The Hyatt Place, Utica (Detroit), Michigan bumped us (5 rooms, 9 persons) from our advance (45 day+), pre-paid reservations due to 'maintenance problems' from a storm the week before our check-in date. They claimed that they had notified our on-line, discount booking site 10 days prior to our check-in date that they would not be able to accommodate our party as reserved.

On May 11, 2008 I made reservations for nine persons in five rooms for June 28, 2008 and received an email confirming the booked reservation that same afternoon. On June 4, 2008 (24 days before the check in date) my wife called the hotel directly to confirm the rooms again, and received confirmation numbers for each of the five rooms.

I had deliberately chosen this hotel as it was highly rated and had great amenities, it was located near our pre-determined meeting spot, and had a great price.

The first member of the party attempted to check in at 11:30 a.m. when they encountered this scenario. Regular check in is 3:00 p.m. but since there were elderly members in our group (age 85 and older) who traveled some distance and needed to take care of personal needs, they decided to stop and get their rooms early. That is when they were told there were no rooms available. Yet, other persons were able to come in and obtain rooms . . . when ours were 'conveniently unavailable.'

It became quite obvious to our entire group that Hyatt did not want to honor (pre-paid) discount price, and would much rather make more money by taking walk-ins who could pay the higher rate.

Our party consisted of the following:

- Three elderly individuals, one of whom is handicapped.
- A woman from Traverse City, Michigan.
- A woman from Louisville, Kentucky.
- A couple from Chicago, Illinois.
- A couple from Tallahassee, Florida
- A couple from Grand Rapids, Michigan (us).

When I asked to see the 'damaged' rooms, the rude manager said he did not have to show me. That confirmed to me that they just did not want to honor our discounted reservation. Since they weren't going to provide us any rooms, I politely, but firmly asked what he was going to do about our situation (5 pre-paid and confirmed rooms), the general manager informed me that they would find us lodging nearby, pay for the cost and refund our money. I demanded to have this in writing as I did not have any confidence in their 'promises' at this point.

The result was that we ended up in a newly-opened (only one week) Holiday Inn Express 10 to 15 minutes away from our desired location. The new lodging was of a lesser quality than what we had intended, and just a few hours after we arrived, was full. What would have been our situation if we had all waited until the 3:00 p.m. check-in time . . . would we have any rooms at all?

(This was the same weekend that the 'Buick Open Golf Classic' was being held a few miles north. This happens to be a national golfing event, with Tiger Woods being one of the participants.)

Later that afternoon, another member of our family who had also booked a reservation with the same hotel through the same web discount booking site, also found his reservation 'bumped' for 'maintenance issues.'

When he called the on-line booking site to complain, they called the hotel to investigate the claim, and was told that they bumped all the reservations earlier that day because they were "overbooked." Note the statement 'earlier that day' which contradicts what I had been told (that “notification with the on-line booking site was completed 10 days previously”).

I must note that the discount booking site (Hotwire.com) was very responsive to the outrageous, embarrassing, and infuriating incident; they did confirm that the refund was issued and informed me that the situation would be looked into. Despite our experience, we will continue to use Hotwire for our future bookings.

Even though we did finally obtain lodging for our party, I am sharing this information due to the treatment we received by the Hyatt organization. How rampant is this practice of turning away pre-paid, confirmed reservations?

If it had been just my wife and I, the situation might have been overlooked by us an just an isolated incident, but when it affected a group of 5 rooms in one reservation, and another separate reservation by another family member (through Hotwire as well), one tends to believe it was not an anomaly, but a deliberate case of discrimination due to price.

Another reason I cannot let this unfortunate experience just be ignored is the purpose of the entire get-together . . . . my Sister-in-Law from Florida was coming to Michigan to inform the family that her Cancer had returned and that it was Stage Four - Terminal! Additionally, the 92-year old handicapped gentleman had an urgent requirement to attend to a personal need, but due to the delay of obtaining rooms, there was an embarrassing 'accident.'

When I phoned Hyatt Customer Service in an effort to seek a resolution of this affair, they assured me that it would be investigated and I would be contacted within 48 hours with the results of what they discovered. Well, I received a call back, but it was obvious that Hyatt had 'circled the wagons' as they alleged that “Hotwire had been contacted "10 days ago" and informed that rooms would not be available for our booking and that an email was sent to the client (me) to alert him of the unavailability of lodging.”

Following this claim from Hyatt Customer Service that Hotwire supposedly was notified on or about June 18th that rooms would not be available, I checked with the Hotwire Post-Booking department and was informed that the Hyatt Place Hotel did not notify Hotwire until the morning of June 28th (day of check-in) to state there would be no rooms, not ten days previously as I had been informed.

So what does this come down to? The Hyatt Place Hotel (Utica, Michigan) deliberately chose to summarily dismiss our confirmed, pre-paid (by American Express), discounted reservations in favor of full-price check-ins, then when we attempted to obtain our properly arranged lodging, we were bumped, then ‘misinformed’ about the conditions of the rooms, ‘misinformed’ about the fact that Hotwire had been communicated with 10 days previously, and this Hyatt management fully expected us to accept this fact and to go away like sheep.

This incident most certainly should cause everyone who travels to think twice before making future reservations with any Hyatt property.

The best advertising for any business is word of mouth, because two people will tell two people, and two more people will tell two more, and so on. Conversely, bad experiences can multiply exponentially.