Hyatt is revamping its award charts starting in May, and they’re teasing benefits changes to allow members to share points electronically (no more faxing in paper forms) and for elites and credit card customers to be able to book free night awards a month earlier than they can today.
The World of Hyatt program will expand its award charts from three to five price levels per category, creating 78 possible redemption prices across their standard and all-inclusive charts. The most expensive points redemptions can cost up to 67% more points than before. While the lowest tier prices actually fall on some properties, the new structure lets Hyatt charge far more at peak demand, potentially changing how members will value and redeem their points in significant ways.
Hyatt Regency Aruba
Each Award Chart Category Is Getting 5 Price Levels
Starting “some time in May” – they don’t have a go-live date yet other than to say it will be “before the end of May,” according to Hyatt’s head of loyalty and marketing Laurie Blair, World of Hyatt will move from 3 price levels at each award category to 5: “lowest, low, moderate, upper and top.” Their standard award chart will keep 8 categories, but the price ranges for each will change.
Blair shares that in 2026 we’ll see very little changing to prices for hotels on most nights. Hyatt is still assigning just a single price for a given hotel night for the full year in which it can be booked. The price of a night on a specific date doesn’t generally change. There’s no dynamic pricing. We’ll see more hotels and nights changing their pricing in this new framework starting in 2027 and beyond.
A category 1-4 free night award will still be valid at the ‘top’ points price for a category 4 hotel (25,000, up from 18,000), and a category 1-7 free night award will still be valid at category 7’s top price (55,000, up from 35,000).
Note also that this new higher pricing will not mean better award night availability. This is a change to the price World of Hyatt charges members for free nights. New 5-level pricing within each category does not change the reimbursement rates for free nights that Hyatt pays to hotels.
Park Hyatt Paris
Here Are The New Award Charts
Here’s a comparison of the current chart with 3 price levels for each category, and the new 5 price level chart.
Here we can drill down just to the new 5-level chart that will go into effect some time in May:
This is the six category all-inclusive chart with 5 levels:
And here is the new Miraval chart:
Comparing Standard Room Award Charts
The lowest price for 5 of the 8 categories actually goes down under the new chart.
Here’s a comparison of the current and new lowest prices for each category, how much each has changed and what percentage that represents. You’ll note that the lowest price for a category 7 and 8 hotel never goes down from current lowest prices.
| 1 | 3,500 | 3,000 | (500) | -14.3% |
| 2 | 6,500 | 6,000 | (500) | -7.7% |
| 3 | 9,000 | 8,000 | (1,000) | -11.1% |
| 4 | 12,000 | 12,000 | – | 0.0% |
| 5 | 17,000 | 15,000 | (2,000) | -11.8% |
| 6 | 21,000 | 20,000 | (1,000) | -4.8% |
| 7 | 25,000 | 25,000 | – | 0.0% |
| 8 | 35,000 | 35,000 | – | 0.0% |
Now let’s look at how the highest price for each category changes:
| 1 | 6,500 | 9,000 | 2,500 | 38.5% |
| 2 | 9,500 | 15,000 | 5,500 | 57.9% |
| 3 | 15,000 | 20,000 | 5,000 | 33.3% |
| 4 | 18,000 | 25,000 | 7,000 | 38.9% |
| 5 | 23,000 | 35,000 | 12,000 | 52.2% |
| 6 | 29,000 | 40,000 | 11,000 | 37.9% |
| 7 | 35,000 | 55,000 | 20,000 | 57.1% |
| 8 | 45,000 | 75,000 | 30,000 | 66.7% |
Every category contains the potential for hotel redemption prices to go up significantly – with top prices going up by one-third at category 3 to a whopping two-thirds at category 8. We do not yet know how many nights at any given hotel that might be in 2026, or beyond.
Park Hyatt London
For completeness, here’s the new chart for redeeming a free night in a club level room:
This is the new standard suite chart:
And this is the premium suite free night award chart:
No Changes To Upgrade Pricing
Hyatt tells me that there are “no changes to the upgrade pricing.” The cost to upgrade an eligible paid room night remains the same and as follows:
Hotel Category Changes Will Become Less Significant – After This Year
Blair describes the structural change to the Hyatt award chart as a “long-term sustainability effort” where they will “be able to live in this new award chart in the years to come.”
And with more prices they will be able to “manage peak demand at the property level” rather than the market level (they won’t have to increase, say, all hotels in Paris to the very top price at peak times) and they won’t need to do as many category changes in the future – after all, they can increase a hotel’s price by moving more nights to upper and top, without changing the hotel’s category.
That said, standard award category changes will come in April, and “overall number and level of movement should be similar” to what we’ve seen in recent years. In 2027 and beyond we should see fewer category shifts. Seven hotels change category immediately, not waiting for the bigger tranche to be announced in spring.
- Andaz Pattaya Jomtien Beach, Hyatt Centric Malta, Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay Resort, Hyatt Place San AntonioNorthwest/Medical Center and Grand Hyatt Incheon go up one category
- Grand Hyatt Grand Cayman Resort & Spa (opening in 2026) goes up two categories
- JdV The Barnett goes down one category
What Is An Award Chart Good For With 78 Price Levels?
I have to wonder: is there even an award chart when there are 78 different price points across the standard and all-inclusive charts, not even including Miraval properties?
What remains valuable isn’t the price range on the chart I suppose, as much as the predictability where Hyatt sets a price for each night’s stay at a hotel for the year and that price doesn’t change (the way it does in programs like Marriott’s). They no longer have a ‘traditional award chart’ but they also don’t do dynamic pricing.
And you’ll know exactly which hotels your free night certificates (earned via the credit card, nights stayed, and for staying across various Hyatt brands) can be used for. At Marriott we’ll often see prices just over the number of points where those certificates are valid, or just over what a member might be able to top off those certificates for.
Hyatt’s redemption structure is still better than competitors. It just seems less better than it did before. And that was less better than it was five years ago, before they introduced off-peak and peak price levels.
And an award chart makes Hyatt more honest or maybe keeping one means they’re more honest; certainly more transparent. Remember that Hyatt is actually telling us about these changes, and they’re telling us before they make them. That’s something we do not get from any of the other large hotel loyalty programs – those just raise prices without warning and when they do it they don’t even say they’ve done so. That’s the other important piece that an award chart still gives us, even when there are this many price points.
Park Hyatt Chicago
Points Sharing Between Members Goes Online
Later this year Hyatt will make it possible to pool and transfer points between members without having to submit signed paper forms. Hyatt allows points transfers now, without a fee, but it involves a fax machine (or, for Globalists with a concierge, emailing the scanned form to their concierge).
Just not having to get both members to sign a form will be a real step forward.
Park Hyatt Sydney
Early Access To Award Nights For Elites
Hyatt will be introducing ‘early access’ to award night availability for Explorist members and above, as well as co-brand credit card customers. They will get to book redemption nights one month earlier than today (so 13 months out from travel) while everyone else will still be able to book a year out.
Park Hyatt St. Kitts
Hyatt’s Top Redemption Price Has Quintupled Over Two Decades
Hyatt has gone from a top redemption price at places like Park Hyatt Tokyo and Park Hyatt Sydney of 15,000 points per night 20 years ago to 75,000 points per night under this new chart. That’s 400% growth (a 5x increase). That’s annualized inflation of 8.38%. And that doesn’t account for all-inclusives that will price up to 85,000 points or 95,000 for a double occupancy standard room at a Miraval.
- Hyatt introduced Category 5 in December 2006. The maximum price for a standard room went from 15,000 to 18,000 points per night.
- They created category 6 in June 2010 with a new top redemption price of 22,000 points per night.
- Category 7 launched in January 2014 with a new top price of 30,000 points.
- Category 8 was introduced in 2018 with a new top price of 40,000 points but this was explained as only for the most expensive SLH Hotels, not for Hyatt properties.
- In 2019 though Hyatt properties began moving into category 8.
- Hyatt last announced a structural change to redemptions in December 2019, planned for March 2020 but delayed during the pandemic – for stays starting March 1, 2022. That was off-peak and peak pricing, with the most expensive standard room redemption on the main chart at 45,000 points per night.
- Then in 2022 they introduced a separate six category all-inclusive chart with pricing up to 58,000 points per night.
Park Hyatt Maldives
The problem, I think, is that hotel rates haven’t increased at that rate. You just can’t earn free nights at top places with the same engagement in Hyatt that you used to. You can spend more on credit cards and transfer points, but for someone earning points head in bed, Hyatt is becoming tougher.
I asked Laurie Blair whether we might see a corresponding change to the earning side of the program – whether higher redemption prices might enable them to increase earn rates? After all, elite bonuses at Hyatt (30% for Globalists) are much more modest than in other programs. She was non-committal but suggested that this new framework enabled a lot.
Meanwhile, she also knows that the cost of Mr and Mrs Smith redemptions are a pain point. You just redeem against the paid room rate at modest value, leaving many hotels exorbitantly priced in points. Having more prices and higher prices could address this. While Mr and Mrs Smith aren’t joining these charts now, the cost of these redemptions is “something that is very present for us” she said.
Alila Marea
How Much Does This Shift Value From World Of Hyatt?
Laurie Blair pushed back strongly on the notion that this change represented a devaluation of points. She emphasized the strong value that Hyatt points have provided and that she wanted to ensure that continues. She says the “trajectory of the value of our points is not changing.” And overall we won’t be seeing much change right away.
It’ll be difficult to know just how significant a move this is until May when we see how many nights at different properties fall into the very peak of peak pricing. But over time the direction is clear that award nights will cost members more (or else they wouldn’t be doing this).
Park Hyatt New York
And award nights will cost more when hotels are full and prices are high – in other words, when members get the very best value out of their points today. That’s also when those night cost World of Hyatt the most. The effort should broadly be understood, I think, as managing the program so that points achieve strong average value, but ensuring that there aren’t as many value peaks.
Ultimately, the real value in a fixed price award chart is not just predictability, it’s the opportunity to get outsized value on some nights – to “win” as a member – but peak and off-peak pricing within each category undercuts that already. Moving to 5 levels from 3 takes that a step further.
The Seabird
While I still value Hyatt’s elite benefits and points redemptions for premium suites as the best that a major hotel loyalty programs has to offer, this change downgrades somewhat the value I’ll place on a Hyatt point because I know that it’ll take many more points for the best awards in the future (even if not materially so in 2026).
Brutal award price changes on the horizon.
They will have to hand out more points like candy on Halloween either with promotions or the affinity credit card portfolio to keep hamsters on the loyalty program hamster wheel.
Gary, really great reporting. Thanks for breaking this news (even though it’s quite brutal, esp for aspirational award redemptions).
Hi Gary, I think everyone can currently book awards at most Hyatt properties 13 months out (admittedly, a few properties are bad at loading inventory) – I can currently see award availability in Chicago for March 24th 2027, for example – so unless Hyatt gives Explorists and above and cardholders access to awards 14 months out, the “early access to award night” changes will be a net negative for a lot of people and business as usual for the rest.
The worst part of these new updates is that–according to OMAAT–there is no longer the requirement that for every high end award night, the hotel offset it with one low end award night in the year. Because of that, hotels will NEVER offer lower-tier pricing in their category. Here’s what Hyatt exec told him:
“There will be no limit on how many nights per year will go into each of the five pricing tiers for a particular property, so there’s no assurance that the ‘top’ pricing will only be used for X nights per year”
@sean – hotels are not the ones who choose their pricing (whether category or tier within a category). the price charged to a member does not affect availability at all. There’s a separate economic model between World of Hyatt and the hotel. This is only about how much the program chooses to charge the member for the room they are buying.
I think what makes this awful is the fact that there’s no tangible addition or improvement of defined elite status benefits. They should have thrown a bone to globalists. Something. And of course, globalist concierge service is awful — even Marriott Bonvoy has better service for ambassador elites than Hyatt does for globalists.
Without credit card transfers, how does anyone just starting this points game with Hyatt ever earn enough points for a week at some aspirational property?
Gary,
It does not apply to me, but is this equally brutal for franchisees who may now see redemptions skew toward lower occupancy/lower reimbursement time periods?
To what extent is this a long term result of Hyatt being perhaps the last major chain to go “asset light”, with Hyatt less interested in the profitability of particular properties?
Laurie Blair insists the “trajectory of the value of our points is not changing.” Let’s examine that claim.
1. Twenty years ago, a night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo cost 15,000 points. Under this new chart, it costs 75,000. That is a 400% increase. An annualised inflation rate of 8.38%. On a loyalty currency that earns at fixed rates.
2. 78 price levels. The program now contains 78 price levels. At what point does an “award chart” become a marketing fiction? Blair calls this a “long-term sustainability effort.” Members might call it something else.
3. The highest tier prices rise by up to 67%. Not at obscure properties. At the properties members have been saving for, planning around, valuing their points against. And crucially, as the comment from OMAAT makes clear, there is no cap on how many nights a property can place at the top tier. Zero. None. The floor has been removed.
4. Blair pushed back on the word “devaluation.” But when the same points buy fewer nights at fewer properties on fewer dates, what precise word would she prefer?
5. Hyatt remains more transparent than Marriott. That is a low bar, and clearing it is not an achievement worth celebrating. The direction here is unmistakable, the pace is accelerating, and the program’s CMO declining to commit to any improvement on the earning side tells members everything they need to know.
It is not equally brutal for franchisees, whether or not they may see redemptions skew toward lower occupancy/lower reimbursement time periods. The hit for franchise property owners is if Hyatt guests become less loyal to Hyatt because the points are worth much less than before and book elsewhere.
Nothing like having 5 tiers of pricing and 8 category levels. Did Bilt’s consultants come up with this new plan?
I’m so ready to just stay home.
Got into points and miles about 14 years ago. It was really fun and rewarding for about the first 8-9 years, but each year since it’s been less and less rewarding. I see a future not so far away where there’s little reason to even play the game.
It is correct to say that there’s no formal cap on the number of nights in the upper tiers of each category. We’ll see what this looks like in practice in May 2026 and then how much in grows in 2027 (and it’s expected to be worse in 2027 than in 2026).
A week ago when all the blogs (including Gary’s) promoted major changes to Hyatt (including new credit card, but also, devaluations), then everyone backtracked, saying it was a hoax…
Some of us, including myself, called it out as a strategy, reminding everyone of how BILT 2.0 leaked details, similarly backtracked, then the details ended up being fairly accurate…
Yeah, Pepperidge Farm Remembers.
In effect the devaluation would be more than what you see on the surface. For example last year stayed at a Lindner in Vienna for 3500 miles. It was brought up to Category 2 and this year the cost is 12000 miles.
So essentially this is Hyatt saying we don’t care. Where else are you going to go.
@Jamie: “Got into points and miles about 14 years ago. It was really fun and rewarding for about the first 8-9 years, but each year since it’s been less and less rewarding.”
So true! The idea of people with average means racking up points and staying at aspirational properties for modest redemptions is nearing an end. With its limited footprint and high bar for earning meaningful elite status, Hyatt’s one saving grace was the outsized redemptions possible with flexible bank points. This is likely to eliminate that advantage.
@ 1990 — Just. Cut. The. Cards. Everyone stop amd remember AMEX Blue is 2x on all spend and zero AF and CapOne VentureX is 2x on all spend with net negative AF. Ditch the rest of the bs.
Gary-Any comment from Hyatt or info on when they’ll roll out a new premium card? Wondering if this is part of the strategy to get people signed up for that? Maybe have some benefits tied to redemption and/or earning to cut some of the pain of this devaluation?
@Gene — *cuts cards* (Probably should call to actually close the account, too.) ((Also, the metal cards are REALLY hard to literally cut.))
If you haven’t already given up on the loyalty fight for benefits between franchisees and Hyatt’s best members, this is one more reason.
Just pick the best value combo and ignore the earnings. It’s too much effort to engage with this bs.
@James – no comment on timing of the premium card. They just re-upped the cobrand agreement a few months ago. Last time they went from new agreement to card refresh it took a year. That’s not a guarantee but my bet is the fall.
78 levels!
I’m wondering if it would make sense for them to release the premium card in the Spring/Sunmer to coincide with the new award chart and CSR status rollout.
Hilton stands alone as last beacon of value with FNC reigning supreme. I fear it’s only a matter of time before our precious FNC get nerfed – until then they are undisputed most valuable hotel loyalty/card perk.
This Hyatt deval is also a big blow to Bilt. Hyatt the is bedrock hotel transfer partner for Bilt. Sure, some airline partners remain, but not many that can’t be accessed via Amex and Chase.
Hyatt was pretty unique, but looks like no more a good partner.
This is a major devaluation
I recently booked a week in a Category 8 hotel for 35k points a night. It’s absolutely “High Season” for them, which would mean 75k points a night. That’s a HUGE jump, and one I wouldn’t be able to justify. Even in slow season at 45k points is a significant jump. It’s enough to make one completely rethink their spending and loyalty.
@sean: For the past 2 years, Ventana Big Sur has set nearly all nights as peak, 45k points.
I’m done. Will make some speculative bookings soon to burn remaining points, but will no longer chase globalist. Not worth it. Trust has been obliterated. I feel like one of Pritzkers Epstein girls.
Maybe just make a category 9 that has dynamic pricing with fixed value of 1.5 and reduce how complicated it is.
“ Hyatt allows points transfers now, without a fee, but it involves a fax machine (or, for Globalists with a concierge, emailing the scanned form to their concierge).”
That is not correct. Anyone can email the pdf to combinepoints at hyatt.com today, and that is actually the only option listed on the form – no fax number is provided.
So with these changes, another decent redemption program that actually fostered loyalty bites the dust. Yes, they still have a chart, which I guess means it’s now the best of the worst when it comes to hotel point redemption. As with everything in this world, Hyatt has now switched to short term thinking versus long term thinking…which means I continue my drum beat, as some above have now said, to just ditch the points & miles credit cards and instead go with the cash back. I have the AMEX Biz Cash for 2% off, but recently replaced it with the Robinhood 3% back on everything (no caps), though it does have a $50 fee, which gives you access to all RH Gold benefits. That said, my soul dies a little given how far I’ve been able to venture in this world with what essentially is (was/will become) now a past hobby.
What a pity. Five redemption levels for a hotel? Who could keep track of that – but that is precisely the point the bean counters are banking on. I reduced my stays at Marriott and Hilton over the years as they devaluated their loyalty programs. Until recently, Hyatt was my go-to, despite their smaller footprint in many markets etc. My POV – a very mis-guided move by Hyatt’s decision-makers. Does not surprise me, but I will now book away more often.