Couldn’t agree more!

Just returned from a 6 night stay on points. was upgraded to ocean view, 2 queen in the west tower. per front desk, no suites were available as they were approaching 99% occupancy. room wasn't ready until 5pm unfortunately and bags were never sent automatically. received 1 drink ticket for each night plus 2 additional ones for the late check in. each ticket must be used for 2 drinks at the same time and good up to $25 per drink inclusive of VAT and service charge. breakfast was served in the buffet every day. a nice suprise this trip vs our last one in 2019 is that although the website says kids "under 5" eat for free, our 5 year ate for free at most places (not Sugar Factory or Pizza Lab) so it's more like "5 and under". Definitely a few less food trucks compared to 2019 but probably made up by the additional places in Baha Bay. per the front desk, they have not received any communication about the GC reopening.

hi everyone, I'm planning to visit Nassau next year. I have 3 kids, so it gets complicated to book one room for 5. So far the only one that has allowed me to do that is IHG for the holiday inn, which isn't great, but it's something.
I would like to stay at the Grand Baha Mar, but do you think it will be a problem if I book for 4 but show up with 3 kids? (5 total(

I sent an email to one of the Marriott hotels (should have the 5x 50k certs in a month or so) but they told me the only option is to book two rooms or a suite, which is way more expensive than 2 rooms.

Beyond having to pay for 2 rooms, we would also need to split the adults, as the kids would be afraid to be on their own.
I could afford the points for the two rooms, but feel like they would be wasted since we would all end up in one room anyway.

Globalist bookings
 

Can a globalist book my room and add me as 2nd guest so I can receive globalist benefits for my stay?
(He does not want to do GOH)

Rule is, that member must stay in order to receive the benefits. if he does not want to stay... GOH was created for that situation.

I would not attempt this on an international hotel booking. Domestically it may be less strict but when you are traveling internationally, they often ask for passports.

I think this would only work if he is also staying at the same time as you, books all the multiple rooms himself, and is there for check-in. Then you would reimburse him for your room after the stay, and it is up to the discretion of the hotel if all rooms get Globalist benefits, which in my experience they pretty much always do (though it is not guaranteed by the terms of WOH). If he is not staying at the same property for the same dates (i.e. will not be there for check in), your two options then are 1. GOH for award stays (if you can convince him), or 2. book a Prive/FHR/Virtuoso/or other similar paid reservation where you'll get most of the same benefits of a Globalist. I believe Baha Mar even has a 4th night free offer going on for select dates with Prive right now.

oc2005 I'll let you know if that works at this hotel in about two weeks. I'm checking in with three paid rooms booked for myself and family, all in my Hyatt account under my name, and plan to add the relevant people on to each room at check in. I've heard that at international destinations including this one, the benefits are almost never extended, so we aren't going into it with either expectations or high hopes, but maybe we'll get a pleasant surprise if the remaining rooms can get some free globalist breakfast out of it, which is all we really wanted.

Good luck and it will be interesting to see how generous they (hopefully) are! It really is a shame Hyatt hasn't adjusted the club lounge access awards to adapt to the new realties of perpetual lounge closures, because they used to be great for this exact situation to guarantee access for additional rooms beyond the guest with status when you have multiple rooms booked. I wonder if the hotel or your globalist concierge would let you use a couple in your case to do this on a one time basis to guarantee you benefits for multiple rooms since their lounge is closed?

If I had two changes I'd make to "fix" the very few WOH complaints I have, this one would be one -- make it so the club lounge access awards could be used to at least provide free breakfast and maybe a category room upgrade at hotels with no lounge or no open lounge. The other would be allowing TSUs to be used at hotels that don't accept TSUs to at least guarantee an in advance room upgrade to a better room, for the growing number of hotels that have opted out of TSU acceptance.

They should just change the lounge access benefit to breakfast or lounge access. Since only 6 are given, it shouldn't cost that much money.

If they want to be really creative or generous, they can offer globalist for a day perk. So you get treated like a globalist with the same benefits for each day you redeem an award.

Curious; can you really do room charge for all the restaurants across the three properties, not just the ones at the Hyatt? and are drinks at the water park chargeable to the room? I noticed they have a $450 for $500 and $900 for $1000 in F&B credit option on the website to add to the reservation. Heading there on Thursday and we'll easily spend $1k if drinks at the pool and restaurants at the other places are room chargeable, because two of our four nights we're already booked at outside restaurants. Might only do the $500 if it has to be stuff inside Hyatt.

I could charge everything to my room in March. IIRC there was one or two places that you couldn’t but I might be wrong. It’s at least 98%.

You can charge everything to your room. But I think those certificates will only count towards charges made at the Hyatt outlets, they do separate them for point earning, so I would assume the would for the certs as well.

Yep, thanks for confirming. I also emailed globalist folks and they said the same; can't use the pre-paid and can't earn normal Hyatt points on the spend at the other properties. Only one of the Hyatt restaurants looked interesting and we're booked at other places the other three nights so guess I just won't be making as many points as I thought.

FWIW, it's very unclear what is a Hyatt restaurant and what isn't given that most of the eateries are in the casino area or outdoors. Lot's of blurred lines as to who runs who. BUT you can charge any of them to your room. After many stays, I've never actually done the math to see if any of my dinner charges earned points.