World of Hyatt is adding a new restriction on gifting awards to other members, which seems totally fair to me…
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Hyatt limits members to 10 gifted awards per year
Nowadays World of Hyatt lets members gift most types of awards to other travelers. This includes most awards earned through the Milestone Rewards program, like Suite Upgrade Awards, Club Access Awards, Guest of Honor Awards, and Free Night Awards, among others. Honestly, it’s an incredibly generous policy, and it’s a major point of differentiation for those who appreciate being able to share perks with friends and family.
It’s worth noting that Hyatt is adding a minor restriction to being able to transfer rewards to others. As of June 7, 2025, World of Hyatt members will be able to receive at most 10 gifted awards per calendar year. There’s no limit on how many awards you can gift, but rather just on how many you can receive.
Per the updated terms & conditions:
As of June 7, 2025, a Member may be gifted a maximum of ten (10) transferred awards per calendar year in accordance with the process described above. This restriction applies only to the receipt of transferred gift awards. Members remain able to transfer as many eligible awards as they choose.
That seems totally reasonable, as I can’t imagine that many people receive that many gifted awards per year. For that matter, I imagine that most people receiving more than 10 gifted awards within a year probably aren’t playing within the rules.
Note that there are no new limits on transferring points to other members, as that continues to be possible, within the old rules.
I’m surprised we haven’t seen more gifting restrictions
It was only as of early 2024 that World of Hyatt started allowing most types of awards to be gifted to others. It’s a very customer friendly policy that I’m delighted to see, though frankly, I was expecting that we’d see quite a bit of fraud and abuse, given the lack of restrictions on transfers.
As we know, there’s a huge underground business of selling airline and hotel rewards, given the arbitrage opportunities. So I’ve gotta say, I’m very pleasantly surprised by the lack of new restrictions that we’ve seen added.
Bottom line
As of June 2025, World of Hyatt is limiting members to receiving 10 gifted awards per calendar year. I can’t imagine that many people receive more than 10 gifted awards per year in a legitimate way, and I don’t think this limit is at at all unreasonable. It’s worth being aware of, though.
What do you make of Hyatt’s new limit on gifted awards?
One thing that seems a bit weird here is that it sounds like I can't use all of my GOH awards with one person? That, in particular, seems a bit odd since that award is inherently designed to be given away.
Any Hyatt loyalists able to provide data points on using GoH? I have these things burning a hole in my account but I can't find a practical use for them domestically. Even parking charges waived at Grand and Regency properties is a Globalist benefit for free night stays only. Anyone received any significant upgrades, welcome amenities, stay credits, etc. using GoH as a Discoverist or Explorist?
If they're going to do this and apply it to GoH, then they need to give out more GoH awards when you hit 60 nights. This is my first year as a "full Globalist" and last year they just gave out four GoH because "reasons," so I just assumed they gave those out on 2/28 or 3/1. It turned out to be a one-off thing. They should give out five GoH when you hit 60 nights. Then you'd have six total when you combine it with the 40 night award.
Great. But Hyatt can we please address the way you have to transfer points to other members? Also, FNCs now need to be a 5 and an 8. Hilton is smoking them with the FNCs.
I traded my 5 Miravals last year as there aren’t any outside the US for either 2 FNA or a combo FNA and SUA and my GOH for more FNA.
No sense in reaching 150 Hyatt nights anymore for me.
Seems completely reasonable. A lot of award restrictions originate from China for whatever reason and I can’t help but wonder if the fraudsters there found a way to abuse the system that Hyatt is trying to limit.
This makes sense except for GoH, which exists solely to be gifted and should be uncapped.
As someone who received a GoH award, even I have to disagree with you. If you are receiving more than 10 awards in one year then not only is that not within the spirit of the whole loyalty program, that's fully abusing the system. At that point you should be getting Globalist on your own.
The only people who want to receive more than 10 per year are brokers/abusers who then turn around and sell the awards.
Um, the spirit of the GoH system is literally to give them to people. You're making an unsubstantiated assertion based on your gut feeling from having "received a GoH award".
If I were to get Globalist from 10 stays, I'd need to average at least 6 nights per stay. I often do weekend trips and have several friends with Globalist status. I'm not sure I do get to 10 in a year, but I go...
Um, the spirit of the GoH system is literally to give them to people. You're making an unsubstantiated assertion based on your gut feeling from having "received a GoH award".
If I were to get Globalist from 10 stays, I'd need to average at least 6 nights per stay. I often do weekend trips and have several friends with Globalist status. I'm not sure I do get to 10 in a year, but I go through at least 5 every year and now I'll have to start keeping track to make sure I don't exhaust my quota before my end-of-year holiday trip.
If Hyatt's only goal is to go after brokers, they could set a cap that would be ridiculous for an individual but highly unprofitable for a broker, like 30. Even 20 should be enough. 10 is just cutting it a bit too thin for GoH.
If you don’t think there is a huge black market for trading and selling these things I have a pair of gold sneakers to sell you. Also no offense but if you need to be constantly getting freebies from Globalist friends and families then you probably need to start getting your own status and stop asking for benefits charity. Benefits on demand isn’t the intent of the program. It’s getting you to like the benefits...
If you don’t think there is a huge black market for trading and selling these things I have a pair of gold sneakers to sell you. Also no offense but if you need to be constantly getting freebies from Globalist friends and families then you probably need to start getting your own status and stop asking for benefits charity. Benefits on demand isn’t the intent of the program. It’s getting you to like the benefits so you can then get them on your own. 10 is more than enough.
@Michael please do share where I said or even implied any of that. Read my last paragraph as you clearly missed it the first time around.
And no, I don't need freebies. I like them, and am neither a broker nor a Globalist myself. That's the whole counterpoint to the absurd argument that the only people who could use 10+ GoH are brokers abusing the system.
> It’s getting you to like the benefits so...
@Michael please do share where I said or even implied any of that. Read my last paragraph as you clearly missed it the first time around.
And no, I don't need freebies. I like them, and am neither a broker nor a Globalist myself. That's the whole counterpoint to the absurd argument that the only people who could use 10+ GoH are brokers abusing the system.
> It’s getting you to like the benefits so you can then get them on your own.
Uh, no, it's getting me to stay at a Hyatt when I might otherwise stay somewhere else. Hyatt makes more money giving me free breakfast than they do when I stay at a Marriott. That's why the GoH donor gets a qualifying night - it encourages them to be "salespeople" for Hyatt. If Hyatt really thought they were losing money on GoH they wouldn't incentivize Globalists to give them out.
If you have a spouse who travels for work and racks up GOH it is conceivable that when the family travels together they would use a GOH frequently. Maybe cap receiving GOH from someone at a different address (at first I though same last name but than that would work against partners/Spouse with a different last name) But for people getting more than 10 from non-household sources it is more than generous. I know when...
If you have a spouse who travels for work and racks up GOH it is conceivable that when the family travels together they would use a GOH frequently. Maybe cap receiving GOH from someone at a different address (at first I though same last name but than that would work against partners/Spouse with a different last name) But for people getting more than 10 from non-household sources it is more than generous. I know when we travel as a family we frequently change hotels every couple of days since we don't stay in one spot normally so I could see using close to 10 GOH over a year.
If you’re traveling together then you don’t need the benefits unless you are constantly booking two rooms. And even with two rooms the free breakfast will cover a family of 4.