I booked London Greenwich on Points and Money a few days ago for 12,000 + £40.

Had I waited until today to book, I would be paying 12,000 + £62.16.

How is this not a devaluation? I understand the need to evolve loyalty programs, but what I can't abide in this post-truth world is the deception where something inferior is being sold to me as an improvement.

The amount of points will change any time the rate goes up or down = no longer being able to make an all pts stay and not have to continue checking back to see if the price went down, no different then an all $$ res.

Before today if eg it cost 20k for the room it wasnt gonna go down to even 19,999, as of today if the rate falls below $100 then it will take less points depending on how low the rate drops below $100

Lessee: Conrad Macao (Gold, upgraded to a suite, for $65 a night plus 16k points), Hotel Reichshof in Hamburg (during July- a 4 star European hotel for $65 a night plus 16k points!), just used one the other day for 12k + $50 at a Homewood Suites where rack rate was $150++ (and thanks to my Gold bonus + online booking bonus + 2k Every Day, I basically spent 9250 points to save $100 on my bill- I LOVE when my HH points are giving me 1 cpp). Even the random Hampton Inn where it's 8k + $40 instead of $120.

I haven't found them to be needles in haystacks at all, these redemptions are most typically how I made HH redemptions. Maybe you're looking in a haystack and I'm in a needlestack? :D

A room at the Conrad Bangkok or Macao would have cost me 40k HH yesterday all year round as a straight redemption. Now I've seen it as low as 29k.

From what I can see, there's been give (lower point redemption rates during slow periods) and take (cash and points for a lot of "good deal" places have been slashed to "eh, not such a good deal"). This is likely going to be changing my strategy on if I stay in HH: I'm a weakly attached HH Gold who's basically a hotel chain's worst nightmare; someone who wants to maximize the return on points and minimize spend :D, but a lot of where I found outsize value was on money and points redemptions where I was getting a cent per point or more... and that looks like dust, so maybe I walk and go to hotels.com 10% rebates or whatever unless the lower room redemption rates balance it out (I can see this working because I do a fair amount of "offseason" travel.)

Yup, unless you know the price will rarely if ever drop below the monetary amount associated with about .5 cents x the cap. I have a room booked where the cash rate is $800, so I'm pretty safe in knowing that the points are never going to drop below the cap (of 60k). But that's an extreme case. Otherwise, you're right -- it will pay to constantly mind your reservations.

This is all somewhat ironic, given that Hilton played a large role in the movie Up in the Air, which was about, among other things, loyalty and its value.

The problem as I see it, though, and the reason I think the dreaded "devaluation" word is completely appropriate here, is that the only time there is "give" here is when you're getting less than optimal use out of your points.

That is, it's only going to be a "give" when the standard rate for cash is such that the points work out to about a half cent. In fact, I think it's worse than that if you have access to any kind of discounted rates like AAA or AARP, since it appears that the points value is pegged to the member rate (at least in the small sample I've looked at today).

This is incredibly good marketing by Hilton. It seems like they've been successful as selling this as having "give," even though the only give is where using points is suboptimal (except for all but the extremely cash poor, who, at this point, should be focused on gathering more valuable currency). I don't think that's really "give" at all. I think it's just a really sneaky devaluation.

Imagine if what Hilton had done here was say: Effective 3/1, we're getting rid of seasonal prices. Instead, every property from now on will be priced at the previous cap for points redemptions.

The hue and cry would have been dramatic. But that is exactly what they have done, with the caveat that in some cases a property will be less on points than the prior maximum cap -- but only in circumstances in which it is irrational to use points in the first place.

I dunno, I looked at the Conrad Macao, and it's not a TERRIBLE deal to use points there at max price (40k)- something like .63 cpp on HH. Anything over .5 I'm OK with.

I also looked at an archetypical market for "this is a slow market where rooms are priced to sell"- Phoenix in July. I was seeing >.5 cpp rates there (it really helps that a straight room redemption knocks off substantial hotel taxes). Of course, there's MVP... ;)

But yeah, points and money where you're getting 1 cpp? Not finding that...

Booked Conrad Tokyo a few weeks back for 80k. Price was still 80k before change, now showing 91k, not the worst but still pretty annoying.

I booked Tokyo Hilton a few weeks ago. 5 nights 200k points. Now same everything is 240k points. This hotel was always 50k pr night now it is 60k for the days (if doing less than 5 nights). That sucks.

Edit to add tha I just checked the hotel I am currently in now. It's costing me 40k but over the next month 1 night is anywhere from 47-87k.

Terrible redemption - Rome FCO Apr 6
 

I am in transit, looking for a 1-night stay at the Hilton FCO. Stayed there many times. Lowest rate with advanced payment is an obscene 318 Euro. So I thought I'd use points - 140,000 points for a freaking standard room. What the heck is going on here? Also no option for cash + points at all. At this rate I will be looking elsewhere.... Only reason to consider the hotel is the ease of walking to/from terminal but this is just crazy!

Hotels.com's program in combination with cashback portal booking nets me a much better return than 1/2 cent per $1 spent. 10-20% rebate via hotels.com is better than what I'd get out of Hilton.

Hilton is again playing from the Delta SkyMiles playbook. They hope the elite benefits keep the customers hooked even as the "rebate" for those customers get cut.

Complete devaluation of points?
 

I booked a hotel for 80,000 points plus $0 cash. Once I made the booking, the confirmation said 80,000 points plus a cash component equal to the best available rate. So my 80,000 points are now worth nothing! :eek:

Well my Diamond is good until March 2018. I only have 400k combined between DH and me. I will burn, but not earn. This Diamond is going to say bye bye.

At .5 cpp, I get around 10-20% back as rebate on HH if there's a promo (there almost always is). It's competitive with hotels.com. What made it better was getting 1 cpp on spend for some money + points redemptions.

The thing is you don't get 1/2 cent per point per dollar spent with Hilton (that's just wrong). You would shoot for .5 cents per point when SPENDING your points (preferably more).

The baseline for OBTAINING points is 10 points per dollar, plus 5 more if you take points and points, plus any promos, plus any status bonus, plus anything like Gold/Diamond amenity (which you can take as points), plus any bonuses for Hilton credit cards.

During one promo, I figured as a Gold I was getting 27.5 points per dollar I spent- so let's call it a $100 hotel room. Oh, and I was getting the 1000 point Gold amenity. So 2750 points + 1000 = 3750. OK, so at .5 cpp... that's $18.75 effective rebate on a $100 hotel room. Or 18.75%. Right around that 10-20% range I'd get for hotels.com.

So like I said, with the right set of promos it's pretty easy to net 10-20% rebate (even easier now that Hilton makes EVERYONE play ball). The thing is hotels.com doesn't lock you into Hilton. That's why I might be giving up on Hilton if the value for money + points is evaporating, because getting more like 20-30% on Hilton (when I get value closer to 1 cpp instead of .5) was more attractive than being able to be a free agent, but if it's net-net the same-ish with hotels.com... why be locked in?

Cash and points as we know it is gone with effect from today, although with rates as high as that it's highly unlikely it would ever have been offered under the old scheme.

140k would be insane for a standard room, but this isn't a standard room, but a king exec (presumably as all the standard rooms are sold out). So you're getting a nominal cash value of $0.24/point, which is not far off what you'd have had before the latest changes.

The HGI has standard rooms at 50k points - not a great hotel but it's generally expensive.