It'll be interesting to see what the combined Starwood-Marriott 2018 behemoth ends up looking like. Hyatt and Hilton have devalued this year: will Marriott/SPG press the advantage and try to bring new people there with a rich program that *actually* takes the best of MR and SPG? Or will they just go along with the devaluation trend and know they can cut 20-25% value out of the program with minimal negative repercussions since people don't really have anywhere else to go...

Knowing out the travel industry works and how mergers usually work, I'm not hopeful.

Tropicana...

I've seen Tropicana $50 cash rates and 20k+$85 C&P rates, before these changes. LOL. Pay more money AND a bunch of HH points!

Tropicana doesn't have low rates just during summer- Vegas low season is actually Thanksgiving/December after NFR through February around the time of MAGIC, with short exceptions like NYE, CES. Even the weekend of the Super Bowl can be surprisingly affordable. Just don't plan on going swimming, unless you like swimming in cold pools in 50-60 degree sunny weather (at best).

20k+$85 was the previous fixed P&M rate for a Cat 6 hotel regardless of the cash rate.

If the cash rate is truly $50, it should now be available for 10k or 11k points on those nights.

Perhaps now, but not then...

For me the most disappointing aspect of the new program is not the fixed rate of 1/2 a cent per HH point (more or less) for standard rooms but the fixed rate for premium rooms of much less than that (I'm averaging 1/3 of a cent per point or a little more). So if standard rooms are no longer a good value, what does that say about better rooms at all these properties.

And even that is counter-intuitive. Premium rooms should be available at a BETTER rate than standard rooms, since it would incentivize us (me) to pay the extra points. As it is, I usually get some sort of upgrade for free (though it's a crap shoot, I admit), but given the relative values, I will always risk the upgrade going forward rather than paying much more (in points per dollar or dollars per point) to secure it. What were/are they thinking?!?

It was always more of a marketing thing than a real thing. It allowed Hilton to say that they have award available almost all the time (albeit in prices that no one will ever pay).

I will also bet that reimbursement structure to the hotel for none standard room requires more expenditure on Hilton side (and therefore more points).

They were never been good values, unless the rates were relatively low and you manged to get one in less or slightly more than the normal rates. Now standard rooms in those cases should theoretically cost less as well.

​​​​​​well clearly in the past HH hotels were not able to set point redemptions above the category max. But now they can. So yes, it is because there was a limit imposed by IT previously that no longer exists.

For standard rooms they cannot charge more of the maximum. It is just the maximum now is what was the high season maximum before the change. There is no more low/high season differentiation.

And I seriously doubt that those calculation are done on the hotel level - more likely the Hilton level.

We were told that this would not happen.

Some hotels no longer seem to have 'standard' rooms. Just premium ones.

Just checked a Hampton Inn I booked back in January for 30,000 point/night (not exactly cheap) and now it is at 50,000 point/night for the same room (standard room)/date ouch.

I've always thought this - even back when Premium rooms were a new thing. I'd literally see things like standard room 50,000 points, deluxe room 145,000 points/nt, when we all know "deluxe" might be 10 square feet larger than "standard". (Or not at all larger, because the hotel was gaming the system all along and "standard" hardly existed at all.)

Instead, if it were more like Marriott - a 5k upgrade for something like C-level, a 10k upgrade for something like a standard suite - I'd have been more likely to book those rooms. I'm sure they'd capacity-control the suites, but in my Gold years I'd have thrown the extra points at a C-level room just to not have to grovel for the upgrade at the front desk.

Since the deval, I've received points on the 'money' portion of P&M stays booked under the old rates.

Would be even better with a double (triple!) points promo.

I see many hotels offering standard rooms for the number of points that is lower that the low season before the changes, for example, Conrad St James in London that was 70K in low season and now offers rooms at 66K points for some dates. There are other examples as well. So, there is definitely a differentiation, maybe, not based on a particular season but there are some good deals for standard rooms.

I am seeing some properties with no points for standard rooms. I contacted customer service and they said there were standard room awards available at those dates. They also expressed surprise that the website was not showing it. This was for the Curio property in Hamburg in October. I still think the lack of standard room awards is a software glitch. I didn't pursue it further, but it sounds like I could call and book a standard award.