zombietooth

There is one error that I've found. The Tokyo Hilton went up 10K not the Hilton Tokyo Odaiba.

Miesque

Seriously. Its really a bit disconcerting because there are a lot of properties I saw go from 30K to 40K and 40K to 50K which really made no sense in that their rates haven't gone up for example at a lot of airport hotels

Miesque

That is another thing that really irritated me as it almost looks like someone just added 10K to the top of a massive chunk of properties and as you noted that percentage increase is substantial and its not in areas where rates have gone up any material amount.

Cledaybuck

I don't know what it means, but I find it interesting that New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago were barely touched while places like Atlanta and Orlando got hammered.

italdesign

Yes, the new Marriott chart is a LOT better for mid-level redemptions, at the expense of low category redemptions. The gap between Marriott and Hilton points is wider than ever before. I'd say Marriott is at least 2x the worth of HH pts now.

san888

I tend to agree with you. Additionally Hilton doing this with no advance notice is no way to treat your loyal guests. I may have to give Marriott more of my business.

craigthemif

Yeah, I'll have to redo some numbers to see whether I can even justify 0.4 cents for an Honors point now.

It's sad really. Honors loyalists get all excited about double points or whatever on their expensive corporate stays, plus credit card bla bla bla - yet 40 Honors points per $ is potentially only a 15% rebate. Standard, no promo Marriott earnings for a Titanium is 17.5 points, so easily 14%...

evergrn

As of now, my valuation is still 0.7 cents per point.
Right now it seems that the ceiling for most high-end properties' standard award is still 95k. As long as that continues to hold, hhonors points will continue to hold high value for me.

During Holiday season, Conrad Tokyo starts at $800 a night (0.85cpp).
During ski season, Whistler Hilton starts at $500USD a night (0.6cpp).
Those are the ones I go for, and those are my usual destinations.
I will never use points if the exchange rate is <0.5cpp. Even with this recent devaluation, I don't think it's hard to find properties in my usual destinations where the redemption rate is >0.5cpp. Plenty such places in LA this summer.

We will see what the future holds. I hope the bleeding has stopped for now systemwide, and we do not see more and more properties continually jumping on the devaluation bandwagon.

italdesign

I also only redeem HH pts @ >0.75 CPP. But, the # of redeemable properties with such value (that people actually want to go to) has evaporated by 90%. One of my parameters for valuing a currency is the extensiveness of the sweet spots, so that you have backup options should some of them disappear. In the case of Marriott, even though every annual devaluation wiped out many sweet spots, there were soooo many to begin with that I still had a bunch left after all these years (although a bit less every year). I can't say the same for Hilton right now. I did also recognize upthread that HH is much better for top-level redemptions than mid or low level now, but at the low level where I redeem the most, I'm having trouble finding more than ~5 sweet spots that would appeal to a reasonable person (10 if you count places with some serious flaw but still possibly workable). And God knows how soon those are gonna get killed off. Sure, if someone needs to be in Tampico, there's a great deal to be had, but it doesn't carry much usefulness broadly speaking, than something like DT KL when it was 10k.

craigthemif

I will gladly sell you 1,000,000 Honors points for 0.695 cents each... You would be making a tidy profit against your valuation...

I presume you would never take me up on the offer, nor would you really pay $800 to spend one night at a hotel in Tokyo. But I've learned that some FTers are pretty attached to that cents per point methodology and won't change their minds about it...

flyingislove

I canceled my Hilton card. It just doesn't seem worth it anymore.

zombietooth

You've got it all wrong. Many would pay $700- to $800- per night (or even more) for a top property in the right location. What almost none of us are willing to do is to pay $200- to $300- plus per night for a mundane domestic Hampton Inn or a Doubletree, etc.

I now stay 60+ nights at Wyndham properties per year, domestically, and find great value there, especially by using their Go Fast awards. I can almost always beat the best competing Marriott, Hilton or Hyatt property in price by going with Wyndham when I do domestic travel. And I find their properties equally nice in equivalent categories with the other chains in the same location. So far, I haven't stayed at any Wyndhams internationally, but there are cheap points redemptions available in lots of nice destinations.

Cledaybuck

I realize all valuations are personal, but I have it more like 1.75X's

I don't think anyone would buy them for .695 each considering Hilton often sells them for .5
The credit card is one of the sweet spots in the program right now.

evergrn

I realize that valuation based on my average exchange rate (which is how I arrive at 0.7 cpp) is an oversimplification of the issue. But your argument also equally oversimplifies the matter.

Take Tokyo during the last few days of Dec, for instance. During that time, the cheapest hotel I can find that would satisfy my minimum requirements would be ~$250 for a family of 4. The cheapest upscale hotel would run around $350, close to $450 with breakfast for the family... this would be something along the line of Hyatt Regency. Conrad is obviously on a different level than HR given the 5-star rating, lounge access and all that. Of course I'd much rather stay at Conrad than HR, but you're right I wouldn't spend $800. So then what's my valuation? $250/95k? $450/95k? Or $800/95?

Fact is, there's no clear-cut answer to this, but still the most objective way to state your valuation is what you think your average exchange rate is going to be (but I do toss out places like Conrad Maldive from such calculation, since that's a place I would never go to if it weren't for points). Is this a meaning number? In many ways no, because ultimately people have different travel patterns and priorities. For me, it is helpful as far as comparing values of one program vs another.

evergrn

Exactly.