This week compensation clinic takes a visit to the Hyatt Centric Melbourne where I encountered a number of service related issues. This property is the first Hyatt Centric in Australia and opened just over a year ago.
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I checked in later in the evening and was pleasantly surprised to be upgraded to a King Suite as a Globalist member. After unpacking and getting settled into the room, I was so impressed with the new property and suite room that I decided to see if I could extend my stay for a second night.
I called down to the front desk and asked if the suite was available for another night if I extended my stay. They informed me that the same room wasn’t available however, I could move to an even larger premier suite next door if I wanted to extend. I went ahead and was really looking forward to staying in their best suite, which retails for almost $1000/night. They would let the daytime staff know, and I could switch rooms the next day.
The next day I packed up all my stuff and carried my luggage down to the lobby to exchange keys and switch rooms. I was informed the Premier suite I was promised next door wasn’t available that I had been looking forward to trying. However, my current room was now all of a sudden available. I was quite disappointed I wasted all that time packing everything up and now had to go back and unpack everything again. I asked if they could send housekeeping up to the room, and they said they would clean the room in the afternoon.
I returned to the room at 8 pm to find it still hadn’t been cleaned. I went down to the front desk, and they said it was still scheduled and hadn’t been completed yet. I asked if they had some coffee capsules so I could make a coffee. They promised someone would bring some up in a few minutes.
An hour passes by in the room, and no sign of housekeeping or any coffee. I go back down to the front desk and ask again, and someone else opens the cabinet behind me and hands me hand full of coffee capsules. I expressed my disappointment why didn’t they hand them to me an hour ago instead of making me wait. There was also a barista coffee machine at the bar next to the front deck; they could have also just as easily offered to make a coffee instead of having me wait an hour.
The next morning I had breakfast on the top floor with great views of the city. There was a nice buffet selection along with omelets made to order and excellent barista coffee and high-quality tea leaves.
As a globalist, I had 4 pm checkout confirmed, and while I was having a nap in the early afternoon, I hear a loud banging on the door and someone saying housekeeping and walking into the room. Not only did they wake me up they entered right into the room with the do not disturb sign on.
When I checked out, I discussed all of these service-related issues with the manager on duty, and he agreed to provide 10,000 points as compensation. Keep in mind this property is going for upwards of $500/night, so this does set a level of expectations that most things go right.
After following up a number of times, the points finally posted to my account 2 weeks later.
Conclusion
This is such a nice modern luxury property. It’s unfortunate there were quite a few service failures during my stay. They appear to be using some kind of scheduling software for housekeeping, and this is causing a lot of problems for them, in addition to possible staffing issues. Communication between the staff could definitely use some improvement.
Hopefully, they can work on these issues and improve their service, as I would like to stay at this property again down the road.
Have you had multiple service failures at a recent hotel stay with Hyatt? If so, let us know in the comments below.
