World Of Hyatt Adds (Reasonable) Limits On Gifting Awards

World of Hyatt is adding a new restriction on gifting awards to other members, which seems totally fair to me…

Hyatt limits members to 10 gifted awards per year

Nowadays World of Hyatt lets members gift most types of awards to other travelers. This includes most awards earned through the Milestone Rewards program, like Suite Upgrade Awards, Club Access Awards, Guest of Honor Awards, and Free Night Awards, among others. Honestly, it’s an incredibly generous policy, and it’s a major point of differentiation for those who appreciate being able to share perks with friends and family.

It’s worth noting that Hyatt is adding a minor restriction to being able to transfer rewards to others. As of June 7, 2025, World of Hyatt members will be able to receive at most 10 gifted awards per calendar year. There’s no limit on how many awards you can gift, but rather just on how many you can receive.

Per the updated terms & conditions:

As of June 7, 2025, a Member may be gifted a maximum of ten (10) transferred awards per calendar year in accordance with the process described above. This restriction applies only to the receipt of transferred gift awards. Members remain able to transfer as many eligible awards as they choose.

That seems totally reasonable, as I can’t imagine that many people receive that many gifted awards per year. For that matter, I imagine that most people receiving more than 10 gifted awards within a year probably aren’t playing within the rules.

Note that there are no new limits on transferring points to other members, as that continues to be possible, within the old rules.

I’m surprised we haven’t seen more gifting restrictions

It was only as of early 2024 that World of Hyatt started allowing most types of awards to be gifted to others. It’s a very customer friendly policy that I’m delighted to see, though frankly, I was expecting that we’d see quite a bit of fraud and abuse, given the lack of restrictions on transfers.

As we know, there’s a huge underground business of selling airline and hotel rewards, given the arbitrage opportunities. So I’ve gotta say, I’m very pleasantly surprised by the lack of new restrictions that we’ve seen added.

Bottom line

As of June 2025, World of Hyatt is limiting members to receiving 10 gifted awards per calendar year. I can’t imagine that many people receive more than 10 gifted awards per year in a legitimate way, and I don’t think this limit is at at all unreasonable. It’s worth being aware of, though.

What do you make of Hyatt’s new limit on gifted awards?