Today is Hyatt’s massive devaluation with a new 5 tier award chart for each category level which creates 78 different price points and some hotel awards becoming as much as 67% more expensive.
Hyatt Regency Aruba
Naturally, there’s been a rush my members to redeem their points before Hyatt steals the value of what they’ve earned. And people who left this to the last minute ran into major problems, as Hyatt’s technology melted down – unable to keep up with member demand as they tried to head for the exits with their accumulated balances.
@HyattConcierge, I love you guys, but I must express my frustration with the state of your website, app, and customer service. It’s quite inconvenient when members cannot make reservations, especially when you’re about to make significant changes to my redemptions pic.twitter.com/EQAeHSUaKR
— Saianel (@saianel) May 20, 2026
Online people saw “contact hotel” instead of an ability to book awards, processing errors, failures at the stage of completing reservations and various errors across Hyatt’s app and website – while being unable to get through by phone.
Park Hyatt Paris
Shortly before midnight on May 19th, a Hyatt member wrote that their “website is having major issues”,
“We are currently experiencing issues.” Well well well, did you think your website would start having problems if you majorly devalue your points and everyone tries to book. Also been on hold for 20 mins so far. Via Chrome desktop is completely dead, Firefox is working every 5th refresh or so.
Park Hyatt London
This experience was widespread. Here’s another thread complaining about an inability to book and another one and also this one and this one. Here’s someone who transferred points to book a hotel and now the points are stuck, and they’re unable to get the room booked. Here’s another long thread of frustrated members.
Hyatt told members they had until 9 a.m. Eastern on May 20th to book under prior pricing, but that wasn’t true – because Hyatt itself failed to allow members to spend their points.
It seems clear that Hyatt should allow an extension because of this rug pull, although I’d be surprised if they did. There are workarounds without having to roll back the devaluation. They could offer manual adjustments by phone.
Park Hyatt St. Kitts
Nonetheless, the lesson is one we’ve seen before – do not trust a loyalty program to honor these deadlines. There will be a rush for the exits, that volume will overwhelm the program even though it’s entirely predictable because they have no incentive to staff up or add IT resources and spend money to make it easier for members to drive up their redemption expense.
So never wait until the deadline to make your redemptions before a big devaluation or major expiration cliff (like airline systemwide upgrades).
Yeah. I was searching at 8:30 EST and saw availability. Checked another property and then got that “Contact hotel” message. Then at 8:38 PM I went back to my original search from a few minutes earlier and got that message for every property. Figured either Hyatt made a change then or the website was overwhelmed.
More like: “do not trust a loyalty program to honor…” anything.
There should be a baseline of protections for consumers so that corporate programs like these cannot be so significantly devalued.
I’m being told by a libertarian that any rules LIMITING corporations from ruling over us would (ironically) be ‘tyranny’… *facepalm*
8:30 AM EDT; some hotels have already switched to new rates (eg HR Jersey City)
@ Gary — People are stupid. They have known about these changes for what, 3 months? Today should ne known as F*** Hyatt Day.
Yeah, it’s stinks that their website was overwhelmed….. By everyone waiting until the absolute last minute to book awards.
Yup, their IT should be able to handle this. No excuses there. But a little different than a no notice devaluation. Website and booking worked fine in the several weeks between the announcement and yesterday night.
So bit of hyperbole here.
@LK — Oof. Yeah. Ouch. Park Hyatt Tokyo… mid-April… 75K… (I get it, sakura, peak, etc.)
The new system is in place, and it’s an awful devaluation, and on the worst end of expectations. For example, hotel night that were available three hours ago for booking for 5000-6500 Hyatt points per night at a European Hyatt property has now increased to 10k points per night.
Hotels.com with a free night for every ten nights and cash back portal use is a far better value for average non-Globalists given the free agency benefits of not sticking to and overpaying to stay at Hyatt properties.
@GUWonder — That’s actually not a bad idea, for those interested. Thinking there’s gonna be a lot more free agents and cash back focus in the coming cycles.
Hi 1990,
Part of the reason I ramped up my IHG stays was because they tend to have lower average rates than comparable Hyatt properties and IHG often has better cash back portal rates than most hotel chains. And I’ve had pretty good luck with benefits as an IHG Diamond.
But if hotel program elite status benefits/credit aren’t a good value for my money on stays, I would rather do cash back with Hotels.com and use Hotels.com award program. And I mix in Amex FHR and other such stays from time to time.
Dang it. I thought the change was 5/24 and was planning to book over the next couple of days. Thankfully the one hotel I wanted only went up 4,000 points so not the end of the world.
@GUWonder — I tend to agree; IHG has impressed me a lot lately. Got Diamond via CSR spend, and I have to say, they treat their elites well. Not just top-end properties; sure, a Six Senses is lovely, but I’ve never had a bad stay at a Kimpton.
Only made 1 points booking last night (dealing with all the website issues to make it happen), and ironically enough the points price went down this morning. Ended up rebooking w/ cash, since the price was low enough to justify saving the points.
@Billy Bob Agreed. Really can’t feel sorry for the folks who waited until the very last minute to try to book.
For everyone else, welcome to the world of Marriott/IHG/Hilton, although I still think Hyatt offers much better redemption values, but, as always, YMMV.
Time to cut up those Hyatt credit cards, folks! Who wants to earn 1 Hyatt per dollar spent? I’d rather earn 1 SkyMile per dollar spent. What a joke World of Hyatt has beome overnight. It is one thing to devalue points already earned, but to cut the value of onging earnings by 50% seems like a very poor business decision.
@Gene — Already did 1 of 2; good riddance! Cat 1-4 FNC is worthless.
Isn’t somehow amazing that the website showed sold out last night for various rooms and then loads of inventory at the higher award pricing was available this morning same dates and properties
Crooks
They trashed their program and it is now cheaper frequently to book online at 3rd party sites
@Dwondermeant — We live in the golden age of crooks… and of fruit… (Same Boat, 2020)
@ 1990 — McDonalds sells fruit?
Nobody could ever have predicted this problem, right?