Those of you who have read this blog long enough know that I am a fan of Hyatt hotels. Hyatt has one of the most generous award charts, especially considering that many hotel chains are getting rid of their award/loyalty programs. They also have great ways of earning free nights that help reduce the cost of traveling worldwide or to a neighboring state. While my wife and I try to keep points all in one account to make booking stays and earning elite status easier, sometimes it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes our work sends us on trips, and we end up with Hyatt points in two different accounts. Hyatt makes it simple to combine points, so this is not a problem. The following describes how to combine Hyatt points from multiple accounts.
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Who is Eligible to Combine Points and Free Night Awards?
First off, sharing a free night award or suite upgrade with another World of Hyatt member is eligible to all members. There are no published eligibility requirements and no limits on this type of transfer.
Hyatt makes it extremely easy for members to combine points. This ability is open to any member of the World of Hyatt loyalty program. You don’t need to have a special family account. There aren’t any elite-level requirements either. Unlike many other loyalty programs, Hyatt also doesn’t charge a fee to combine or share points. This last item is especially important because paying to combine points really erodes the value of the points that are being shared.
How to Share Free Night Awards and Suite Upgrades?
There is no defined process to share free night awards and suite upgrades. Instead, Hyatt chooses to allow their phone agents to process these requests manually. Therefore, to share a free night award or suite upgrade, members need to contact Hyatt Customer Service at the local number for their area or country. All you will need is your World of Hyatt account information and the account number of the person that you want to share the award or upgrade certificate with.
If you aren’t familiar with the contact information for your region or country, Hyatt has a convenient Contact Information by Region page that is a good reference.
How to Combine Points?
While there wasn’t a formal process for sharing free night awards and suite upgrades, combining points has a more defined process. Unfortunately, this process doesn’t feel like something from the modern era. Hyatt publishes a “Point Combining Request Form” on their website for processing this type of request.
While an online form doesn’t seem bad, the implementation by Hyatt could be much better as they require members to email or mail the form back to their World of Hyatt Customer Service department. In addition, the form provided is not fillable, so you will either need to edit the form in Adobe or print the form to fill it out manually and then scan and email it. This isn’t the most customer-friendly move so Hyatt could definitely improve in this aspect.
The aged request form aside, those wanting to combine points will need some information from both accounts involved in the transfer. It is important that the information provided matches the information registered to each member’s account with Hyatt. The information required on the form includes:
- Full Name
- World of Hyatt Member Number
- Phone Number
- Mailing Address
To finalize the form, fill out who is providing the points and how many. Each member must sign the form prior to sending it back to Hyatt.
A Note on the Terms and Conditions for Transferring Points
The Hyatt terms for combining points specifically include the following language:
Member may combine the necessary number of points from their World of Hyatt account with those in one other specifically designated World of Hyatt account in order to have a sufficient number of points to redeem a particular award. A single member may only participate in a point combining transaction (transferring or receiving of points) once every 30 days.
The first term regarding points transfers having to be in order to redeem a particular award doesn’t mean too much in my eyes. I believe all transfers would be for an award redemption, especially because the terms don’t require a member to book an award within any certain time period. While I could see Hyatt possibly having a problem with someone transferring hundreds of thousands of points into an account that has just as many, any normal use case for combining points should be fine.
The second term regarding a 30-day wait period for combining transactions is enforced. Hyatt will not allow members to be part of a combination transaction more than once in 30 days. Both receiving points and providing points count. Therefore, if Person 1 provides points to Person 2, Person 3 can’t provide points to Person 1 within 30 days. Most people won’t have an issue with this time period since many aren’t combining and redeeming points every 30 days. However, this time period helps Hyatt prevent abuse.
