The no-notice devaluations are an unfortunate (and inexcusable) Hilton hallmark, and one of the reasons it's my third program (after Marriott and Hyatt). It's been a difficult program for finding good redemption values for several years now, and that is clearly going to be even more true going forward.

IMO the outrage here is fully warranted, particularly from those who've acquired their points the hard way (i.e., through stays).

If you want to send a message to Hilton, cancel your credit cards.

Cash price of the booking I made yesterday is the same today, only the points cost increased.

This is about decreasing the value of points not increasing the cost of the room due to demand.

No, it's not a requirement. Obviously the OP and everyone else knows that. No need to be snide.

Imagine, though, that you went to the grocery store and the price of your favorite cereal jumped 20 percent overnight. Pretty annoying, right? I think it's perfectly natural and reasonable to complain about this.

This is the root cause. Basic economics.

The more currency you manufacture and distribute, the less value it has.

However, the two highest value points properties I visit have remained the same value as far as I can tell.

I see the opposite at Hilton Da Nang, VN. The number of points required today is less than last week. Compared to last week, the cash price is ~10% lower, but the points price is about 25% lower.

This is bad news.

Yes.
As I am sure you know points do not have any intrinsic value (and you do not own them). If they started selling FT Bucks would you buy them? Not unless they told you what they were useful for.
Loyalty programs need to tell their customers what the points are good for. Otherwise it is basically like crytoptocurrency (actually not even because you can exchange those). And if so yes, you can sue them under different guidelines for fraud and manipulation.

wow, when warsaw Hilton first opened, they were 10,000 points per night. I stayed 5 nights. great deal.

It seems to be lost on lots of people that if a company (Hilton in this case) starts giving away huge numbers of bonus points that ultimatey the value of points will be reduced, and ultimately this will lead to more points being required for reward stays. It's not rocket science..

When Chase started giving 100k points for the CSR they did not devalue their point exchange ratio.
Who saw the Hertz points devaluation coming? No one

And AMEX has been giving large sign-up bonuses on Hilton cards for many years. Not to mention that, the larger the bonuses, the higher the breakage, which means a significant number of those bonus points will never be used.

In any event, not sure why the purported economic geniuses here seem to believe that increased points float somehow justifies a no-notice devaluation. That is a complete non sequitur.

Finally, since this is not an open market, but rather one in which Hilton and the properties exercise exclusive control over inventory and pricing, the analogy to currency devaluation in an open market is completely inapt. Hilton certainly can keep prices unchanged. The result would be more points competing for the same number of rooms, i.e., it would be harder to redeem for the desirable properties. This is an inherent characteristic of a market in which prices are fixed. An award chart is by definition price fixing, and it can be expected to throw the demand curve out of whack, since prices are set by Hilton, not the market.

It's interesting to hear people rank their hotel programs of preference. With my situation, unfortunately I'm locked into Hilton. It's the program with the best combination of being usable and egalitarian (if that's the right word) out of the major hotel chains for leisure travelers who like to have upscale hotel experiences. I've no better choice unless they end up doing something like >30% points devaluation. Unfortunately Hilton probably has smart people who have done the math to figure out what the threshold would be for x % of people to jump ship.

As much as I complain about the lack of Diamond recognition at Hilton (late checkout iffy, stingy breakfast benefit at many US properties, poor upgrade %, EL quality esp in US), it's the only hotel chain with a good number of upscale properties that make a truly elite status available for a fee, and the points keep pouring like loose slot machine (44 points per $, with Aspire and 2x promos which feel perpetual). In comparison...

Hyatt:
pros: Regency Clubs in US are consistently superior to EL. Predictable late check-out. Good credit card with decent perks and similar value per $ spent as Aspire imo.
cons: Cannot "purchase" a status that's commensurate with hhonors Diamond or even Gold. Can usually purchase RC access for $50-70/night and I do that selectively, but that still doesn't give you the restaurant breakfast option. Not enough properties. Does not hand out points promos like Hilton.

Marriott (I don't know this program as much, so am just jotting down what I know):
pros: Can theoretically buy into Plat Elite (which seems to me the lowest truly valuable status) with $75k spend on cc. And Plat Elite is likely more valuable and exclusive than Diamond. Number-wise lot more upscale properties than Hilton.
cons: aforementioned $75k spend is pretty steep. Many hotels seem to close lounge on weekends, which does us no good.

I sure hope they'll go easy on us with future devaluations. Unfortunately, for now I have no other recourse than to keep taking it up the butt and just stay with Hilton.

Conrad Osaka is now up to 95000 points for the nights that I just spot checked. Previously it was 80,000 or maybe 88,000. The 95,000 price is definitely new.

I booked the Hilton Salt Lake City Center a few days ago for 40,000 points for a date in September. It is now showing 50,000 points for that night.