So instead of stopping the hotels from abusing loopholes, they're gonna make them official and clearly more common ("expanding collection"). This clearly shows the intent of further reducing quality of "normal" lounges.

The Diamond Reserve tier is indeed a great thing, it should lead to a significantly better experience for those who qualify for it and it's a massive step in the right direction. Unfortunately, despite 93 nights this year (none of them at budget brands, the lowest I've stayed at was HGI), I'm still 1/3 from reaching the spend threshold. It seems they set the spend requirement with people who only travel to Switzerland in mind (nothing wrong with that of course).

Thus only the impact on "regular Diamond" is relevant to me and the changes seem pretty bad in that area. Hilton did absolutely nothing to fix the issue with credit cards devaluing the tier, instead they even lowered qualification requirement via BIB which means even fewer upgrades and other soft perks, and even busier lounges. Plus as I said above, I think we're heading for devaluation of lounges for Diamonds at premium properties. With the new low qualification requirements, I will only need 17 nights next year to requalify for Diamond next year, and since no rollover nights will be offered afterwards, not even that is a motivating me to stay loyal to Hilton.

In 2026 I'm gonna keep staying at the Hilton properties I particularly like, which should give me those 17 nights comfortably, but besides that I will try out some other chain. Hyatt would be my preference but their footprint is quite bad, so I guess I'll go and explore what it feels like to be Bonvoyed