I used a Hyatt award transfer to convert my wife's free night certificate into a two night stay for me. The World of Hyatt program perk has been used by us for a few years now, but I have never written about it on the site. On this week's show, we talked about this.
If you have a two player system and have never heard of a Hyatt award transfer, then you are in for a treat. If you have Hyatt status, it's even more important.
It can be difficult for a spouse or significant other to get a hotel loyalty program certificate. Even if they are not traveling with you, you can still use the certificate to book a hotel room for yourself. Is it possible that you are chasing status or have status? You can't use your status perks during your stay if you use their certificate. Are you saying there's no free breakfast? The horror is frightening.
You can have your cake with a Hyatt award transfer. If the person transfers the certificate to your account, you can use it as if it's your own.
This sounds amazing but how is it accomplished? The person with the certificate can be virtually anyone as far as I know and doesn't have to be in your household, so you need to call into World of Hyatt and make the booking for you. The following is needed for the call.
They will want to make a Hyatt award transfer booking once they get on the phone. Around 50% of the agents know what this is. If the rep doesn't seem to grasp the term have the person calling say they would like to use their free night for your account to take advantage of your status
Someone who knows what's going on will give the caller all of the information. They need to give the World of Hyatt number to you in order to attach it to your account. You have to give them your email info so they can send the confirmation to you. You should be able to see the booking in your account once it is all set.
I got the email confirmation when it wasn't in my account. The Hyatt team was able to add my number to my account after I contacted them.
This perk was used for our trip to Chicago. The transfer of World of Hyatt points from my wife's account to my account was taking forever. Since we had the points needed with Hyatt already, we just needed them in the right account, I didn't want to do another Ultimate rewards to Hyatt transfer. I was not able to find a hotel for my upcoming trip because I needed to book one.
The Thompson is a category 4 hotel. I only had one free night certificate on my account to use at the time of booking, and it was a peak award of 18k a night. I booked the first night with my last free night certificate, and the second night with the last 18,000 points in my account. A few weeks later a free night certificate was sent to my wife's account for finishing her World of Hyatt card.
The category 2 hotel I needed to book for my next trip was 8,000 points a night and it was the only one I could find. I was able to pull a rope with our booking. If my wife made a Hyatt award transfer booking for the Thompson, I would be able to cancel my reservation and get back the 18,000 points I had used. I could use those points to book the two nights I needed at the category 2 hotel, and still have a lot of points left over. Our one night cert was turned into two nights at another hotel.
The award transfer is similar to a guest of honor booking. If you want to hit another brand explorer perk, this is a must use option. The transfer option is open to everyone. It is possible to split the hotel booking for a friends trip and still maximize the value between you by focusing on the account with status. Booking our free night this way allowed us to use my wife's certificate from an account with no status but still get free breakfast, free parking and late checkout because of my Globalist status.
This makes Hyatt free night certificates even more valuable in a two player system. Hopefully this comes in handy for you in the future.
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