Major changes were made to the World of Hyatt program as of 2024, whereby the Milestone Rewards program and Guest of Honor perk were totally overhauled. Most significant of all is that so many perks can now be shared freely with others. You can share everything from suite upgrade awards, to club access awards, to free night awards, all with the click of a button directly out of your account.
Given the issues we’ve seen with fraud at other programs, I can’t help but raise the question of if/how Hyatt will combat this?
In this post:
Loyalty programs have big issues with fraud
Travel loyalty programs are a multi-billion dollar industry, and they’ve had increasingly wide appeal in recent years, not just in the United States, but also in other markets (particularly in China and India, given the large populations of the countries).
While many airline and hotel loyalty programs will let you redeem your rewards for others, they almost all have policies in place to minimize potential fraud. Virtually every loyalty program has a policy against bartering awards. While you can sometimes share rewards with friends and family, the goal is to stop the mileage and points broker industry, which is huge underground business.
Programs go about this in a variety of ways. For example, some frequent flyer programs limit your ability to freely redeem points for others (by requiring you to designate certain nominees), or to redeem for awards at the last minute in select regions, while some hotel programs limit the ability to transfer points to others.
For the most part, we’ve seen more restrictions put in place in recent years, rather than fewer restrictions. World of Hyatt is countering the trend with its recent changes, so let’s talk a bit more about that.
How will World of Hyatt combat award fraud?
World of Hyatt now makes it possible to transfer all kinds of awards to others, just by having the last name and World of Hyatt number of the person you want to transfer awards to. It has never been so easy to transfer awards to others.
Now, I’d encourage everyone to play by the rules. I certainly do, because any risks just aren’t worth it, and I also believe in acting in good faith when a program chooses to be generous.
However, I think it’s inevitable that there’s going to be a huge online market of people buying and selling all kinds of Hyatt awards. After all, they can be transfered so easily, and some of these perks could be worth many hundreds of dollars. The process of making a transfer is also quite anonymous, as you don’t even see the name or World of Hyatt number of the person who transfered you an award.
Now, I don’t necessarily have a strong take on this one way or another, though I’m curious for how long awards can be gifted so easily without some changes being implemented. Personally, I hope that World of Hyatt is simply aggressive with auditing people with suspicious account activity, or that Hyatt even actively monitors websites where awards could be traded or sold.
If Hyatt does find that there are issues with fraud and wants to cut down on it, I have one idea — make these transfers a bit less anonymous. If someone transfers you an award, Hyatt should send an email saying “[full name] has gifted you [an award].” Maybe even include part of their World of Hyatt number.
That would certainly increase the risk for those choosing to barter these awards. And if you are genuinely using these awards for family or close friends (as the intent is) then you should have no issues with them having your full name, of course.
Or who knows, maybe fraud won’t be a major issue. After all, earning Milestone Rewards requires quite a few stays or a lot of credit card spending, so perhaps the market won’t be as big as it is for some other things.
Bottom line
While many loyalty programs have added restrictions on sharing some benefits to combat fraud, World of Hyatt is going the opposite direction, and is making it easier than ever before to share awards with others. Personally I love this change, because historically Hyatt has lagged when it comes to being able to perform some functions online.
Given the general industry trend, I can’t help but wonder how all of this will evolve when it comes to preventing fraud from members. After all, the loyalty program bartering industry is a pretty big one…
What’s your take on this — do you think Hyatt will have to make some updates to combat fraud, or how do you see this playing out?
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...
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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.
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?
I am looking to trade my guest of honor awards for a suite upgrade award. Please reach out to me if interested.
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 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...
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.
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!
By the way, an email IS sent by Hyatt to both to the giver & receiver with first names disclosed on both
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...
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.
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.
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.
@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.
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."
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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’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.