World of Hyatt’s Globalist status is probably the most sought after status of any of the main hotel chains thanks to its generous benefits that can do much to enhance your stays.
Somewhat ironically, its most unique benefit is one that you don’t get to enjoy yourself. That’s because the Guest of Honor benefit is one you can use to confer your other Globalist benefits on others, so your friends and family can get perks like free breakfast, suite upgrades and more when booking award stays.
There are some quirks and restrictions for how this benefit can be used, so here’s a guide showing how to use Hyatt’s Guest of Honor benefit.
Can The Guest Of Honor Benefit Be Used On Both Paid And Award Stays?
No, the benefit can’t be used for paid stays – only award stays, or what Hyatt refers to as “Free Night Awards”.
Free Night Awards include stays using points and free night certificates (such as the certificates that come when renewing Hyatt credit cards), but not Points + Cash reservations.
Whose Account Does The Stay Need To Be Booked From?
The Guest of Honor stay needs to be booked by the World of Hyatt member with the Globalist status, although the person benefiting from the stay needs a World of Hyatt account of their own.
How To Transfer Hyatt Points Between Accounts
In most cases, this benefit will be used when booking award stays using points rather than free night certificates. If you’re particularly generous, this can be done using your own points.
The person you’re booking for can indirectly redeem their own points for the stay though. To do that, they can transfer points from their account to yours. One of the nice features of the World of Hyatt program is that it allows free points transfers between accounts, unlike some other hotel loyalty programs that charge a fee for doing that.
To transfer points between Hyatt accounts, you need to download this form from Hyatt’s website. The Globalist member’s details go in the ‘Member #2’ section, with ‘Member #1’ being the person transferring the points and who’ll benefit from the Guest of Honor benefits during the stay. The form can then be emailed to worldofhyatt@hyatt.com or mailed to World of Hyatt Customer Service, PO Box 27089, Omaha, NE 68127-0089 in the US.
Hyatt doesn’t give a specific timeline for how quickly they’ll process points transfers, but in my personal experience the transfers have been processed within 24 hours or so.
Note that you can only transfer points in or out of an account once every 30 days, so you’ll want to ensure the correct number of points is transferred.
How To Book A Guest Of Honor Stay
There are a few ways that you can book a Guest of Honor stay:
- Concierge – Another Globalist benefit is access to a concierge. You can email them and have them book the stay. This is the method I’ve always used as it’s quick and easy to do.
- Call – If you prefer, you can book over the phone. Check this page for the World of Hyatt contact number for your region.
Twitter – I haven’t used this method myself, but my understanding is that you can book Guest of Honor stays by contacting Hyatt Concierge on Twitter via Direct Message.Update: The Twitter route is sadly no longer an option.
Here’s an example of an email I’d send to my concierge when wanting to book a Guest of Honor stay:
Hi Michelle,
I hope you’re having a good week so far. Would you mind making a Guest of Honor reservation for me?
Here are the details:
Hotel Property:
Dates:
Award Price & Total Points:
Number Of Adults/Children:
Guest Name:
Guest’s World of Hyatt Account Number:
Guest’s Address:
Guest’s Phone Number:
Guest’s Email Address:My World of Hyatt Account Number:
Email Address Associated With My Account:
n.b. The reason I mention the email address associated with my account is because it’s slightly different from the one I email my concierge from.
After sending the email, I’ve usually received a reply within 24 hours confirming that they’ve booked the stay. The booking confirmation itself is then sent to the friend or family member who’ll actually be staying.
Who Receives Elite Night Credits On Guest Of Honor Stays?
The person staying receives the elite night credits, not the Globalist member who’s conferring their benefits.
What Benefits Do People Receive On Guest Of Honor Stays?
The following Globalist benefits can be enjoyed by the non-Globalist member during the stay:
- Room upgrades (including eligibility for suite upgrades)
- 4pm late checkout
- Club Access or breakfast
- Free parking
- Bottled water
- Premium internet
Can Suite Upgrade Awards Be Used For Guest Of Honor Stays?
Globalist members used to receive four Suite Upgrade Awards when earning the status. That changed somewhat with the introduction of Milestone Rewards in 2019; you now receive two Suite Upgrade Awards after reaching 50 elite nights, with a further two Suite Upgrade Awards being earned after reaching 60 elite nights.
One disappointing aspect of the Guest of Honor benefit is that the member with Globalist status can’t redeem these awards when booking a Guest of Honor stay. The person staying is still eligible for suite upgrades when checking in – they just can’t lock in a standard suite ahead of time unless you specifically book a suite using points.
How Frequently Can You Use The Guest Of Honor Benefit?
World of Hyatt doesn’t specify a limit on how frequently you can use this benefit. As mentioned earlier though, points transfers are limited to one every 30 days. That therefore places a default limitation if you’re relying on points transferred in from your friends or family members to book the stays.
What Brands Can The Benefit Be Used At?
Guest of Honor stays can be booked at the following Hyatt brands:
- Park Hyatt
- Miraval
- Grand Hyatt
- Hyatt Regency
- Hyatt
- Andaz
- Hyatt Centric
- The Unbound Collection by Hyatt
- Thompson Hotels
- Alila (some locations only)
- Joie de Vivre (some locations only)
- Destination (both participating Destination Hotels and participating Destination Residences locations, but only once the applicable location begins participating in the Program)
- Hyatt Place
- Hyatt House
- Hyatt Ziva or Hyatt Zilara hotel or resort.
The benefit can’t be used at Hyatt Residence Club resorts.
Does The Globalist Member Have To Stay At The Same Time?
The Guest of Honor benefit is flexible in that it can be used whether or not the Globalist member is staying at the same time as the person receiving the benefits.
Does The Guest Earn The 30% Bonus Points Globalists Earn On Spending Charged To The Room?
One of the benefits of Globalist status is that you earn a 30% bonus on base points. Guest of Honor stays are booked using points or free night certificates, so there aren’t any bonus points to be earned on the room rate.
If you charge anything to your room during your stay, you can still earn points though. Unfortunately, as per Morgan’s confirmation in the comments below, the guest won’t earn a 30% bonus on those base points.
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Update request: The twitter concierge path for guest of honor bookings is no longer available according to this post: https://frequentmiler.com/hyatt-twitter-team-no-longer-makes-guest-of-honor-bookings/
Thanks for the reminder – I’ve updated the post.
If a Globalist friend books a stay for me as a Guest of honor, will I receive the 2022 points per Bonus journeys promotion (Jan 15/22- apr 20/22) for the two night stay? Or will the globalist get those points?
The Globalist member wouldn’t earn the points. In theory you should earn the 2,022 bonus points, but with a previous promotion I think we were advised by our Hyatt rep that Guest of Honor stays wouldn’t be eligible for bonus points of this nature. I’m not sure if that’s the case this time (or if that was actually enforced with the previous promotion), so I’d count the bonus points truly as a bonus if you receive them, but I wouldn’t count on receiving them if that would be a deal breaker.
[…] most benefits of Hyatt Globalist status any time by transferring my Hyatt points to a Globalist and having them book me a Guest of Honor stay. He notes that in the short term, my chances for a free upgrade at check-in may be higher due to […]
What about when there are Hyatt promos now like 15%-25% of points back on stays until October. If I use points for a friend will I get the rebate of points since my points were used as Globalist? How does that work?
It depends on how you want to work it out with your friend. If you have some additional points in your account, you could have them transfer over the net cost. You’d then pay the extra amount up-front, but you’d get that rebated so you’d come out even.
If you don’t have enough points in your account, you could have your friend transfer over the full number of points. Once the points have been rebated, you could transfer them back.
Note that you can only transfer points in or out of an account once per month though, so it might take a few extra weeks for your friend to get their rebated points back from you depending on when the transfers were done.
No, I asked my concierge and she responded that with Guest of Honor bookings even when there is a promotion and you’re registered NEITHER party is eligible to get points rebated on Guest of Honor bookings.
That might be true, but there’s nothing in the terms of the latest promotion to state that Guest of Honor bookings are excluded from receiving the rebate, so in practice you might still get the points.
That would be nice but concierge said she gets asked this all the time and points wouldn’t post. It would be great if it showed up but not holding my breath after seeing her email. 🙁
How can I find a friend that is a Globalist? 😉
We plan to have a family reunion vacation at a Hyatt post Covid, maybe mid 2021. I’m Globalist and I was wondering if there would be any restriction to book multiple Guest of Honor Bookings at the same hotel for the same night (One for the parents, 1-2 rooms for my siblings and their kids, one for the grandparents and my own room).
Would this be possible or would Hyatt have a cap on this?
Yes, I believe you can book multiple rooms at the same time using the Guest of Honor benefit. There might be some kind of limit, but in your particular scenario I don’t think it would be an issue.
You’d have to book using points in your account and you can only receive one transfer every 30 days. If they’ll be transferring points to you for the stay rather than you using your own stash of points, you’d need to start having them transfer points a few months ahead of time.
Stephen, is there any tangible
upside for a Globalist when making a Guest of Honor reservation for someone?
Does Hyatt consider a Globalist who makes many Guest of Honor reservations more valuable than one who does not?
If yes, wouldn’t there be an incentive for Globalists to seek out people to book using the Globalists’ status?
There isn’t any tangible benefit for Globalist members other than the (somewhat intangible) goodwill from the friends & family you book for.
If anything I would think they would be leas valuable. Those extra benifits come at a cost. Bigger rooms take more effort to clean, breakfast isn’t free for the hotel to serve and parking is a source of revenue the hotel is forgoing on these bookings.
The benifits the hotel gets are mostly intangibles like, positive brand association with the staying guest and most importantly happy globalist members.
If I have “free night certificate” from my WOH cc, how do you transfer those to the member with Globalists status? Using the same form?
I don’t believe you can transfer free night certificates to Globalist members – only points.
If you’ll be creating a stay using a mix of points and free night certificates, it might be possible to book a Guest of Honor stay for the first few nights using points, then creating a second (non-Guest of Honor) reservation with your free night certificate(s). That way you’ll definitely be eligible for the Guest of Honor benefits at the start of your stay; the hotel would then hopefully extend those benefits for the additional night(s) at the end when you used your free night certificates.
There’s no guarantee that’d work, but it might do. For example, we stayed at a Grand Hyatt a couple of years ago using a couple of my free night certificates and one of my wife’s. We booked the first two nights using my certificates as I have Globalist status; whereas my wife only had Discoverist. We got to stay in the same suite on that third night and continued having access to the Club Lounge despite that night being booked on my wife’s account.
Seems like a big hassle. Not the kind of thing a non points enthusiast would want to deal with. If/when I become Globalist, I hope they replace this with something a little easier to use.
I’m a little confused why this is a hassle. If you have Globalist status, you don’t have to do anything for your own stays as you automatically get all the Globalist benefits. It’s only if you book stays for non-Globalist members so that they can take advantage of your benefits that you have to do anything.
While there is a little work involved, if it means your friend or family member gets to enjoy suite upgrades, free breakfast, free parking, 4pm late checkout, etc., it’s worth the minimal effort seeing as all that’s needed is two emails (one to transfer points and one to book the stay).
Is there any downside to booking multiple Guest of Honor stays for yourself if you have a close friend or family member who is a Globalist? For some reason I thought that the Globalist making the booking gets the elite night credits but apparently that’s not true according to this article. Does the person staying also earn points on incidentals as they normally would? Now I’m wondering if I should just transfer over my points to a friend of mine and have him make the booking for me…
Is there any downside to booking multiple Guest of Honor stays for yourself if you have a close friend or family member who is a Globalist? For some reason I thought that the Globalist making the booking gets the elite night credits but apparently that’s not true according to this article.
If you don’t have Globalist status and you know someone who does and who’d be happy booking Guest of Honor stays for you, there’s no downside other than having to take the additional steps of transferring them your points and having them make the reservation.
Does the person staying also earn points on incidentals as they normally would?
Yes, if you charge anything to your room then you do earn points on that spend. I’m not sure if you get the 30% Globalist bonus points on that spend though – I suspect not, but I might be wrong.
Hi Stephen & team, I just had my mom stay on a Guest of Honor stay this weekend, checked her app afterwards and confirmed she did not receive the 30% Globalist bonus points on her spend. I was curious about it too!
Thanks for confirming that – I’ll add that in the post.