Over the past year, Hyatt has outsourced a lot of its customer service, and many people have reported a decline in customer support.
I know that historically a lot of people have liked the @HyattConcierge account on X for customer service. However, an OMAAT reader shares a very frustrating interaction he dealt with, which suggests that may be going downhill as well (or maybe he was just really unlucky?).
In this post:
@HyattConcierge X account can’t provide basic information
A reader shares that he has always appreciated the option to DM @HyattConcierge on X, to get simple things done without calling. However, he says he has noticed a significant decline in recent times. His two last requests have been completely misunderstood, while he previously never had any issues.
He attempted to ask if the Hyatt Centric Delfina is classified as a resort or not. That’s because World of Hyatt Globalist members receive guaranteed 4PM check-out at all non-resorts, while it’s subject to availability at resorts.
Here’s how the interaction went (the bolding is his, and I’ve removed the names of the representatives he interacted with, but all three responses were from different representatives):
Customer: Hello is the Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica considered a resort for 4pm Globalist late check out purposes?
Representative: Hello John! Thank you for reaching out to us with your inquiry. It is my pleasure to assist you today! I would like to inform you that Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica is not classified as a resort property which means Globalist 4pm late checkout does not apply here. If there’s anything else you’d like me to assist with for your stay, just let me know, I’m happy to help!
Customer: Hi there – if it’s not a resort, then 4pm late checkout does apply there, correct?
Representative: Good Morning John! I am happy to assist you today. That is correct, late check out of 4:00pm is one of the Globalist benefits. Here is our weblink showing the additional perks. However, if you have a current reservation, I do recommend adding the request for late check out in advance to ensure that the hotel is aware of the expectation for the stay. Is there a current reservation where I may add this request to?
Customer: My question has not been answered here in the last 3 attempts to get an answer. Is it possible to escalate this question to a manager? The question: is the Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica considered a resort for 4pm Globalist late check out purposes? If it isn’t a resort, then 4pm check out does apply.
Representative: Hello John, thank you very much for your patience and please accept my sincere apologies for any confusion or frustration caused. Yes, the Globalist benefit of 4 PM late check-out applies for our Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica. As always, this is based on request and availability on day of departure. I hope this answers your question; please do not hesitate to reach out for additional support.
Are others noticing a decline in Hyatt customer service?
Back when Hyatt first outsourced customer service, I shared my first interaction with the “new” Hyatt Globalist line, which involved a 74-minute call to try and get a Suite Upgrade Award applied.
Honestly, at this point I do everything in my power to avoid picking up the phone and calling Hyatt customer service, though some things still can’t be managed online.
In theory there’s My Hyatt Concierge, which is offered as part of the Milestone Rewards program. While my assigned concierge is perfectly nice, she typically gets back to me days later, which isn’t of much use if I’m trying to apply an upgrade, or something else time sensitive.
I guess the sweet spot nowadays is to call the general My Hyatt Concierge phone number, which seems to have some of the few remaining non-outsourced agents that can be reached by phone.
I’m curious, have others also noticed a decline in Hyatt’s customer support? If so, what’s your strategy for avoiding frustration nowadays?
Bottom line
Over the past year, Hyatt has outsourced much of its customer service. There’s no reason outsourced agents can’t provide good service, but the issue is that with a heavy focus on cost cutting, there’s also often a lack of training.
While Hyatt’s X account has long been useful for getting basic customer service assistance, a reader’s experience suggests that the once excellent service here is no more.
Have you noticed a decline in Hyatt’s customer support, whether by phone or through X?
Globalist for about 6 years here. Due to customer support's recent decline, I do not plan to bother anymore -- although I'll likely hit lifetime globalist within a few years naturally. Used to have great support at Hyatt, no more.
Absolutely agree. Had a Hyatt phone agent tell me I couldn’t combine a paid night and a points night to apply a suite upgrade to both. I told her she was wrong and she told me I was wrong. Awful service. My Hyatt concierge was able to get it done, but to your point the only issue is response time.
Who’s kidding who? We can all tell from that convo they’ve outsourced that outsourced job to AI.
Yep, last week hyatt concierge on x gave me a wrong quote of the cancellation terms.
I have noticed a significant deterioration in terms of actual human service quality for the Globalist Line team which I use by clicking through the app usually due to laziness. They don’t understand what is going on half of the time and require you to repeat yourself multiple times. Now I just go to My Concierge by calling her directly or by emailing her since she has always been responsive to me.
Lifetime globalist here. The last time I attempted to use the Hyatt concierge assigned to me, she ended up cancelling a reservation I was trying to extend.
Hyatt's customer service is nowhere near where it once was. And my stays reflect that.
I've never had much luck with the Globalist Concierge - - I've read blogs mentioning how they had an issue a check-in and it was resolved immediately via the concierge. In my case half the time I don't get an answer and need to follow... and/or days later i get a reply. I've given up on trying to do anything with the concierge. If others are having a better experience, perhaps I should ask for a new Concierge????
Sounds about right. Though I agree it's a chat bot and the person asking the questions could have made it much clearer and point by point to enable more or less a yes/no answer, which would be quite a bit more useful if they have to present it at a hotel front desk to back up a denied request.
I would have just called the hotel. Or maybe what he's leaving out is he...
Sounds about right. Though I agree it's a chat bot and the person asking the questions could have made it much clearer and point by point to enable more or less a yes/no answer, which would be quite a bit more useful if they have to present it at a hotel front desk to back up a denied request.
I would have just called the hotel. Or maybe what he's leaving out is he called the hotel, didn't like the answer he got, so he's trying to get a contrary "official" response. I've done that myself, resorted to chat to get something in writing when I didn't like what an airline agent said over the phone.
Undoubtedly a bot. Though it's not so likely a human would have been much more help. I've found chat agents are helping a lot of people at once. Some are improving, others not. I would give credit to American Airlines for some better experiences lately - it's been awhile since I used my Advantage miles for a ticket, then wanted to add my AS MVP number to get better seat assignments just to have the chat agent put my AS number in for the PreCheck KTN. Had a good interaction last week, but I spell it all out in the first message:
-Name
-I have a PNR on hold: XXXXXX
-I wish to apply this trip credit number as payment: xxxxxx
-My email address/phone/DOB are: xxxxx
-Please proceed with transaction. Thank you.
The run-on sentence in the query lacked standard English syntax and therefore was confusing to both human and machine. If the question was "Is the Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica considered a resort?" or "Do Hyatt Globalists have 4 pm check out at the Delfina Santa Monica?" a straightforward answer would have been given.
Reads like a chatbot response from Hyatt to me.
Also, the guest should have composed his question a lot clearer.
The decline in customer service online is likely because they got rid of people, outsourced to software (AI), or to less-expensive human alternatives... *cough* Perhaps, the goal is profits, cost-cutting, not actually solving problems... *COUGH* And it's not just a Hyatt issue... *burp*
This blog post would have been better served to include other examples of poor Hyatt customer service since the outsourcing rather than trying to claim one single AI mistake is emblematic of an entire company's CS 'going downhill'
Yeah, I'm sure it was just the one, single mistake...
Unless and until someone can out-compete the Hyatts and Marriotts of the world for availability, we will continue to have to deal with crummy AI slop bots like the one illustrated here. The brand won't care how much people hate it until it impacts their bottom line.
I've had terrible experiences with Hyatt Concierge in the last few months. The biggest issues seem to be related to the Mr and Mrs Smith properties and getting proper credit for stays there and spending on the Chase Hyatt Card. It cost be Globalist status because they couldn't get their act together. I'm done with Hyatt.
I used to always use the chat feature in the app which was similar experience as to DMing on Twitter but that’s become almost entirely useless. They can’t seem to get even the most basic and simple requests right.
Probably AI that got confused.
Bilt via iMessage does it all the time. Bilt is great and all… their customer service agents (human kind) are awesome… the AI ones are horribly programmed; they give out incorrect information, normally not in their favor.
That’s surely someone at an Indian call centre answering from a script. Even the stupidest AI bot would do better than that.
My first thought was actually that the answers were in fact generated by an AI - an extremely poor one.
Seems like a little miscommunication that was ultimately solved at the end. I wouldn’t be writing emails to you based on this conversation tbh. Maybe it’s symptomatic of a wider decline in Hyatt service but hardly end of world stuff.
Chat support in general is so good. I love the AA chat support even though the agents sometimes need a bit of coaching. I recently had a large slab of Air France points expire...
Seems like a little miscommunication that was ultimately solved at the end. I wouldn’t be writing emails to you based on this conversation tbh. Maybe it’s symptomatic of a wider decline in Hyatt service but hardly end of world stuff.
Chat support in general is so good. I love the AA chat support even though the agents sometimes need a bit of coaching. I recently had a large slab of Air France points expire accidentally (6 months earlier eek) and the agent on WhatsApp granted me am exemption. So easy.
@ Mick -- But it wasn't ultimately solved in the end, at least if we're defining "solved" as providing accurate information? The representative said that it's not a resort, so late check-out is a perk for Globalists, but only subject to availability. That's not accurate.