Next year’s Hyatt devaluation is going to be even worse than this year’s. That’s what Senior Vice President of Global Marketing & Loyalty Laurie Blair shared in February when detailing the changes that they were making to the award chart that went into effect on Wednesday.
- They were putting the new 5 price levels for each award category into effect in 2026
- But initially, she said, we wouldn’t see much of the changes right away.
- The May 20 changes were just a preview. They wanted to get the structure in place, but were holding back on the real effect until next year.
So while members are reacting strongly over devaluation – there are now 78 price levels for hotels on the award chart, with some properties having gone up in price 67% – it’s important to remember that Hyatt told us to expect next year’s changes to be even bigger with more hotels going up into the 4th and 5th tiers of each award category.
The good news is that any given night gets assigned to “lowest, low, moderate, upper and top” points price levels for a hotel only once and doesn’t change dynamically like we see at Marriott. Pricing for hotels over the next year is, essentially, fixed today.
So far it appears that for most properties, devaluations are modest. Hyatt appears to have mapped many ordinary and off-season dates conservatively to the new levels for a majority of properties. But the aspirational places many people are inspired to be loyalty to Hyatt, in hopes of redeeming their points, saw brutal damage.
Category 8 is where things get especially brutal. Most nights are more expensive and only a few haven’t changed. If you wanted to stay in aspirational properties in Japan, in Paris, or at places like Park Hyatt Beaver Creek expect to pay 75,000 points a night instead of 45,000.
Thrifty Traveler reports that more than 40% of Japan award nights are now pricier than before.
- Andaz Tokyo increased on 82% of analyzed nights
- Grand Hyatt Tokyo on nearly 85%.
Meanwhile, Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme’s cheapest available night is now 45,000 points. That used to be the maximum. 44 of 53 reviewed nights were more expensive.
It’s likely, then, that future damage happens in the lower and mid-tier properties in the program.
I’m amazed how many people still are loyal to US based hotel chains that are overpriced and underwhelming. We stopped staying at Marriott and Hilton properties 3 years ago and instead stay at independent boutique properties around the world and book via our travel agent (who we get all the perks like breakfast included) booking.com for 8x Rakuten or Amex travel. Caring about hotel points is dumb. It’s Jonestown level dumb. Pay cash and book properly and you save money and stay at better properties
@Matthew,
I travel for work and rack up a ton of points throughout the year. Booking most stays at Hyatt allows me to take some incredible vacations that cost me nothing. So how is paying nothing “Jonestown level dumb?”
@brodie. You have to factor in the cost of acquiring those points and what you redeem them for. My cash stays at independent boutique properties around the world cost less than your cost of you acquiring those points by overpaying on your credit card spend on a co branded hotel card or hotel stays where you credit those points. Via overpriced chain stays
Well, used to try to be loyal to Hyatt as they had a better program even though it was challenging at times because of their smaller global footprint. Now they seem to be headed towards being an “also ran” so Marriott, Hilton, and IHG are probably gonna be back in play for me and others.
We all know what road Hyatt is following. I just wish they would be honest about it and maybe throw a bone or two our way in terms of benefit improvements, like more points per dollar or some better on-property benefits for globalists.
Hyatt is killing outsized redemption value, not (yet) the core of their program.
Gary is correct on limited point increases thru ~May 2027. Next summer will herald a new and expensive reality. Get globalist, earn and burn NOW.
@ Gary — The decrease in the number of our Hyatt stays will also be greater next year than this year! How convenient. No more Globalist after Feb 28, 2028.
Our stays will now be almost entirely at InterContinental, Accor and GHA Discovery properties. Time to divorce Hyatt and Hilton. Never really stayed much at IHG, non-IC properties, so nothing to really cut there. And, Marriott, well, haven’t stayed there in a decade. When Royal Ambassador ends, we’ll just stay home and get a robot assistant to give us a suite upgrade and free breakfast.
Hyatt will introduce a premium cc to keep sheepish globalists at bay. Get used to more cat 8 props.
Tho money flows down, buying points from hotel groups and burning when deals are good is the best general strategy for non-biz travelers.
The big mistake Hyatt is making right now is assuming they can treat customers the same way everyone else does. They look at Delta, Hilton, and Marriott getting away with absolute murder and think, hey, why can’t we do that too?
But they are completely misreading the room.
Delta can get away with it because they run an oligopoly. If you live in one of their captive hubs or you are addicted to their lounge network, you are stuck. Marriott and Hilton can get away with it because they have massive footprints. In a ton of markets, especially in the US, you don’t really have another choice. They have the leverage to screw people over.
Hyatt doesn’t have that luxury. Their footprint is tiny by comparison. The only reason so many people go out of their way to stay at a Hyatt is because the loyalty program actually rewarded them for the inconvenience, and the Chase ecosystem made earning those points incredibly easy.
Now, Chase has tightened the screws so points are harder to come by, and Hyatt is actively gutting the value of the program. Asking seventy-five thousand points for a night at the Park Hyatt Paris is just flat-out atrocious.
When you take the value out of the equation, a small footprint isn’t a quirky boutique hurdle anymore, it’s just a massive inconvenience. Hyatt is playing a dangerous game here, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this whole thing completely blows up in their face.
They are headed toward loosing a lot of credit card holders. The average person will only be able to get a HP/HH free night award after years of charging.
It’s insane to nuke the redemptions without offering any ways to increase points earning, not even via credit cards. At least throw loyalists a bone.
Currently – even after the massive recent devaluation – Hyatt remains the best of the large hotel chains’ top tier but it’s no longer a black and white situation. If things are as rough as I suspect they’ll be next year I’m likely to not hold top tier Hyatt status for the first time in well over a decade. If WOH is turning into Bonvoy with scorn and antipathy for loyal members then they can find someone else to kick around because I have no interest in bad treatment in exchange for my money and my loyalty.
I’d love to hear what Chase thinks about these gigantic devaluations. I suspect that they’re apoplectic but powerless to change the course of their most valuable credit card partner.
@ Gene
2028 is a leap year so 29 days in Feb aka an extra day of globalist for you.
@ Dirk
They’ll change earning in ’28 and up promos next year.
@ Christian
Agree with your sentiment tho not the hyperbole. Hyatt is getting “killed” by hi spending chase customers redeeming xferred in points. This levels that and hurts bargain hunters of all stripes.
The Hyatt credit card gives a free category one to four award and for as many years as I can remember, it’s always been one to four.
It sure would be nice if they bumped the credit card redemption free night to categories one to five up from one to four in light of all these devaluations.
Even if Hyatt is still marginally better than IHG, Marriot and Hilton, it’s the race-to-the-bottom mentality that they are choosing to commit to that leaves such a bad taste in clients who were formerly so loyal to the niche Hyatt had carved for themselves (especially after Starwood got absorbed).
Now we all see Hyatt as a company that operates on the premise that as long as their own points are barely better than the competition people will continue to be loyal to them. By their own doing they have eroded (sabotaged?) the competitive advantage they enjoyed while still expecting loyalty to remain steady. I personally don’t think that’s going to be proven true.
@Matthew, your points are 100% correct for personal stays. One would have to be beyond stupid to be chain loyal paying with their own money, both on value and quality.
But a large segment of the hotel staying population are OPM stays. They dont pay for their stays so their cost of acquisition is none.
They dont care that there are better or better value hotels then the chain hotels.
Most of these comments are pretty much what I would say. In case Hyatt is paying attention. Hyatt is not an easy chain to find properties in but I have appreciated the Globalist status I have had for the past several years and will earn it again this year. If Hyatt insist on changing the program as much as I have read then I will go back to the other brands, it is no longer worth going out of my way to stay at Hyatts.