Yesterday, I called Hyatt customer service to use my free night certificate that I had earned from Hyatt Brand Explorer.  I should add that this is for our upcoming trip……and we leave next week!  Yes, yes I did drop the ball a bit, but if you think about it, it’s actually a funny story……

Next week, we leave for Manchester & London – I couldn’t be more excited about spring break 2023 as I’ve been looking forward to this trip since last year!  Our roundtrip tickets are through Manchester, so after landing – we will be spending 2 short days there.  We’ll then take the train to London for the week.  The part I forgot?  That we’ll be needing to spend a night in Manchester (again) before our flight back to Houston.  Doh!  After landing, we’ll drive back home to Dallas.  (No, I’m not looking forward to additional transit time, but I knew this airline deal couldn’t be beat!)

I had already booked our first two nights at Hyatt Regency Manchester a while back, where I was able to use the Hyatt family plan discount rate (not available at every property).  Then recently, after much research and debate, we settled on an Airbnb for London as that was just working best for our family of five.  I had actually booked one additional night at our Airbnb, not realizing that I needed to book one night in Manchester instead, towards the end of our trip.  Luckily, I contacted our Airbnb host, changed our reservation, and was refunded the cost for one night.

Here’s the points breakdown for two nights at the beginning of our stay, for the first room (1 king bed):

We were able to apply the Hyatt family plan discount rate for the second room (which is considered a “family room” with 2 twin beds):

All I can say is that I’m glad I had done this booking a while back, as family travel costs add up easily!

Now back to booking again at this hotel for one night, on the return end.  Because we would need two connecting rooms, I knew I couldn’t do this booking online.  To clarify, this free night certificate can be used at any category 1-4 Hyatt property and was expiring in November of 2023.  (This is not the free night I earn from holding a The World of Hyatt Credit Card; that free night certificate hasn’t hit my account yet.)  I didn’t have any other awards or enough points in my World of Hyatt account, so I used the free night certificate for the first room, and paid cash for the second room.  I also couldn’t use the family plan discount rate as they didn’t have the same room configurations available for that one night (like they had had available to book for the first part of our trip).

Now let me just say, please do not wait a week and a half before a trip to book a room (unless well, that’s how you usually roll – then by all means, go ahead!).  When you are booking multiple award trips, sometimes things like this can happen – what can I say?  Luckily, the hotel still had room availability, and I was able to get two connecting rooms.  Phew!  It’s just for one night towards the end of our trip, but it is peak travel time and it totally could have gone the other way.

If you were needing to book only one room, you could do so easily online.  This is how it would show in your account – if you had a free night certificate available to use at an eligible property (must be category 1-4, and Hyatt Regency Manchester is a category 2 hotel):

You can find any and all awards/certificates you may have in your World of Hyatt account, under “My Awards:”

Also, be mindful of when your free night awards expire – I’m glad I was able to put this one to use, as it was expiring this coming fall.

Again, I needed two rooms, for one night, and because we have minors – I needed to make sure we had connecting rooms at that too.  I was also using a mix of awards + cash – so many factors at play here!  It took about an hour long phone call to get this all squared away!  The representative on the line had to call the hotel in Manchester to confirm room availability, while I prayed hard on the other end hoping she would return only with good news.

Lessons learned: Hyatt free night certificates are easy to book online (if you only needed one room that is); booking a room or two last minute on the other hand, not so much 😉

 

Picture: London, United Kingdom – September 2018