Next month Hyatt will devalue its award chart adding more price levels within each category so that there are 78 different price points, with top hotels becoming up to 67% more costly on some nights. This goes into effect May 20th.
That’s not enough, though. In advance of those changes, Hyatt is still doing its annual moves of hotels between categories.
- Category changes also go into effect May 20, 2026, at 8 a.m. Central time
- You can make future bookings before then at the current rate to lock those prices in
- You can book hotels now that are going down in price and get the differencein points back
Hyatt Regency Aruba
In total 136 hotels are changing category – several sites are saying that 113 are going up and 23 going down, but the number is actually 112 hotels moving up in category and 24 moving down.
And in a sign that the world – or at least one particular building in Chicago – may have gone insane, Hotel du Louvre, Park Hyatt London; Andaz 5th Avenue; and Hyatt Regency Aruba are all going up to the top Category 8. Hyatt category 1-7 free nights are no longer valid at these!
Andaz 5th Avenue
Park Hyatt London is a very nice hotel in the middle of nowhere. Hyatt Regency Aruba is nice enough, but it’s a resort factory where you need to reserve pool and beach chairs in advance and then claim them day-of by 9 a.m. or lose your reservation (and show up by 9:05 a.m. if you have any hope of a chair without a reservation made ahead of time).
Park Hyatt London
Here’s the regional breakdown of changes:
| Region | Hotels | Increase | Decrease | % Increase | ||||
| United States | 72 | 64 | 8 | 89% | ||||
| Africa & Middle East | 10 | 8 | 2 | 80% | ||||
| Asia & Pacific | 22 | 10 | 12 | 45% | ||||
| Canada, Caribbean & Latin America | 16 | 15 | 1 | 94% | ||||
| Europe | 16 | 15 | 1 | 94% | ||||
| Total | 136 | 112 | 24 | 82% |
The U.S. is 53% of the list, and almost everything in the U.S. moves up. Europe and Latin America/Caribbean are almost entirely up. Asia-Pacific isn’t – the 9 China properties changing category move down.
Within the U.S., the clusters are Florida (11 up), New York/New Jersey (11 up, 1 down), California (3 up, 3 down), North Carolina (6 up), Texas (4 up, 1 down).
Park Hyatt Chicago
Somewhat surprisingly, the big shifts cluster at the bottom end of the chart. Category 1->2 and 2->3 increases drive this list, totaling 72 of the moves. Hyatt Place and Hyatt House are 64 of the 136 hotels changing caegory, and 60 of those move up.
| Current category | Hotels | Share of list | Direction | |||
| Category 1–2 | 75 | 55% | 72 up / 3 down | |||
| Category 1–3 | 88 | 65% | 82 up / 6 down | |||
| Category 1–4 | 109 | 80% | 96 up / 13 down | |||
| Category 5–8 | 22 | 16% | 11 up / 11 down | |||
| All-inclusive A–F | 5 | 4% | 5 up |
Alila Marea
Here’s how to think about the price increases, since we’re seeing both the category move and the pricing band change at the same time:
| Move | Count | Old Standard → New Moderate | % Change | |||
| 1→2 | 39 | 5,000 → 10,000 | 100% | |||
| 2→3 | 33 | 8,000 → 15,000 | 87.50% | |||
| 3→4 | 10 | 12,000 → 20,000 | 66.70% | |||
| 4→5 | 14 | 15,000 → 25,000 | 66.70% | |||
| 6→7 | 3 | 25,000 → 35,000 | 40% | |||
| 7→8 | 5 | 30,000 → 55,000 | 83.30%
|
The surprise for many members is that a downward category moves isn’t really a price decrease. Taking the midpoint pricing on the award chart, and comparing what the midpoint price will be when the change happens, A category 5→4 move is 20,000 on the old standard price to 20,000 on the new moderate. The category goes down, but the price stays the same!
The same holds for a 6 to 5 move, where midpoint is 25,000 under the old 6 and 25,000 in the new 5. A 7 to 6 category move is 30,000 midpoint under the old 7 to 30,000 midpoint in the new 6. So even ‘good news’ category drops are mostly offset by price increases in the new chart. (Lowest/Low dates can still become cheaper.)
Park Hyatt New York
Another major issue is the loss of category 4 hotels. In moving from category 4 to 5, they are no longer redeemable with category 1-4 free night certificates (that come with the consumer credit card, are earned from spend on that card, from staying across Hyatt brands, etc.).
Moreover, with the double whammy of the category change and the new award chart, a move from 4 to 5 means going from 15,000 points per night at standard to 25,000 points per night at the new moderate (18,000 old peak to 35,000 new top as well).
| Hotel | Location | |
| Hotel Figueroa | California | |
| Hyatt Place Santa Cruz | California | |
| Hyatt Regency Coral Gables | Florida | |
| Hyatt Centric Las Olas Fort Lauderdale | Florida | |
| Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort | Florida | |
| Hyatt House Jersey City | New Jersey | |
| Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson | New Jersey | |
| The Carolina Inn | North Carolina | |
| Hyatt Regency Seattle | Washington | |
| Grand Hyatt Kuwait Residences | Kuwait | |
| Jabal Omar Hyatt Regency Makkah | Saudi Arabia | |
| Hyatt Regency Riyadh Olaya | Saudi Arabia | |
| Hyatt Regency Lisbon | Portugal | |
| Hyatt Regency Hesperia Madrid | Spain |
That does mean that 5 to 4 is a certificate win, and includes The Standard Singapore, Andaz Macau Hyatt Regency Dharamshala, Hyatt Centric Congress Avenue and Dream Nashville. The category drop doesn’t reduce points per night price, but does allow for certificate redemptions.
The Seabird
Hyatt pitches that “only 136 hotels” are changing category but the truth of these changes is much greater. The annual category change list isn’t the major driver, although that list of hotels is heavily skewed upward. The big change is that all hotels will be in categories with 5 potential prices, and those prices now generally range much higher.
Hyatt’s CEO says loyalty isn’t about points. They’ve made that clear! Hoplamazian says points leave us feeling “objectified” so this devaluation is actually for your own good. World of Hyatt is about “experiences” and this way you can experience what it feels like to no longer be able to afford free nights at nice hotels.
Boo! HISS!! The enshitification has gone into hyperdrive. Hyatt used to be one of the good ones. What do we even have left?
HR Aruba going to Cat 8 doesn’t shock me in the slightest – Even the Rius there (budget all-inclusive chain) are regularly $700/night in the off season, $1100 in peak season, and those will make the HR look positively boutique-y in comparison. The HR with nothing free looks to start around $650/night in the off-season, over $1200/night for a standard room in peak season, and probably a ton of people trying to book on points compared to a typical hotel.
The HR Aruba isn’t all-inclusive, so comparing it to the all-inclusive resorts in Aruba is a strange comparison. If paying $650-1200/night at HR Aruba and then for food and drinks on top of that, the all-inclusive resorts sounds like a better value.
What Hyatt is doing here is disincentivizing me from transferring Chase points into Hyatt points. The HR Aruba at the new Hyatt price points are awfully poor value when drawing from Chase points.
@GUWonder — And BILT-Hyatt. That ruins that pipeline. I guess there’s still United for both UR/BILT, and Alaska for BILT, but if there are devaluations there, it’s getting rough out there…
PH London going to Cat 8 doesn’t surprise me as it’s just going in line with other PHs in Europe.
“When things look bad, you can’t just give up on the World…of [Hyatt]” (You can.) More hot pockets! cc @1990
We can’t assess the real damage until we see which price points are offered for desirable hotels. I remember when Hyatt told us that Peak rates would be for a limited of days, then before too long Ventana Big Sur charged peak rates 360 days a year. The new chart is almost as much of a black box as Uber fares.
@ 1990 — GHA Discovery? ALL Accor? IHG (their increases haven’t been as severe, yet?).
It’s well past time the free night certificates become Cat 1-5 instead of 1-4. Effectively losing the ability to redeem Cat 4 certificates for a decent stay in six major cities (Los Angeles, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Miami, and Seattle) is a huge devaluation of the credit card’s free night award. Figueroa, Hyatt Centric Las Olas, and Hyatt Regency Coral Gables were the three places I redeemed them most often.
This is always disappointing.
Drilling the changes down a bit more, I do note that all changes to Chinese properties are down a category, consistent with the Chinese market suffering a bit.
Honestly I’m impressed that they’re being so transparent about this and telling us in advance. I feel like most other programs devalue overnight without any advance notice.
I am feeling better that I cashed out all of my Hyatt points at the end of 2024. Happy I could redeem points at the Park Hyatt NYC when it was a Cat 7 before peak pricing, Zurich Park Hyatt when it was a Cat 7, and Grand Hyatt Tokyo when it was a Cat 6. Not sure I could accumulate enough points to redeem awards for similar stays in the future at the nicer Hyatt properties.
The World of Hyatt is no longer the value it once was.
I’ll requalify for Globalist this year, then I’ll just have to see how much more expensive it is next year. It sounds like it will cost too many points to be worth it.
Agree with Echo that a bone they could throw us here is to make Cat. 1-4 certs -> Cat. 1-5.
This devalues my WOH card by about $500 per year. Using my cat 1-4 cert at The Carolina Inn during my kid’s move in/move out dates at UNC was always at least a $400 value.
HR Schaumburg (IL) stays cat 1 but HP Schaumburg goes to cat 2. That seems odd. That HR is pretty decent.
HR LEX goes to 3, so if you want to come to the LEX Horse and Bourbon DO in Oct or next April (16th-18th) and stay where most of us do, get your reservation in. Details at Flyertalk Community Buzz..
Not happy with Hyatt. I always tried to use points for a special occasions and book suites. Now they want points plus an astronomical amount of money. I can do far better with other brands.
Many cat 1 to cat 2 changes are cash grabs for local hotel groups. F that.
Hyatt has gone to the dogs when it comes to redemption. Hopefully they get what they are after
Even before the devaluation it was cheaper to buy the room then use points
Now its laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
San Francisco Centric even before devaluation room is 178 dollars a night or you can redeem 23,000 points worth near 400 dollars! WTF!
They have succeeded after decades with them to just reduce and eliminate much of my business going forward
Andaz 5th avenue once had a great breakfast and now has a mediocre breakfast
Hotel is decent otherwise and sub par gym
Now it will be wildly overpriced at least Park Hyatt London has a solid breakfast so one can justify some of the premium in pricing
I’ll go from 100 nights a year to 10 or 15 nights a year and become a free agent
Time to swap my Hyatt points for Delta Skymiles!
Hyatt and Chase must be getting a little concerned about people ditching the Hyatt credit cards as they are now pushing a 15-20% cash back (up to a maximum limit) for using the Hyatt credit card on transactions at select Hyatt brand hotels.
Hyatt doesn’t want us staying on points instead of cash rates. This is yet another sign of that and why they are devaluing the points massively.
Lol. The bubble has burst.
I guess people were putting up with limited footprint, mediocre and faux luxury hotels in exchange for decently usable points and status..
Next up – kill off lifetime globalist perks. Its coming.
Total bummer…
I agree with Alan “I guess people were putting up with limited footprint, mediocre and faux luxury hotels in exchange for decently usable points and status…”
That was me – but I just burned 80% of my GP points for a year-end redemption.
Already started sampling other nice mid-level hotel chains (Omni, Loews)
Not worth the loyalty to Hyatt any longer. It was nice while it lasted (30 years) but time to sample other options.
As a perk of hitting both 40 & 50 nite thresholds, cat 1-4 fnc should be automatically upgradable to a cat 1-5 fnc if desired. Maximum two upgrades.
Additionally, as an explorist perk, allow members to spend 5000 points to upgrade their 1-4 fnc to a 1-5 fnc. No limit.
Their new premium cc better be good.
Just a side note. Data is the plural form of datum. So it should be “data show” rather than “data shows.” Extremely common grammatical error.