to me recently on Dec 16 at Park Hyatt Tokyo. I used a SUA for day one of my 3 night stay with them and at 11am I received a phone call asking me to please have my bags packed to move rooms. I told them ideally I would like to sleep in a little longer but they informed me that is not possible because the other guest had already arrived. I was flabbergasted to say the least. We packed our bags and left the room to begin our day and maybe 2 hours later received an urgent phone call informing us that the room keys given were not the right ones and for us to please revisit them to get the appropriate room key. Additionally after breakfast on my last day I went over to the front desk to request a late check out. Turns out they had me under a different guest entirely. They attributed the mixup to transiting from Opera to a new system? Oh and the cherry on top is they misplaced my bags when we had to do the room change
I experienced this all the time this year, though it’s at check-in. Choose between upgraded room or late checkout. It’s why I’m not bothering to requalify for globalist next year…that and no more unlimited UR.
@Warren Bennett
Check the Sheraton at MCI airport reviews. Someone mentioned on Flyer Talk this week I think? Manager there says Titanium 4 pm checkout “benefit” is mistaken. Lots of FT’s defended the decision b/s the Titanium reviewer was apparently with a sports team or something?
RE: Hyatt. This would bug me. I would not mind moving prior to the last night, but if I have a night flight, I will often stay up as late as I can, push my internal clock, SLEEP until 11 or 12, then get ready and pack to leave for the airport precisely at 4. Having to get up and pack early when I can never fall back asleep would throw me off entirely. Please don’t upgrade me if it means ruining my sleep. I will be great with a quality standard room that last night though–or the whole stay if I didn’t burn an SUA!
Same at the HR Paris Étoile … in a suite? You have to be out by noon and you can get a courtesy room until 4pm.
If I’m requesting a late checkout with Marriott, it’s primarily for one of two reasons:
– I’m road-warrioring and want to get a full day of work in before getting on the road. I might not necessarily mind interrupting my work day to pack up and change rooms, but if I bring my full set of kit I’ve got two travel monitors, a USB-C hub, USB speakers, mouse and often a standalone keyboard. To unhook all that and set it back up in the new room is a major chore. I don’t want to have to do that for just a few extra hours. Then I might only bring out the laptop with power and mouse and leave it at that, but I lose out on the extra screen space, etc.
– I have some event that I’m attending, and I just want a secure-enough space to keep my belongings until I’m ready to leave. Or, I expect to need to use my laptop and Wifi briefly after I’m back from the event. I might not need many amenities (maybe a bed for a nap if I have a long drive coming up??) so another room might not be a problem, but the fact of having to leave whatever event to come back, move my stuff, then head back again could very well be.
I didn’t see any mention about how early these room switches could be done. If it has to be done close to the standard check-out time or could be done much earlier in the day (say 8 AM), might make a difference.
At this point I’ve mostly loyal to Marriott because I can use the 4 PM checkout to get more work done on the road. I’m in a catch-22 with other chains because either they don’t offer late checkout at all or having enough status to get it (reliably or at all) is rough. I did a status match with IHG a few years ago but all I was able to get for a late checkout, the only time I tried asking for one, was an extension from 12 noon to 1:00, “maybe 1:15”. No thanks.
@ Tom — What @ Chris W. said.
This is illogical. The guest arriving into your room particularly if its a suite is also assured an on time check in of 2 or 3 pm. How can the same room be occupied by you until 4 and honor the basic program for next guest ? Hence you move.
@Mark, that’s incorrect; check-in times are not guaranteed (only checkout times are), and I’ve never seen a check-in time of 2 pm (usually 3 at cheaper hotels, 4 at more full-service ones).
Years ago, checking into a premium suite I’d reserved at a Hyatt Regency (before I had any Hyatt status at all), I received an email on the day of arrival apologizing that the suite would not be ready until 6 pm because the previous guest had a late checkout. No compensation was offered (not that I pushed for any), and the suite ended up being ready shortly after 4 anyway; all was fine.
If I had arrived early and really pushed the issue, perhaps they could have given *me* a courtesy room to use until my suite was ready, or at the very least, offered me a free drink or appetizer in the restaurant or something like that (or some points as compensation, etc). That would be a good, ethical business practice, but to be clear, I wouldn’t actually be owed anything. You certainly don’t make the existing guest move from *their* suite.
There’s also the statistical distribution angle, i.e. not every departing Globalist is going to stay until 4, and not every arriving Globalist is going to arrive right at 4. As long as they staff housekeeping appropriately, it should be no problem to turn those suites over and have them ready *on average* for Globalists to check into when they arrive (and handle the exceptions case-by-case). You certainly don’t have to have EVERY room/suite ready at 4 pm when many people won’t arrive until hours later.
Thanks for the reminders that I should continue to prioritize IC RA over Hyatt Glob.
I can confirm I was asked to move to courtesy room at Park Hyatt Saigon
I always get late checkout at all properties I stay at. I just book an extra night.
My stay at the Park Hyatt Saigon was needlessly stressful and confrontational. Instead of honoring my Globalist benefits by offering the best available room, the staff repeatedly attempted to upsell me to paid suites, insisting that no complimentary suites were available. When I pressed for clarity on whether those complimentary suites were actually occupied or simply being withheld from upgrade inventory, I was met with vague, evasive, and inconsistent answers.
I was also told that requesting a late checkout would require me to vacate my current room, an assertion that further reinforced the impression that the hotel was actively trying to limit or avoid honoring elite benefits. Overall, the experience felt adversarial and unwelcoming, completely at odds with the service standards expected of a Park Hyatt.
Marriott ALWAYS offers me a late check out. I don’t think it is because of my Lifetime Titanium that I earned years ago (before Bonvoy). I think they always offered it.
Since the merger, I avoid Marriott Bonvoy.
Vera at Bangkok Erawan is terrible and so is Nut. They think it’s better to keep the room empty than servicing their globalists. They need a overhaul on some of their staff at the lounge floor. I am regular there and have to keep on calling their duty manager to get what I am entitled to.