Yeah, never say never when it comes to loyalty devaluations, but I'd be surprised if they did this.

And the fact that you CAN change and rebook your hotel stays makes the program more valuable to participate in. Kind of like Southwest's program. Yes, it's not aspirational, but it can be useful. Which is usually good enough!

I'd note that a good chunk of the "best deals" in hotel stays involve non-cancelable rooms, which are obviously less attractive than freely-cancelable award stays.

Always been able to cancel flights booked with points. Don't see why any hotel should be different.

But not without an insignificant cost, unless you are a top tier member; hence this argument does not hold much water.

Never had any issues with BA

That's because you're BA Gold. ;)

To cancel an AA flight award, I'd be paying $150 to get the miles back. Other airlines are similar- there are exemptions for top elites (for instance, as an AS MVP Gold, I am exempt from almost all fees such as flight award cancellation), but for John Q. Public, they have to pay up.

With BA there's only small charge for cancellation, regardless of tier. If charge is higher than taxes paid, you just lose cash part.

I have complained about this change from Hilton, but I have to give Hilton credit where it's due. I looked at Hilton Blackpool (UK) for the summer, which used to be a Cat6 (30-50k). Expecting the worst, I was pleasantly surprised to see rooms for anywhere from 16k to 22k. And the next day, the price even dropped. So in this case, the new structure really worked out for me.

I'm starting to think some hotels are trying shenanigans with the new award pricing or not properly adjusting award pricing.

A hotel in Miami which is a Cat 5, has a cheap rate of $100 per night but is charging 31000 points instead of 30000. A next hotel in Fort Lauderdale (Cat 6) has a rate of almost $140, but rooms are pricing below 30000 points. There's no way a Category 5 with a $40 lower base price is charging slightly more points for a standard room as compared to a Category 6 hotel with a higher rate.

Is the Cat 5 room a standard room or above it? If its above a standard then those rooms always cost more pts and the .005 ratio wouldnt apply. Ive found plenty of cases where it should have been say 21200 and they set it at 22000, would have been nice if they set it up that till xx499 ig gets lowered and from xx500 it gets raised.

then again the pts are offset by the reg rate many people have codes that gets the reg rate reduced, so one needs to 1st find the cheapest rate they can book and then see what the pt amount is. Which is why I doubt I will be having many pt stays if any at all in the US.Exception being when I want a particuliar hotel and its pts are at its cap due to the very high rate being charged. Outside NA where most of my codes arent worth much it will be all pts

Both rooms are standard. The hotel costs 1000 more points than it did before March 1st, yet the price has remained the same since I booked it in early January.

I have seen other hotel with "similar problems".

1,000 HH points = <$5. Would you be as concerned if a paid rate moved around by this much?

The points are lower because the room rate is lower.

You are simply exchanging x points per GBP.

In the past you would have probably paid cash rather than use 30 or 50 thousand points. Now you have a choice.

Is the $100 per night rate the flexible rate or the advance purchase rate? I think the point system only applies to the flexible rate + hotel tax and fee. If you just take the flexible rate, it seems to be about 1 point per $0.0043. But if you add local/sales/hotel tax to it, it became very close to 1 point per $0.005.

I did the calculation on about 10 hotels in FLL and Miami area, they all have the same rate between $0.0042 to $0.0043 on the flexible rate before adding taxes/fees.

If I was the one doing the booking, it wouldnt matter to me that it doesnt make sense to use my pts when the rate is $100. Id be ticked off as it seems the OP is that the hotel (or whomever) is playing games.

I can understand it being 30k which was probably the cap for the hotel before if it was 40k then I could hear 40k but not that it was 30k before 3/1 and now with the same rate its 31k, but the unknown is what rate the $100 is that the OP mentioned.And if teh rate is $100 then by all means that should take only 20k when using pts, and Ive seen 19k due to the low rate when before 3/1 the hotel cat was 20-30. So something isnt adding up

ES Sacramento still offering 40k standard award on a night when rooms going for over $300 . . . so that's a redemption value of .75 cpp.