Are you going to provide a credible source?

A hotel employee.

at the Waldorf?

Indeed. In September I had 51,000 HHonors points that I realized I would never use so I simply gifted them to another FTer.

Hotel employees are probably the worst source for information about loyalty programme changes.

Some like to gossip and speculate, but rarely have any inside information about what corporate is planning. And make no mistake... the decisions about the pricing of award nights are made at corporate headquarters.

100% correct.

The GM of property might have some insight but that's only a might at best. Speaking as a Hilton property employee, sure we're privy to plenty that the travelling public will never know about but this isn't part of it. We find out when everbody else does.

I have no inside information, but it wouldn't surprise me. Have you seen the cash rates at high end properties lately?

The issue is that inflation has driven cash rates up dramatically at many hotels. Hilton points devalued pre-2021, but the value of the points has risen meaningfully the past six to eight months when measured against cash rates, if you believe the cash rates are actually indicative of current supply/demand dynamics. I just got my best value Hilton redemption ever last week (5 night stay, redeeming 240K points for a ~$5,000 stay, so over 2 cents per point). There will have to be some kind of devaluation across the board - Marriott has already announced theirs is coming, Hyatt moving to peak / off peak,

I'm not sure why you say this. From your trip reports, you tend to stay at similar hotels to me, i.e. not the WA Maldives, and at the moment I am still finding good uses for my points around the 20k to 30k level. These are hotels I would be happy to pay around £75-£100 per night, but often they charge £150-£200. So it tends to work out at over 0.5p per point of "value" and around 0.3-0.4p per point of true value, not especially great but I consider that I acquire points for 0.25p so it's still profitable.

I'm not getting £1000 nights for 95k points, but I wouldn't even pay £300 for them, so it doesn't matter to me if they become 200k points.

But a devaluation of 20k hotels to 30k is certainly possible, which would make the value proposition start to become marginal for me.

If there is a devaluation coming, I am willing to bet it is going to be on the top end of the scale. You rarely get outsized value from you typical Hampton Inn, and in my recent experience, cash prices for these hotels haven't changed much. Cash prices for resorts and hotels in highly desirable locations seems through the roof though, and this is where you can sometimes use HH for outsized value. JMO.

There is a lot more to this as well. Looking at 5 random nights at the Waldorf Maldives, I didn't see a starting rate under $2200 (before taxes and fees). If we were to compare that to the .5 cent valuation, that's giving away your flagship property at a significant discount. I know right now, as someone reads this, they are thinking of a response of why they are entitled to this discount. From a business perspective, it makes no sense. It was like when you could book the Bora Bora Thalasso through IHG for 60,000 points, and all of those hip to the value would suck up the rooms asap.

Thanks for your example of how the program still has value. These types of threads love to take things way out of context, if even true at all.

Unlikely, because people notice it at the top end and get upset. The best "devaluations" for Hilton are the 30k hotels moving to 50k without anybody noticing...

I think you nailed it.

David