I tried to do a spreadsheet to figure out what our credit card spend (i used $38K per year) would get us with this new devaluation. Generally, I think HH is giving poorer value than before and poorer value than the competition, but this depends on the city. Our annual spend is small, but this should be scale-able.

So for our spend (taking bonus categories into account) we would get 40,500 Starwood points (=121,500 Marriott points using the SPG Amex) or 54,000 Hyatt points (Chase) or 149,500 Hilton points (we have the Citi reserve).

For that earn, I looked at burn in five cities--Seattle, Chicago, Berlin, Bangkok and Sydney. In general Hilton only came out ahead in Bangkok in terms of value. Berlin was more or less even for all the chains. And for the other cities Hilton definitely came up short in terms of number of nights for the points.

For example, in Bangkok, I could redeem my credit card spend for three nights at the Grand Hyatt, four nights at the W or five nights at the Hilton (six in some months). So I think HH comes out ahead here.

For Berlin it was 3 nights at the Grand Hyatt, four nights at the Westin, or three nights at the Hilton (or the Waldorf Astoria in low season). To me this is more or less even.

For downtown Chicago, I could get three nights at the Hyatt Regency or four nights at the Hyatt Place, three nights at the Aloft or four nights at the Tremont (both SPG) or two nights at any Hilton family property.

For Sydney I could get two nights at the Hyatt Regency, three nights at the Westin or either one or two nights at the Hilton, depending on the season (I looked at a June weekend and an October midweek).

And for Seattle, I could get three nights at the Grand Hyatt (or four nights at the Hyatt Place), three nights at the W or four nights at the FourPoints, or two nights at the Hilton, DoubleTree or HGI.

To be fair, since I had low spend, all properties had points left over at various times that with a higher spend might not be as much of a factor. I also did not include the annual free night (category four or less) at Hyatt or the annual free weekend night at Hilton for credit card spend of $10K, so that could add one more night to each chain, depending on several factors (Hyatt's cert, for example, couldn't be used at all in Sydney because the lowest category hotel there is a category five).

All in all, this is just one analysis for one spending pattern for two time periods for five cities, so it's certainly not the definitive analysis. But I do think that generally speaking, this devaluation doesn't work to make Hilton more competitive. In fact, I would argue that it makes them less competitive in most cities, especially ones where the cost of hotels is higher.