Originally Posted by
ceflyer
On the award changes, Hyatt reimburses hotels for the full daily rate cost of a points room when the hotel is full. There was probably a huge chunk of these reimbursements going toward “essentials” properties during event days. (Think about booking a $800 Hyatt Place for 5,000 points 13 months out before a college graduation. Hyatt is on the hook for $800, and you earned them $75 or so worth of points from Chase/Bilt). They probably calculated that ~XX% — maybe even >50% — of their reimbursement “losses” were coming from these super-peak days, and that was threatening the future of the award chart. If this ensures long-term viability, which I suspect it helps, we should all be extremely supportive.
Historically, FTers have not exactly concerned themselves about the "long-term viability" of a program. It sounds selfish but ultimately makes sense - find what gets you the best earn/burn rates and play that, and then move when things change. Points are always going to be inherently deflationary anyways, hoping your preferred corporate overload will have your long-term best interests in mind is not a wise move.
Now I suppose there is a big difference in hotels vs airlines in that it is much easier to execute a "good value" award like booking a college town HP far out versus piecing together award availability for a longhaul J trip, which changes the calculus a bit - if its easy enough that a random Joe can figure out it likely has a large surface area, you might accept losing value there to avoid too much award inflation elsewhere. But that isn't going to change my opinion that, to me, this change would stink as someone who has gotten big value out of booking Hyatt awards on event dates