A Hyatt Diamond — and in the new ‘World of Hyatt’ launching March 1, Globalist – can book an award for someone else using their points and confer top elite status for that stay. That’s called Hyatt’s “Guest of Honor” benefit.
Of course, members often just book a room in their own name and add the person staying to the reservation as a second name. That person shows up, receives benefits, and the elite member receives points and stay credits. That’s not technically the way it’s supposed to work, but it’s how things usually work out.
Points Miles and More points out that the Hyatt-MGM relationship gives you a back door to gift Hyatt elite status to a spouse as well.
MGM M life’s resorts are mostly casino focused and mostly in Las Vegas. Under Hyatt Gold Passport, Hyatt Platinum status (which has come with Hyatt’s co-brand credit card) received M life Gold which is good for room upgrades, free self parking, priority check-in and restaurant reservations, and VIP Line Access for nightclubs and pool day clubs. Hyatt’s Diamonds got M life Platinum which let you skip the valet and taxi queues.
Under World of Hyatt the status matches are becoming less generous. It was somewhat awkward that Hyatt Platinum came with Hyatt’s credit card, and got M life Gold while M life’s new credit card came with lesser status.
Here’s how matching will occur between MGM and Hyatt:
| World of Hyatt Membership Tier | Reciprocal M life Rewards Membership Tier |
| Globalist | Gold Membership |
| Explorist | Gold Membership |
| Discoverist | Pearl Membership |
| Membership | Sapphire Membership |
| M life Rewards Membership Tier | Reciprocal World of Hyatt Membership Tier |
| NOIR Membership | Explorist |
| Platinum Membership | Explorist |
| Gold Membership | Explorist |
| Pearl Membership | Discoverist |
| Sapphire Membership | Membership |
And here’s the backdoor: MGM allows linked accounts.
Two members with the same address may link individual M life Rewards accounts to share their tier, Tier Credit and Express Comps balances. Both members must visit an M life desk in the resort and show a valid identification to link accounts. M life maintains separate account numbers and account histories for every member.
So you can match your Hyatt status to MGM, match your MGM status to your spouse or other individual at the same address, and then they can match their MGM status to Hyatt.
It does require an in-person visit to an M life desk, however.
- A Hyatt ‘Discoverist’ (base level Platinum, free with credit card) gets MGM Pearl, which gets a spouse or roommate Hyatt Discoverist.
- A Hyatt ‘Explorist’ gets MGM Gold, which gets a spouse or roommate Hyatt Explorist.
- A Hyatt ‘Globalist’ will similarly be able to give a spouse or roommate Hyatt Explorist.
The key benefit of Discoverist status is 2pm late checkout. The key benefit of Explorist, in addition to 2pm late checkout, is club lounge access four stays per year.
Thanks for the credit, Gary! This has been a huge money saver on Vegas stays since my husband’s the gambler in the family and now gets significantly better offers as Mlife Gold than before. Plus higher earnings on his rare Hyatt stays of course.
This will be dead in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ….
Currently, I’m Hyatt Platinum through their credit card. Since World of Hyatt starts in March I’ll go down to Discoverist. But I’ll have M Life Gold through October, so could I match my Mlife Gold to Hyatt in order to upgrade to Explorist before October? Hope that wasn’t too confusing lol.
As a diamond I would give my spouse or roommate Hyatt Explorist. But is Explorist very valuable???
Can I do this year after year?
Chad – original poster of article here. It appears that is how it should work but of course nobody can test it yet. MGM and Hyatt don’t talk well to each other electronically which is how this back door exists in the first place.
Greg – Mlife accounts stay linked to your spouse/roommate without doing anything year after year (my now husband and I linked our accounts 4+ years ago). As far as matching to/from Hyatt you should theoretically stay linked to the appropriate tier, but in practice it doesn’t always work that way from other blogs I’ve read. Explorist won’t be extremely valuable but it certainly will be better than nothing!
-Liz
http://www.pointsmilesandmore.com
^^^posting to follow reply
I have the same thought as Brad has above and would want to do the same thing. Gary can you chime in to let us know if that 1 makes sense and 2 how do we go about getting M Life Gold to Match to Hyatt Explorist AFTER March 1st, 2017 as well as finally 3, matching Hyatt Explorist BACK to M Life Gold AFTER October 1st, 2017?
Explorist= Buffet line pass at Bellagio. I love skipping lines so I can pay extra for the Bellagio Buffet .
By “extra” I mean per this link there are 65 holiday days per year where they charge extra:
https://www.bellagio.com/en/restaurants/the-buffet.html
I’m planning to ask my boss for 65 days off each year
I am currently Hyatt Diamond…..is there a reason for me to do this?
We don’t travel to Las Vegas.
Im checking into bellagio in a few weeks – booked a room via a room rep using my mlife account. Is there a way to earn hyatt points for my stay? I thought there was but cant remember how
I asked about linking accounts without an in-person visit, agent said something about the gaming laws in Vegas and suggested I go to the Maryland casino (since I am based in NY). Not worth it to me to HUCA.
Could I match to my spouse at the Borgata in Atlantic City? They are also part of the M Life program. Or would it have to be in Vegas?