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Have you ever wondered whether it is possible to gift your hotel points or free night certificate to a family member or friend? In many cases, you can.
If you are points and/or free night certificate rich or you just may not be ready to travel before certificates expire, read on or bookmark this page for a complete guide about whether and how you can gift points, reserve a room for someone else, or gift free night certificates to others.
Can you gift someone your hotel points?
Whether you have a mountain of points, a generous spirit, or just a desire to give the gift of travel without spending dollars and cents, it might make sense to give your points to someone else. Here are the rules for major hotel programs.
Choice Privileges
Choice Privileges leaves no ambiguity: you can’t transfer points to another member. From their program terms under the heading “There are no point transfers”: “You may not transfer your points to anyone or by any means, including through a will or divorce decree.” Lest you get creative with terminology and hope to “combine” points, they don’t allow that, either: “You may not combine your points with points belonging to anyone else, including your spouse.”
Hilton Honors
Hilton allows points transfers, as well as points pooling with up to 10 other members in a pool free of charge. Each member can transfer up to 500,000 points per calendar year into a pool and a member can receive up to 2 million points. To participate in points pooling, your account must have been active for at least 30 days and you must have at least 1,000 points. In addition, Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to making six transfers to other member accounts and six points pooling transactions per calendar year.
To pool or transfer Hilton points, go to this page. Any member can create a pool and invite others to join and contribute (provided they meet the terms above). According to the FAQ page, point pooling is instant but may take some time to show up online. In my experience, it hasn’t been instant but rather has taken days, so plan accordingly.
IHG Rewards Club
IHG allows you to transfer points to another member without limits for a fee of $5 per 1,000 points. At a cost of 0.5c per point to transfer, that’s a horrible deal. IHG frequently sells points for the same price, so you’re better off waiting for a sale and simply buying points rather than paying to transfer them unless you’re looking to just top up an account for a specific award and points aren’t currently on sale.
However, IHG does allow free transfers from Diamond members and from accounts that are registered with IHG Business Rewards…but anyone can join IHG Business Rewards. Both Diamond and Business Rewards members can transfer up to 500,000 IHG One Rewards points every calendar year for no fee. Transfers can only be done to accounts that have been open for at least 30 days. You can transfer points at this link.
Marriott Bonvoy
Marriott allows any member to transfer up to 100,000 points per year to other members and an individual member can receive up to 500,000 points per year from such transfers. Marriott allows this free of charge regardless of elite status. Note that both accounts need to be open and in good standing for at least 30 days with qualifying activity or at least 90 days without qualifying activity.
While it used to be necessary to call Marriott to transfer points, you can now do this online (log in here to initiate a transfer). Note that you’ll need the recipient’s Marriott Bonvoy number and his or her first and last name exactly as they appear on the member’s account.
World of Hyatt
Hyatt allows the transfer of points from one member to any other member. The “catch” is that a member can only send or receive points once every 30 days. In other words, once you send points to someone or receive them from someone, you are locked out of transfers in or out for 30 days. However, that’s not a major limitation for many people.
To transfer Hyatt points to another member, simply fill out this form and submit it to Hyatt customer service via email at combinepoints@hyatt.com. The Hyatt transfer form indicates that only the number of points necessary to book a specific award stay can be transferred, but I’ve never been asked for details about this. I am also unaware of annual annual maximums here. Note that as you must submit this form via email, the process isn’t instant (though in my experience it is reasonably fast).
Can you book a free night for someone else using your points?
If you are looking to book a room for someone else, you may prefer to handle the details and book directly from your account rather than to book it by transferring points to their account. In some cases, an advantage here could be getting the points back in your account if you cancel (though that isn’t always how it works as you’ll see in terms below). Still, if this is a gift, it might be easiest to handle the booking process yourself.
Choice Privileges
Choice privileges allows you to book a reward night an immediate family member even if you are not occupying the room. They define an immediate family member as a spouse, partner, children, parents, in-laws, brother or sister.
Booking for someone else is straightforward: if booking over the phone, ask the reservations agent to put the name of the guest staying in the “notes” field. If you’re booking online, put the name of the guest staying in the “Special Requests” field. You may want to follow up with the hotel by phone in advance.
Hilton Honors
While not specifically addressed in program terms, Hilton provides a section in their online reservation to add an additional name “to allow another guest to check in”. I’ve done this to book for others many times before without issue, though I would be a bit hesitant if booking this way for a room abroad. In that case, I’d advise either pooling points and allowing the other member to book for themselves or reaching out to the hotel in advance to confirm.
IHG Rewards Club
IHG now explicitly allows members to book award stays for someone else as part of the program’s terms and conditions. You can book an award stay for someone else by making the booking via IHG’s website or app and then adding an additional name to the reservation. Easy-peasy.
Marriott Bonvoy
Marriott allows making an award redemption as a gift for another guest using your Marriott Bonvoy points, but you need to either contact Marriott over the phone to make a Gifted Award Redemption Stay reservation or to change the name on a booking you’ve already made to convert it to a Gifted redemption. Bonvoy members may only gift five reservations per year.
Note that when booking a Gifted Award Redemption Stay, neither member will earn elite night credit for the night and elite benefits will not transfer to the recipient.
World of Hyatt
Hyatt is well known for having the best deal for top-tier elite members looking to treat friends or family to a stay. Guest of Honor reservations allow the user to receive full Globalist benefits (including free breakfast, lounge access, free parking, guaranteed 4pm late checkout, and the potential for an upgrade to a suite at check-in based on availability). In 2024, Guest of Honor became a Milestone Reward (previously it was a perk exclusive to Globalist status). It gives you the ability to give someone (including yourself) Globalist status for a single stay, up to 7 nights. Additionally, when given to another person, the giver will receive an elite qualifying night upon completion of the stay.
Members without Guest of Honor awards can still gift an award stay to another member, though no other benefits will apply (for example, a stay gifted by an Explorist member will not get the 2pm late checkout that an Explorist member would ordinarily have). Also note that it is possible that a gifted stay may not be refundable. To gift a stay to someone else, you can simply transfer the Guest of Honor award online.
Can you use a free night certificate to book a room for someone else?
Choice Privileges
Choice privileges does not have any type of free night certificates.
Hilton Honors
Hilton allows free night award certificates to be redeemed for someone else, but once the certificate becomes “issued” to a person (presumably through making a reservation), it is non-transferable. See this from the free night terms: “Reward Certificate may be issued to the Hilton Honors Member, any person in the Member’s family, or to any other person, as directed by the Member. Once issued, rewards are not transferable and may be used only by the individual named on the reward. If a person other than the individual named on the reward documentation attempts to redeem the reward, the reward will be deemed void and accommodations and/or transportation will be denied”.
IHG Rewards Club
The free night certificates issued with the IHG Select (no longer available to new applicants), IHG Premier and IHG Premier Business cards must be used for a reservation in the name of the primary cardmember. However, now that IHG explicitly allows members to book award stays for someone else, you should be able to use an anniversary certificate for someone else by making the booking via IHG’s website or app and then adding an additional name to the reservation.
Marriott Bonvoy
Marriott does not officially allow using a free night certificate to book for someone else. That said, the “additional guest” method of adding someone else’s name to the reservation has been known to work in many cases. You can edit the billing name and address during the booking process online, though I haven’t tried booking a free night certificate for someone else that way. Again, many members have reported success in booking free night certificates for others by adding an additional guest name, but as it is not officially allowed there is some element of risk. I’d be particularly cautious about doing that abroad in countries with a culture more heavily focused on rules / procedure.
World of Hyatt
Hyatt free night certificates can generally be gifted to any other Hyatt member. You’ll need to contact Hyatt reservations by phone to make the booking and you may need to make it clear that you are looking to gift the free night certificate rather than use your certificate to book in someone else’s name. Note that at least one member reported that if such a reservation is canceled, the free night certificate may disappear since it will no longer be associated with your account, so be sure about plans before doing this.
The recipient will receive whatever elite benefits to which he or she would normally be entitled. For instance, if a Globalist receives a free night certificate as a gift from someone else, the Globalist will receive Globalist benefits during the stay.
Bottom line
In many cases, it is quite easy to share your points or gift free night certificates to someone else, which could be especially handy at times when you are loaded up with free night certificates and/or unable to travel. I wish that all programs made it easy for you to share the rewards you’ve earned, but some make the process easier than others. While you can often get away with making a reservation and simply adding someone else’s name who will “check in before you arrive”, there are instances where that won’t work (and in fact some people received warnings and possibly account terminations from Hyatt a couple of years ago for doing this often and on a large scale). It’s nice that many programs make this straight-forward and within program terms.
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I just used a Marriott FNC to book the Emita in Cartagena Colombia. I booked for two adults but there was no way to add the name of the second guest during booking or after. It was the same when I tried it with points instead of FNC, so either this hotel is different or the ability to add a guest’s name is now gone from Marriott site. This is for my wife, who has a different last name. Should I assume there is a good chance this won’t work and just cancel? Or should I call hotel and ask if it will work?
Any data points on Sonesta? I’d like to get the new card for my P3 since they have a 5/24 slot available – but to use the points for P1 (me).
You can transfer points to family members for free. You just have to email them and ask for the form.
A few months ago, I booked a Marriott FNC for my parents. I added my dad’s name to the reservation as the second guest. The agent was very adamant that I couldn’t gift the FNC to someone else, but I assured the agent that I would be checking in later after my dad arrived.
A friend of mine successfully used my Marriott free night certs in Japan. I had to call to add his name to the reservation. I think he used a digital key at one property, the other property he checked in at the front-desk. I had to provide my login and a two-factor code so he could access the digital key.
Any data points on Wyndham?
I wonder the same thing! Can I transfer Wyndham points to my spouse?
I’ve been able to book IHG and Choice hotels in Europe for family members this summer. Followed advice in this article, added a guest to the IHG reservation and added a note to the Choice reservation that another person was going to check in. Didn’t have to call the hotels, all check-ins went fine.
[…] Good reference: Gift hotel points, free night certificates, and award nights booked with points: Rules by program. […]
Thank you for updating this helpful article. I think the Hilton certificate section should be revised as I don’t think anyone has figured out how to have certs “issued” to someone else. AFAIK, it’s only possible to use a certificate in the member’s name with someone else added as a second guest. The second guest’s name will show up when you pull up the reservation on the Hilton website so there’s confirmation.
Last weekend, I used someone else’s IHG free night certificate. Despite putting my name as a guest during the reservation and the hotel confirming I was good to go when I called few days before check-in, the hotel did not have my info in the reservation system when I arrived. So, I would not have been able to check in, but because the credit card on file was mine and that’s the card I was checking in with, the clerk let me check in. PHEW. (It’s possible the clerk didn’t know what he was doing.)
Then, to my surprise, when I mentioned I’m also an IHG member, the clerk asked if I wanted to use my own IHG account for the stay credit; of course I said yes and got the credit.
For HH why would you be hesitant to do it abroad? It seems from the t&c that it’s officially allowed
Booking for other with HH certificate. I see no problem doing that. However, in many places you will not get the status benefits (i.e.free breakfast) without the presence of the status owner.
Thank you for refreshing this resource!
As Marriott keeps pushing FNCs more for welcome offers it’s a shame that sharing them isn’t easier.
very helpful article
DP on Hyatt FNC gifting/reserving/cancelling: I just used one of my Hyatt FNCs to transfer to, and book a room for a friend. I then cancelled that reservation and the FNC immediately showed back up as unused in my account.
Any idea on if Marriott Certs can be extended beyond expiration anymore?
I had luck last week. Just make sure you are friendly. If the CSR says no, then HUCA. I lucked out on the second try. They extend it for a year. If you get an agent willing to do it, you don’t have to give a reason. If you get one that’s unwilling, no reason is good enough.