Overview
I called Hyatt today to make a guest of honor reservation for a friend and was fortunate enough to be connected with a tenured World of Hyatt (WOH) rep. After making the award booking, she offered to review my account for unclaimed Hyatt points, which I didn't know existed, and I gladly accepted. 30 minutes later, I was ~100k points richer!
What Are Unclaimed Points?
Each time an award reservation is made, WOH deducts the required points from your Hyatt account. Apparently (based on my call), the individual property needs to actually claim those deducted points. If the property does not claim the points, they stay in a state of purgatory.
In my particular case, the majority of unclaimed points were from guest of honor reservations where certain individual properties were not properly trained on redeeming such awards (this is speculation from the WOH rep as she saw multiple cases from the same property). Time goes by and the points may never get claimed.
There was another instance where a property simply didn't (forgot to?) deduct. And now the property has left the Hyatt chain, there is no chance of the points getting claimed by the hotel.
What To Say On the Call?
This should be a good start: “Are there any old points in my account for past award reservations that have not been redeemed by the individual property”
If the rep sounds confused, hang up call again. Btw, the number I called: 800-233-1234
Does It Really Work?
I had my friend call Hyatt to see what would happen, expecting the worst. But after using the line above “Are there any old points in my account for past award reservations that have not been redeemed by the individual property” the WOH rep replied “Sure let me check!”
Ten minutes later, ~15K was redeposited into his account for an award booking made many years ago. This seems to have been caused by some booking/rebooking mix up where the points were not properly deducted/claimed. Since the points went unclaimed for so many years, the rep was happy to give the points back to him.
YMMV
We do not have enough data points yet to see if this will work consistently. It is possible that all award reservations from your account were redeemed and claimed successfully and therefore you get nada. It is also possible that the WOH rep refuses to redeposit the points to your account despite there being unclaimed points. And of course, it is very likely that the rep has no idea what you are talking about.
In my friend's particular case with the ~15k redeposit, the rep obtained approval from her supervisor before redepositing. It's likely the case where they see that the hotel will never claim the points and will give the ok.
Warnings
In addition to the ~100k that was redeposited back into my account, the tenured Hyatt rep told me that there was another unclaimed 100K from a guest of honor reservation made several months back. However, she recommended that I call again in a few months as properties go through an annual audit. The last thing she wanted was to inflate my balance with another 100K only to have it taken back 1 month later.
So this is my warning: There is a chance that redeposits of any unclaimed points from RECENT award bookings may eventually get deducted from your account some time in the future.
Tell Us How It Went
If you end up calling WOH, let us know in the comments below how your call went – g'luck!
I spoke to a front-line rep who started to look into it and then I realized she wasn’t actually looking for the right thing. Then a supervisor came on who said this “thing” doesn’t exist. She says that hotels reconcile their books and ask Hyatt for the points and Hyatt gives it to them, and that there’s no way that points would go unclaimed. She said she’s been there three years and has never heard of this and can’t imagine why you would get points back.
First call was waste of time. 2nd call starts off promising when he says he will check but end result, Mine were all redeemed. I don’t have much reservations in the past but I give it a shot anyway
1st call rep told me they don’t do that and I should contact hotel directly
2nd call rep told me they see the reservations but hotel has to do that not me
3rd call rep located a lot of reservations, ended up depositing over 70k points
great post!
First line rep said the hotels have to track that and that the reservations center doesn’t follow that; did those of you who had success modify the script somehow? I also reached out to the World of Hyatt Concierge on FlyerTalk to get an expert opinion (they and the Twitter team have always been able to solve my problems!)
i called the world of hyatt (explorist) line and followed the voice prompts asked for a representative for world of hyatt questions, the one who helped me said she got a call like that earlier in the day
Tried 3 agents, none could understand what i was talking about
Called few times, everyone saying I am not sure what you talking about. haha
Shooting from the hip… want to give 888 994 9288 a shot? This is the Globalist line – I would reason that the reps here are more seasoned. (Note this was not the number I called)
When I called today, the first agent didn’t immediately find anything then she put me on hold and transferred me to a woman who came on asking if I had read this on a blog this morning. She had nothing to offer. Seems like they are aware.
The rep I got offered to check, but then just came back with a summary of my current points balance and certificates. The rep didn’t seem to understand what I was looking for.
Call the Globalist line. Spoke to a representative that looked into my account. She seemed confused, but tried to act as if she knew what I was talking about. She said that I didn’t have any unclaimed points, but it was a challenge explaining how she could tell.
Per the “World of Hyatt Concierge” on FlyerTalk:
“Hello kerrigjl,
Thanks for reaching out!
We do not have a time frame policy for the hotels to redeem awards from an account. We do not go into accounts and return points that the hotel is owed for payment as they are still owed payment for the services rendered. The blog outlined is not our standard practice and we would not be able to return any points for reservations that were actualized.
Best Regards,
Samantha J.”
If anyone has a CSR successfully do this for them, try to get some kind of email or other contact information so that they can replicate this for others!
WOH ends up benefiting when the individual property is owed payment for points that have been deducted from member accounts. Perhaps WOH standard practice should include repaying the property in such scenarios instead of putting the responsibility on the property.
Maybe The Reward Boss should fact check what they post before having many of its readers call a company to frustratingly find out it was no more than a waste of everyone’s time.
I’ll call this as deal dead. I called the 800 number twice. The first lady was very confused, and said she could tell me if points had been earned or redeemed or erned, but couldn’t search for unclaimed points.
The second call, the lady transferred me to WoH, an authoritative sounding lady said that all points are marked a redeemed after staying at the property. The property has one year to claim the points back from Hyatt, but under no circumstances are unclaimed points to be re-deposited. I told her that I read a blog post saying differently, and she went on to say that “We know about the blog post, our management sent an internal memo saying that we are not to refund unclaimed points to accounts.”
Doesn’t work I called 6 times no body knows what I’m talking about. They keep saying I have x amount of points. Idk how it works for you and your friend
If you read their terms this is not a thing. Totally inaccurate.