Not seeing why anyone would be surprised anymore by this (and this is not unique to Hilton).

It is the same as inflation, when a central monetary authority starts printing money, prices go up and up and up, in some cases reaching hyperinflation ... money supply has to dry up to achieve a new equilibrium, which however takes place at a much higher price and / or at the expense of loss of value for the end consumer.

The same happens here, until credit card companies continue to hand out hundreds of thousands of points for free and holders are allowed to sign up, terminate, wait, sign up again, terminate again, etc. points will continue to be devalued until they completely lose their value at the end. I have always seen this credit cards for points game to be a clear pyramid. At the end, people will suffer a lot, for things to change.

For this reason. personally, once I collect a reasonable amount of points for a redemption, I use them immediately - I have never been and will never be "points rich" ...