The story of the mistake: I booked a stay at a non-airport hotel – here’s what happened

When I booked my October vacation to Madagascar nearly six months in advance, 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 Hyatt loyalist with the World of Hyatt Credit Card, I booked a night at a Hyatt hotel near the airport with points. Then I sat back to enjoy my trip, knowing that the planning was done.

Imagine my surprise when, on the morning we were supposed to leave for the trip of a lifetime, I get an automated email asking me to check in online – at the Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway Airport, a 45-minute drive from ORD. How did I make such an obvious mistake? And can I rebook at the right hotel without losing my points?

Related: Mistakes to avoid when booking vacation travel

What’s going on?

To cut it short, the process of booking our flights has always been a challenge. After booking our flights to Madagascar with points, we had a lot of trouble getting flights home due to an error in the flight policy of our partner Ethiopian Airlines. It took a couple of days of searching online for our return flights to double – and by then, I had forgotten the details of our outbound flight. I knew we went through Chicago, but I forgot which airport it was.

This is one of the few problems with playing the points and miles game. When you use points and miles to book free travel, things can get even more complicated, making it easy to overlook small mistakes like these.

Thankfully, my flight left in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to fix this problem.

Related: Chicago O’Hare vs. Midway: Which Chicago airport should I fly into?

Hyatt cancellation policy

I immediately logged into my account to check my booking. I had used 8,000 World of Hyatt points for a “standard” night at the Hyatt Place Chicago/Midway Airport Level 2. There was an almost identical location near ORD: Hyatt Place Chicago/O’Hare Airport. This hotel is also a Category 2, but apparently classified my date as “high value,” so it cost a slightly higher 9,500 points per night.

I had no problem paying a few points to find a hotel where we could easily crash after our flight arrived around 11:00 However, according to the hotel’s cancellation policy, if I canceled within 24 hours of 11:59 pm local time, I would cancel. you have been charged for one night. Well – I figured I’d rather pay 8,000 points for my mistake than the $264 I could have paid in cash.

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But when I called the Hyatt World representative, I learned that the cancellation policy is a little different from what I expected. Obviously, when you cancel a points reservation after the deadline, your points will be refunded — and your card on file will be charged the current room rate for one night. Yes.

Related: Your guide to booking a return trip

Help from Hyatt

But in case there was a way to avoid paying this cancellation fee, I tried to explain the situation to the representative. I didn’t want to cancel my reservation, really; I wanted to transfer it to a place near the right airport.

The agent first checked the second hotel to make sure it was available. He then called the original hotel to explain that I was rebooking at another Hyatt, and they agreed to waive the cancellation fee. They canceled my original reservation, and the 8,000 points immediately appeared in my account. Thank you, Hyatt!

I didn’t have enough points in my World of Hyatt account for the agent to book a new hotel with 9,500 points (I had spent them all on my upcoming Christmas trip to Europe), but I told him I could transfer them to my Chase Ultimate. Rewards account. Thankfully, thanks to Chase’s (usually) super fast transfer, the 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, which gives me a very good value of 3.1 cents per point (compared to TPG’s December 2024 rate of 1.7 cents per Hyatt point).

The whole process took less than an hour, and I still had the morning to pack and prepare for my trip to Madagascar before we went to the airport. Overall, I’m glad Hyatt sent me the check-in email and I realized my mistake early. If I hadn’t noticed it until we got to the airport at 11 pm, it would have been very difficult – and very stressful – to fix.

What if I couldn’t redeem my points, or the Hyatt I wanted was fully booked?

My husband and I shouldn’t have started our honeymoon with a night at ORD, Tom Hanks style. There are many hotels nearby. I could transfer Chase points to Marriott Bonvoy to book an award night at the Marriott Chicago O’Hare, for example, or pay cash at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare airport. Worse, if there were no rooms open at ORD at all, I would have just paid for a 45 minute Uber ride to and from my first Midway hotel.

But thanks to Hyatt’s customer service and a few other Chase points, I was able to make our night in Chicago as organized as possible without spending a dime.

Related: Last-minute strategies for getting World of Hyatt status

Bottom line

Lesson learned: Don’t assume that a city has one airport or only one airport. Don’t book the first hotel with “airport” in the name, like I did. And when you’re done booking a trip, double-check all your reservations to make sure the dates and locations match.

And, if this happens to you, you can simply rebook online and pay the cancellation fee. It’s worth trying the phone helpline first — they can be more generous than you’d expect.

Finally, it’s always a good idea to have extra transferable points saved up for situations like this. We also recommend setting up any hotel and airline accounts you may use in the future and linking them to your transferable points account now, as this will speed up the process if you end up needing to transfer your points at the last minute.