When I booked my October honeymoon in madagascar About six months ago, I knew my trip to the East African island would include an 11-hour layover at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). As a Hayat loyalist who holds it World of Hyatt Credit CardI booked a night hyatt hotels near airport With points. Then I sat back to get excited about my trip, knowing that the plan had been made.
Imagine my surprise when, on the morning we were to leave for our trip of a lifetime, I received an automated email asking me to check-in online – at the Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway Airport, located off 45 RD. Minutes drive away. How could I have made such an obvious mistake? And can I rebook us into the correct hotel without losing my points?
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What happened?
To give ourselves some relief, the booking process for our flights was quite challenging. After booking our flights to Madagascar on points, we had a lot of trouble finding flights home due to a quirk in Ethiopian Airlines’ partner award flight policy. It took days of searching online to find out the timing of our return flights – and in that time, I had forgotten the details of my outbound flight. I knew we flew through Chicago, but I forgot which airport.
This is one of the few negative aspects of playing the points and miles game. When you use points and miles to book free travel, things can get a little more complicated, making it easy to overlook little mistakes like this.
Thankfully, my flight departed late in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to resolve the problem.
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Hyatt’s Cancellation Policy
I immediately logged into my account to see my reservation. I redeemed 8,000 World of Hyatt points for a “standard” night at the Category 2 Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway Airport. ORD owned a nearly identical property: Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. This hotel is also of category 2, but apparently it My date was classified as “extreme” So it cost a little more at 9,500 marks for one night.
I didn’t mind paying a few more points to get a hotel where our flight could have easily crashed after landing around 11 pm, however, as per the hotel’s cancellation policy, if I had checked in at 11:59 pm local time If I cancel within 24 hours of PM, I will do so. One night fee will be charged. Oh, okay – I thought I’d rather pay 8,000 points than pay $264 in cash for my mistake.
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But when I called a World of Hyatt representative, I learned that the cancellation policy was a little different than I expected. Apparently, when you cancel a points booking after the deadline, your points will be refunded – and your card on file will be charged the current room rate for a one-night stay. Oh.
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help from hyatt
But if there was some way to avoid paying this cancellation fee, I tried to explain the situation to the representative. Of course, I didn’t want to cancel my booking; I wanted to move it to a property right closer to the airport.
The representative initiated a check with another hotel to confirm availability. Then she called the first hotel to let them know I was rebooking at another Hyatt, and they agreed to waive the cancellation fee. They canceled my original reservation, and the 8,000 points were immediately returned to my account. Thanks, Hayat!
I didn’t have enough points in my World of Hyatt account to book the new 9,500-point hotel for the rep (I spent them all on my upcoming event). european christmas trip), but I told him I could transfer them from my chase the ultimate rewards Account. Thankfully, because of Chase (usually). superfast transfersThe extra points I needed were in my World of Hyatt account a few minutes later, and I was able to book a night at the Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. The cash rate was $295 before taxes and fees, giving me an excellent value of 3.1 cents per point (compared to TPG’s December 2024). Evaluation of 1.7 cents for Hyatt points).
The whole process took less than an hour, and I had the rest of the morning to pack and prepare for my trip to Madagascar before heading to the airport. Overall, I’m glad Hyatt sent me the check-in email and I realized my mistake early on. If I hadn’t noticed this by the time we got to the airport at 11 pm, it could have been much harder – and more stressful – to fix.
What if I wasn’t able to get my points back, or the Hyatt I wanted was fully booked?
My husband and I don’t have to start our honeymoon by spending the night in the ORD, Tom Hanks-style. There are lots of hotels nearby. I could have transferred chase points For example, Marriott Bonvoy must be paid to book an award night at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare, or cash at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport. Worst case, if there were no rooms open in the vicinity of ORD, I could have paid for a 45-minute Uber ride back and forth to my original Midway hotel.
But thanks to Hyatt’s customer service and some extra Chase points, I was able to make my night in Chicago as streamlined as possible without spending a dime.
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ground level
Lesson learned: Don’t assume that a city has only one airport or only one international airport. Don’t book the first hotel with an “airport” name, like I did. And when you’re done booking a trip, double-check all your reservations to make sure the dates and locations line up.
Also, if this happens to you, simply do not rebook online and pay cancellation fees. It’s worth trying the phone helpline first – they may be more generous than you expect.
Finally, it’s always a good idea to have something extra transferable points Saved for situations like this. and we recommend Setting up any hotel and airline accounts You can use them in the future and add them to your transferable points account now, as this will make the process faster if you need to transfer your points at the last minute.
