Will World Of Hyatt Have Award Fraud Issues?

I’m amused this is being posed as though it isn’t already a problem. I’ve had to reclaim at least 4 suite upgrade awards that were in inappropriately applied to other peoples reservations over the past 3 years.

When I ask for them to research why this happened so frequently, they just tell me to reset my password.

To Ben’s point, this is likely to get worse. Be vigilant on your awards and take screenshots.

@ Andrew -- Wow, I'm surprised to hear that, especially given that calling is currently required. I've dealt with fraud with some programs, but it has never been an issue with World of Hyatt.

Also, this post is more about those intending to barter their awards, rather than hackers managing to steal stuff, which is also a big issue.

I assume the limited number of each of these awards (particularly Guest of Honor) will limit fraud. GOH is only giftable from Globalists, and it's difficult to obtain and maintain the status. So if an average Globalist had absolutely 0 friends/family they wanted to legitimately gift GOH status to, they could only "sell" up to 5-8 awards. Maybe they could get $2-300 per award, but very few people would probably want to risk their valuable Hyatt status for ~$1500. And keep in mind, it wouldn't be easy for a single person to maintain multiple Hyatt accounts that were Globalist, so there is no practical way to leverage multiple accounts/awards. I'm guessing more fraud and/or GOH super-users (even if legitimately giving to friends/family) happened under the unlimited system that was more difficult to book.

The solution is that the recipient should receive an email from Hyatt saying "selling awards is against the program rules and will be aggressively enforced. If you did buy this award and report the purchase to us now, we will take no action against you & you may use the award. However, if you fail to report this purchase to us, we will find out and you will be permanently banned from Hyatt properties."

@ben - any thoughts as to what is going on with aeroplan family sharing and changes to that program? Seems they’ve shut down making any changes to family pools given fraud issues as well.

Employees of a certain Sheraton hotel transferred 1000 fraud miles each to a few guests who complained about the hotel to Marriott, and successfully got their accounts audited.
To put into perspective how bad fraud is among loyalty programs now.

People who are buying these awards are generally not elites and can create new accounts, so the ban threat will deter little. Also unlikely they’d want to rat on a supplier if they’re a happy customer.

GoH awards still require the recipient to pay, and as compared to a SUA, the cost to Hyatt is almost nothing, only to the property. Zero impact to Hyatt other than more bookings.

Anyone who wants to pay a globalist for a GoH award will likely have a better experience than they would otherwise, hence increasing the chance that they may switch loyalty to Hyatt. Positive impact to Hyatt, and I bet they see this as a marketing expense.

SUAs are the awards that are most expensive, but again to properties and only for housekeeping. SUAs are hard to apply at the places you most want to use them, so low abuse potential. And upside is high for loyalty.

I just processed several “gifts” yesterday & thought same. SO easy & wonderful, though! The transferred night at least has a picture of a gold present to the right of the cert to indicate it’s different. Nice that whoever it is transferred to also receives the elite night credit!

This is exactly why I think the recent changes are a devaluation. For example, if lots of people sell suite upgrades, it’s going to make it much harder for honest people to use them.

I am looking to trade my guest of honor awards for a suite upgrade award. Please reach out to me if interested.

Hyatt could threaten that the transaction can be audited at any time, which may result in the reservation being cancelled, and/or Hyatt memberships being cancelled. I imagine most people wouldn't want to risk having their big trip cancelled last minute, with the threat of an audit that would review more than just their booking.

Hotel points should belong to the person who earned them. The owner of the points should be free to sell, give, transfer or otherwise convey their points to whomever they choose. Why do hotel loyalty members allow hotels to control their points?

Well even if hyatt sends an email, stillamy issues. I think the reward program hacking is becoming way too common these days and it is very tideous to get your points and miles back, like filing a police report for an incident you don't know anything about. Lufthansa recently asked me to file a report without any details because they refuse to provide details to me about the purchase made through my account because of privacy issue. I didn't understand what privacy issue they are concerned when someone purchased items from my account but German policy refused to accept my police report because I am a resident in the us and american police refused it on the ground that the purchase happened in Germany. Without the police report I cannot get my miles back.

They are effectively capping the annual number of Guest of Honor bookings per Globalist account and the transferable awards may be expected to help attract new and/or more dedicated non-globalist members to the WOH program and thus work for Hyatt HQ’s financial statements. And then at some other point they can further restrict these “new, more shareable benefits” and get around to limiting them even further. And on top of that they can use it as an opportunity to shut down massive point accounts of TOC-violators.

I recently used one of the Hyatt GOH awards and it was a sub-optimal draw on the account with no benefits because the hotel had literally nothing to offer with it except club access, access for which an available club access award could have and should have been used instead and maybe even also got drawn. This kind of issue will get worse, whether due to agent error or account holder error.

I can barely even get a suite upgrade for any vacation stays at Hyatt because the nature of my travels is that the most desirable vacation stays are always subject to last minute bookings, high demand periods from advance planners, massive spend Chase credit card users, and big stay spenders who “want it, pay for it (at time of booking)”.

Doing 100+ nights at “random” Hyatt hotels gets me less than the big manufactured spend crowd gets themselves just by cashing points to cover expenses directly in USD terms on their stays even as infrequent travelers.

What you posted sounds like it means a disgruntled or vindictive employee could and/or did set up some customers/users for an account hit/suspension/banning for possibly no objectively good reason.

There are people who are very easily maintaining multiple accounts for their own personal use in a single hotel loyalty program. There are three primary ways in which this is presumably still being done: 1) different names on different ID; 2) different accounts even with same ID but some different profile data; 3) using hotels where the hotel and/or staff don’t make a show-stopping issue of ID checking for one reason or another.

By the way, an email IS sent by Hyatt to both to the giver & receiver with first names disclosed on both

Right, having multiple accounts might not be too difficult but having multiple GLOBALIST accounts would be:
"...it wouldn't be easy for a single person to maintain multiple Hyatt accounts that were Globalist, so there is no practical way to leverage multiple accounts/awards."
I just don't think it's worth anyone's time to try to manufacture 60 nights (or 20+ with a status challenge) on multiple accounts just to be able to sell a limited number of awards.

I don't see any major issues with GoH or Club Access awards. Neither provide enough value for someone to go out of their way to buy/sell them, but make nice gifts for friends or family to get a taste of Globalist benefits.

The only real concern I have are the SUA's. Currently, many Globalists are having trouble using all of their certs at high end properties and may let 1 or 2 expire, or use them at less desirable properties or short stays to get some value from them. My fear is these will turn into family shared accounts, similar to the Amex Plat with 3 free AU's and Centurian access did. Mom and dad will make Globalist, then give the extra SUA's to adult children to use at coveted resort properties, just as they gave them AU Plats previously. That will impact availability at the most coveted resorts and may need to be adjusted in the future.

Do people really have trouble using their suite upgrade awards? I've never had a problem with it. Pretty much anywhere I want to use it I can unless it's a last minute booking. Yeah there are some top top tier properties that it might be difficult to use it at but I guess we don't usually stay at cat 7-8 anyway so I've never tried.