Get Points and Stay Credit When You Book a Room For Someone

Reserve the least expensive room and get a free upgrade to a suite. Enjoy free breakfast every morning. Take advantage of having premium Wi-Fi in your room. These are just a few of the perks that you get with hotel elite status.

Earning elite night credit booking a room for someone else
(Photo by Debra Schroeder/Traveling Well For Less)

When you’ve enjoyed the benefits of status and VIP treatment at hotels, you don’t want to give it up. You may be looking for ways to earn those hotel nights.

Noah emailed asking:

I need three more nights this year to earn Globalist. I don’t have any travel planned but my wife is going on a girls trip with her friends. Can I book a room for her in my name and get the points and stay credit if I’m not staying?

He wants to know if he can get points and stay credit by booking a hotel room for someone.

It can be hard to keep hotel elite status, such as World of Hyatt Globalist without business travel or spending on travel rewards cards like the card_name.

Pro-tip: You can earn 5 elite qualifying nights for every $10,000 in purchases each calendar year on the Hyatt Business Card.

Second Guest Reservation

Some folks look for creative ways to requalify and/or earn hotel elite status. One way is to book a second guest reservation (the second guest trick) to earn elite night hotel credit and points.

With the second guest trick, you book a hotel room and add another person’s name to the reservation as a second guest. The second guest checks in and you get the hotel elite night credit and earn points for the stay.

Some folks have successfully used the second guest trick to book rooms for friends and family but it’s not allowed.

The terms and conditions of the World of Hyatt’s loyalty program and most hotel programs state the member has to stay and pay for the room to earn credit, points, and perks.

The Member must actually check-in and complete the stay for his or her reservation at a Point Property to earn points.

If you book a second guest reservation, you can lose your points, hotel status, and your account could get closed.

Pro-tip: You can add someone to your reservation and they can use the hotel room. But you can’t earn elite night credit or points if you aren’t staying.

Do Hotels Care About Second Guest Bookings

While most hotels in the United States don’t check or verify if the primary guest doesn’t show up. They can and are within their right to do so.

Hotels in other countries have to check the passports of each person in the room. So they can deny check-in to the second guest if the person who booked the room doesn’t show up

During a stay in Vancouver over Christmas, I watched a desk agent refuse to check in a woman. They denied her check-in because she was a second guest on the reservation.

The friend who booked the room, a Globalist, hadn’t checked in nor was she going to. The poor woman had to find another hotel last minute during the holidays.

What to Do Instead

Instead of making a second guest reservation, you can use your points to book a room for someone in their name.

If you’re a Globalist, you can book a Guest of Honor reservation for someone and they get all the perks of Globalist status.

Booking a room in someone else’s name won’t help you earn elite nights or points so consider a mattress run. Look for an inexpensive Category 1 to 2 hotel to get those extra qualifying nights.

Pro-tip: You can find cheap rates on the weekends in Dallas, Chicago, and Washington DC.

Conclusion

Wondering if you can earn elite night hotel credit and points for booking a room for someone else?

You can add someone to your room as a second guest. This assumes that you, the primary person on the reservation, are also staying in the room.

A second guest reservation where you have no plans to stay is against the terms of the hotel’s loyalty program. Your guest could get turned away and denied check-in. You also risk losing your hotel loyalty account and all the points and perks.

Are you willing to use the second guest trick to keep your hotel elite status?