Hyatt reached out to let me know that two hotels would move up in redemption category at 9:00 p.m. Central this evening, meaning that redemptions will cost more points.

I love that Hyatt is proactively sharing changes even when those changes affect just two properties. I don’t love that Hyatt is sharing that information only with me and not with all members, and that they’re sharing it the same day the change is going to go into effect.

It seems they’re working to build credibility given the negative sentiment around World of Hyatt, especially compared to the love members felt prior to last year’s changes. That’s great, and may be why the recent category changes have been so minor, only 9 hotels moving in category announced prior to today despite record room rates and occupancy along with some positive tweaks to the program.

Here are the two hotels moving up in category:

Hotel		Current		New
Hyatt Place Knoxville/ Downtown		1		2
Hyatt House Washington DC/ The Wharf		2		3

‘The Wharf’, credit: Hyatt

Here’s Hyatt’s award chart:

You can see that moving from category 1 to 2 means a 3000 point per night increase while moving from category 2 to 3 means a 4000 point per night increase. Those are large in percentage terms although I can’t say I’ve ever considered a stay at Hyatt Place Knoxville/ Downtown and while the Hyatt House in DC comes up regularly in my searches Hyatt has many properties in the area and that’s never geographically where I’m likely to need to be — though there are plenty of nearby agency offices that folks will need to be near.