Hilton HHonors - Room upgrade for Gold: reserver or guest?

I am planning a couple of award stays for next year when I expect to be Gold and my wife will have lost her current Gold status. I have very few points while she has lots. If she makes are reservation now in my name (she will be staying in the room as well), at the time of check-in, how is the Gold upgrade determined? Will I receive it for checking in as a Gold member, even though the reservation was paid for from her points account? Or do the points need to come from my account in order to qualify for an upgrade?

Status benefits are the guest's, although in practice the issuing account's status is sometimes taken into consideration.

Inexperienced staff will sometimes not know what to do when the guest's status is higher than the award issuer's (have them ask the duty manager), but you are definitely entitled to your Gold perks while using your wife's points. I've done this many times with my relatives' points.

So have your wife make the reservations in your name. The only issue is that you will not be pre-upgraded, as the system will be unaware of your status until you check in (it will reference your wife's number). At the dwindling number of properties which upgrade Golds to the exec floor, if they are fully booked, you may end up in a regular room.

The status should be determined on the day of check-in. So in this case if it's using points from your wife's account, she won't be considered to be a Gold member anymore if she's no longer Gold on that check-in date.

What I suggest is having her transfer points to your account and then with your account, use the points for the room. See here (http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/points/transfer.do) for more details.

Regarding the room upgrade, there is no guarantee you will get the upgrade especially at Gold from what I read here. I'm a Gold member and have received a free room upgrade at the Embassy Suites but never at the Hampton Inn property. It depends on the property and probably if rooms are available for upgrade. If you want a guaranteed room upgrade, I think you can use additional points for that.