The place where they do the devaluation is availability, the same way the airlines did it.

i haven’t checked in the last four or five days, but aloft Bangkok had zero rooms available

for every date at the current chart (3k weekend, 4 k weekday). They are going up to 17,500 marriott

so roughly 6000 spg equivalent. They will sell you an award room now, but they will describe the room as

non standard, and get at least another 1000 for those words (There is very little difference in the aloft rooms, other

than floor number and views).


Now four points is going down to 12500, unless there is a last minute change to that plan. When 4p Bangkok was

lowest tier before , they also rarely had rooms at only the chart level, but one could get a room by paying extra points.

No matter, hotels in Bangkok will not stay at the 12500 level for long, and for the time that they are at category two

they will almost always be at peak season rates.

This is of course not as good as first half 2018, but second half 2018 will soon be considered the good old days, by

2021 I expect we will have full on dynamic pricing, with a point gravitating to two thirds of a cent, making it worth

arguably six tenths of a cent, as one does not earn points on point stays, and cash is good for many things, points

not so much.

i have other thoughts as well, but I don’t want to give anyone nightmares. The words “fair” and “enhancement” will

become part of the language. Not sure if you noticed, but since 1984 we have been living in a brave new world, and

words have opposite their original meaning. Chairman Kim is our best friend, Canada vile enemies.