I've bought and redeemed 1.5-2 million points annually over the past couple years, so have a keen interest in this. Since these discussions about a stealth devaluation came up, I've been checking almost daily. I need to preface this by saying that pretty much all my redemptions are 4 nighters with Chase 4th night free, so keep that in mind when I refer to points requirements -- the numbers below are the per night cost I see for Aug-Sept travel when I make a 4 night reservation with Chase 4NF (but not taking into consideration the additional 10% points refund).

Some hotels have gone up a fair bit, for my travel patterns most notably Singapore, where the Bugis IC jumped from sub-40k to initially 44k-ish and then 47k-ish. IC Rob from low-30k to 36-38k. Voco has held more steady around 29-30k. HI Atrium increased from 20k-ish to 25k-ish, but a couple days ago came down to 22k-ish again (likely the best value in SG these days due to the new MRT line and excellent elite treatment). I guess this shows that these rates are still dynamic. Taiwan took a brutal hit, with a 30%+ devaulation. Hong Kong isn't affected as much, with CP/Indigo/ICGS still in the 30k range. Even if you don't factor the Chase 4NF discount, some of these hotels are still below or at their cost during the latter years of fixed redemptions, e.g., CP HK 45k, IC SIN 50k, etc.

Looking further out, it's a mixed bag. Some hotels are pretty much unchanged, e.g., Regent PQC for early Jaunary 2025 remaining around 50k (which is still very good value compared to cash rates of $400 for non-refundable rates), but others have increased brutally, e.g., IC Cascais, which is showing in the 65k range for summer 2025.

Being fairly flexible in my travel, I loved some "kinks" the dynamic pricing system seemed to have. At some hotels, booking far out yielded insanely low rates -- for instance, I'm about to stay at IC Cascais on a rate of 18.5k a night (booked a year ago when the schedule opened up), and I have/had reservations of 19k at IC Phu Quoc over NYE, 25k at IC Tokyo Bay during Sakura season, 35k at Indigo Paris during a busy May weekend. These often amounted to 70-80% savings over lowest cash rates, so it's sad that these appear much harder to come by now.

I'm down to some 300k points in my account (plus about a dozen existing 4NF reservations), so I'm not too worried. As of now, random searches for Bali or Japan or Berlin suggest that with Chase 4NF, I'd still have savings of 20-30% at most hotels (comparing to lowest, i.e. typically non-refundable, revenue rates), so the value hasn't been wiped out completely. And since pricing is dynamic, I fully expect ups and downs, although perhaps within higher bands than before. So personally, I'm not throwing in the towel altogether just yet (especially in light of IHG's much-improved Diamond/LP benefits), but yeah, if you're based outside the US and don't have access to the Chase cards, I'd probably hold off on buying points.