My World of Hyatt Account Hacked!

Ouch! It almost pains to even write about this, because I do keep on top of my account security almost always! On top of that, I keep an eye via my dashboard at AwardWallet, but this morning, just by chance, I happened to notice my Hyatt Account hacked a couple of days ago!

I logged in to make a reservation, and I went on with the booking process till the time I landed up at the page where I have to confirm everything. I noticed an email address which was not mine.

a white rectangular object with a black border

That caused me to pause for a moment and wonder what was happening here and I aborted the booking process and headed straight to my account activity. I noticed my reservations were all alive, except there was a redemption which …. wasn’t mine. Hyatt Account Hacked

Since I did not have any control on the booking details here, I immediately, first took control of my account by changing the email address and password on record. Then, I sent along a DM to Hyatt to update them on the fraudulent activity on my account. Hyatt Hacked

Hyatt did a complete verification of my account details on Twitter itself…

 

Hyatt Account Hacked

And then vanished. So I pinged them a couple of times, and then a different agent came back with a response. (S)he told me that they’d take about 72 hours to investigate this issue and come back for the response by then.

 

a close-up of a message

In the meanwhile, I looked up the hotel and figured whoever hacked my account, did not know anything about the valuation of miles. Given… he redeemed a hotel where a regular room was 98$ and the club room which was booked, was just 157$ per night. That was a value of 1.3 cents per point, while I never redeem for less than at least 1.8 cents per point. Come on. At least know what you are getting into before mucking around, mate!

a screenshot of a hotel

I’m really hoping Hyatt is able to figure out who made this fraudulent redemption from my account and take care of this at the earliest. I will report back after 72 hours about how the process goes.

Has anyone been in a similar spot with Hyatt before? How does it usually work out for you?

About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Or Hyatt IT screwed up?

    This is why Trump is doing god’s work, Obama was a moron and Chinese can’t be trusted.

    • @Paul, I did not have the reservation in my account. That is why the email was changed to make sure I don’t find out about the reservation. Else it would have been easy to cxl it and recoup my points.

  2. I use Last Pass which helps with creating secure passwords. If you traveled in China before someone might have sold your account information.

  3. When I signed up for award wallet was when my Hilton account was hacked and all my points transferred. Hilton did credit my points back and changed my account number

  4. 163.com – looks like NetEase in Beijing. Maybe we need a tariff now on stolen Hyatt points?

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