Yesterday I was checking my Hyatt account balance, for no reason at all, and I noticed something off. In your Hyatt Account they tell you your Current Point balance along with your Lifetime Points Earned. For me, the difference shouldn’t be that big as I’ve actually only used my Hyatt points for one stay at the Hyatt Escala Lodge in Park City last year. However, the difference between the two in my account was about 140,000 points which right off the bat did not seem correct.

I looked through my account history and immediately saw the issue. Back in January I booked three speculative stays when the rates for some hotels were changing, and a few weeks ago I went ahead and cancelled them as I knew they would not be needed. Two of the stays were credited back, but one was not. For all three stays I had to call and cancel, but luckily I had a cancellation confirmation in my email for each one. I immediately called Hyatt and explained that I was never credited the points back for one of my stays – they found the reservation and within minutes those 88,000 points were back into my account. A one-time computer glitch, no big deal, but glad I caught it.

So I went back onto my Hyatt account, and still something didn’t look right. A 52,000 point difference and I knew my stay at the Hyatt Escala was either two or three nights – at 15,000 points a night that would have either been 30,000 or 45,000 points total. Still an issue. I went back through my entire account and noticed that back in June I made a reservation for the Park Hyatt Zurich (for a date in November) and those 22,000 points were never credited back to my account although I was positive I cancelled it. Luckily, an email confirmation showed it was cancelled. I was back on the phone with Hyatt and explained the points for the cancellation was never credited to my account. The representative I spoke to was shocked since I cancelled well ahead of the cancellation deadline and it was about 7 months ago. Had I never noticed, I would never have seen those points. I asked if this was common with Hyatt and she explained that in the three years she had been working at Hyatt, she has only seen this two or three times. I experienced this twice in one day!

So to make a long story short, and maybe you didn’t even care about my rant of a story – always make sure to check your Hyatt balance when cancelling a reservation. I definitely do not hold a grunge against Hyatt for this (I personally love their customer service), but it makes me realize that I can’t fully trust their technology and have to do my own due diligence, which is fine.

I’ve personally never had a situation with any of the other hotel chains, but it doesn’t hurt to always keep an eye on your account balance. Make sure you are always receiving the points you are supposed to earn – you’ve worked hard for them!