Marriott Platinum status was for sale in China for $20. I wrote about how United’s status match system was being scammed. MileagePlus stopped verifying that credentials were real. They stopped verifying that the people getting the status were real.
People were using faked credentials to match to United GOld instantly on the way to the airport in China to get free checked bags on Air China. This is why United now requires a flight to activate matched status. China is where an inordinate amount of ‘loyalty fraud’ happens.
The optimal amount of fraud isn’t zero. The things you’d have to do to eliminate all fraud would make a programs unusable. But some fraud is obvious, and the clear result of poorly-designed systems.
Hyatt’s China joint venture was selling phantom stays so that guests could earn Globalist status, confirm upgrades to suites, get free breakfsat and guarantee late checkout. Hyatt blamed the customers and nuked their accounts. Now Chinese courts have gotten involved.
- Hyatt has a joint venture in China with its UrCove brand, partnering with BTG Homeinns.
- Several UrCove properties apparently turned status into a product line to sell on their own – packages of elite night credis and points sold through Chinese social channels, no actual stay required.
- Hyatt responded by wiping out the accounts of members who took part in this – at scale.
- Now the dispute appears to be moving to the Chinese courts.
Some UrCove hotels marketed “challenge” or “extension” bundles — 20–25 nights toward Globalist — for under $1,000. Properties posted the nights and points through Hyatt’s China integration, sometimes back‑dating activity. Members received official‑looking invoices and saw credits post to World of Hyatt.
UrCove stay crediting in China has long relied on manual posting via a Hyatt liaison team, not tight CRS↔PMS reconciliation. That path is slower—and easily abusable, it seems.
By late 2024, Chinese media and forums were full of accounts of “空刷” (phantom posting). Hyatt audits flagged anomalies (a hotel selling more room nights than they have rooms). Then came mass account closures—thousands, including Globalist members and a few Lifetime Globalists, apparently.
Consumers in China have begun suing the sellers of these packages.
- They say the hotel never created actual reservations, instead directly injecting points/nights into Hyatt via tools—only for Hyatt to later say the stays were invalid and close the member accounts. That’s not the kind of fraud they thought they were buying!
- And in any case, it seems to be more of a Hyatt internal issue with its Chinese partner than a member issue – they’re punishing the wrong party.
- Plus, if status‑qualifying activity can be posted without a reservation in Hyatt’s systems, the outcome here seems inevitable. That’s a system design problem.
Here’s the thing. Hyatt hotels, and Hyatt’s joint venture partner, appear to have literally been the ones making the sales offer. They’re primarily responsible for the fraud. It seems like zeroing out the invalid credits and clawing back awards where possible would have been a better first start with member accounts – while pursuing the properties and partners who monetized the scheme. That would have avoided collateral damage. It appears some members who legitimately stayed at the implicated properties may have been victims.
“Close everyone and let God sort it out” is operationally expedient but brand destructive. There’s also a message here to avoid Hyatts in China, and avoid this brand in particular.
Risky game to play for hotel elite status, especially if you have a lot of Hyatt points.
Why is GUWonder still posting? I had hoped to see GUWonder banned everywhere.
I’m not terribly sympathetic. Anyone would know that this is obviously fraudulent on its face. The rampant abuse of pathways like this in China is a major reason for the degradation of elite benefits in hotel chains over the last few years. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
“That’s not the kind of fraud they thought they were buying!” Ha-haa!
The author actually wants sympathy for people that knowingly committed fraud. Congrats, you win stupid of the week.
AS you present the facts I side with the guests as being innocent in this situation.
The bad actors were the hotels selling it acting as legitimate authorized agents.
Free or complimentary status is far from uncommon in the industry
So something you are buying through authorized Hyatt partner hotels can be clearly misleading
and can easily be thought of as above board and legit
That s coming from someone wants to see all fake status revoked
Lets start by throwing away ending American Express and its junk level Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status!
Not only „avoid Hyatts in China“. Avoid China in general.
If you violate the terms and conditions of the loyalty program, you will be punished accordingly. Surprised someone would waste money hiring an attorney in order to try to get their status back. Several thousand dollars in attorney fees and time, what have you really gotten in return?
Amazed by the comments, and even the article, “that’s not the kind of fraud they thought they were buying,” accusing customers of committing fraud. Hotels and hotel chains run various kinds of status promotions all the time. If you are getting the deal directly from the hotel – how in the world are you as a customer supposed to know it’s a fraudulent offer?
I’m not sure that arguing that Hyatt won’t let them commit fraud is a valid legal argument but I’m unschooled in the nuances of Chinese law.
Do you really think the Chinese Government will crack down/punish the CCP or Chinese people?
No way. You can trust the communists……..to be communist.
If Hyatt was complicit in this, then they should be facing a criminal investigation, not being sued.
I would honor the status upgrade and charge it to the responsible partner who decided they could defraud corporate. The value of the unauthorized points can be calculated and billed to the partner that issued them.
China? What a surprise! The Chinese are by far one of the most corrupt scammers of them all! I have multiple Chinese friends, neighbors and business associates so I am not calling out the entire race as following these practices.
Sadly it is a common practice to use the system against itself. This practice is like a Nigerian telephone scam except it’s targeted at corporations!
The entire structure of awards and status has been sold to credit card companies which has dramatically corrupted the value of the system. I earned my status by paying and staying!
I’m thrilled that these people have been caught. The problem is that the Chinese government controls the court system. The outcome will be in favor of the people who abused the system.
“Hyatt China” was all I needed to know… @L737, exactly!
@TWA884 — Bad take. Hoping others to be banned is weak. You offered nothing of substance here. Sad.
“Chinese courts” sounds like an oxymoron.
If they exist, are they really going to waste time over this?
Or did they copy our insanely one sided and lucrative court system to scam their way to a living?
This is reminiscent of AA banning people for signing up for multiple Citi credit cards.
Sounds like another example of major hotel chains favoring franchisees over guests . . . All the more reason to NEVER chase reward program “elite” status. Most important benefit is da points.
UrCove hotels in China are fine for what they are – a somewhat trendy basic hotel. Kind of like a Moxy. I’ve never had a bad experience at one (with proper expectations about what a $100/night rate will get you) nor ever had any trouble getting elite night credits at one.
There is certainly a significant amount of scam activity related to travel rewards programs in China but also the travel rewards ecosystem here is growing very rapidly – a lot more honestly earned Hyatt Globalists in China than you might expect.
If I were Hyatt, I’d likely retroactively revoke points for the phantom stays (actually, I’d also force the hotels to refund those stays – I realize not wanting to reward bad customer behavior, but since the core problem was on the hotel side IMO, forcing them to forfeit those gains seems fair). That said, I think not also clearly disciplining the hotels involved (I feel like charging the managers with fraud would actually be reasonable) means it really shouldn’t go beyond that.
I also think that there’s a case it shouldn’t go beyond that, period, given the tangles of status matches/challenges and so on that happen with some regularity – to most of us, this is obvious, but especially in the context of the pandemic the idea that a hotel chain might have started just selling status wasn’t nuts.
There was another article translated from Chinese of a certain Hyatt loyalty member who knew exactly what she was doing when she incriminated herself by saying that this was a great way to keep status without having to actually stay at a hotel… So I say, they deserved what they got. Hope WOH just tells them to pound sand. Hilton already did people did something similar a few years ago.
Obvious cause: the contract didn’t include audits. Hyatt insisted that these points were impossible and demanded an audit. The partner in China refused, not in our contract. Hyatt said “OK” -> Nuke. Now we’ll see what happens. Your brand tried to screw us to make money. Now everyone knows what really happened and your brand takes the public nosedive.
Loyalty programs tend to be strict on cracking down on fraud by members.
And they have to know it’s fraud.
Did anyone find the spelling error?
In response to Brian’s comment that violating loyalty program terms leads to punishment and that pursuing legal action to regain status is a waste of money, I’d like to clarify the situation. The ongoing litigation is between members and hotels, not Hyatt, and is unrelated to the loyalty program’s terms and conditions. The disputed amount is only a few hundred dollars, and while attorney fees may exceed this, the members’ goal is to have the court void the transaction. This litigation aims to deter hotels from selling unauthorized stays. In my view, this could set a precedent to curb such practices.