I was actually attempting to be neutral and suggest that for most people spending $255 is better than $300 + tax, but that there might be valid reasons for the latter.

However you DO have to be ignorant to prefer paying $300 + tax, without reviewing the option of paying $255, now that award nights count for status and promo purposes.

It's one thing if they expanded availability for C&P with this change.. but I'm guessing the benefit will be capped at a certain cost/point by eliminating C&P availability once the rate becomes too "high".
This is like Hilton's C&P option.. except Hyatt points are slightly harder to accumulate, whereas Hilton has point promotions all the time.

Unfortunately, real life cannot be reduced to a simple math problem.

Your argument is ONLY valid if you could buy points at the 40% sale at any time you want and ONLY PERTAINS TO A SINGLE ONE-NIGHT STAY. Not much use in reviewing such an option if it does not exists. If you have 100,000 pts and want to stay at PHV for 7 nights, plus later in the year you have stays planned at GH Hong Kong, HR Kyoto, etc, all of which are showing better value for P+C than revenue bookings. what are your options? The most efficient allocation of pts could very well be (as it was for me) to use P+C at PHV. So you can forget the over-simplified math calculations that show lower value at cat 7.

In countless examples P+C was the best option for the majority of WoH members in the past, even at cat 7. The cash portion could now be 50% higher, but P+C could still be the most advantageous depending on each individual's circumstances.

77,000 / 15,000 = 5.13 nights.

Multiply by the number of people in your household who could open World of Hyatt accounts and pass you the points for free.

I only object to be called ignorant for pointing out how people can do better than $300 + tax and that most people prefer to pay $255 instead of $300+. You're welcome to your pitchforks about the P+C devaluation, but the preference for emotion over actual facts is... sad!

If you will re-read my post, I did not call your logic on all-pts vs P+C ignorant. I said it was ignorant (maybe "sad" would have been a better choice) to say that someone's post would be "relevant to very few people on FT" (paraphrased). I'm sorry if you misunderstood.

But regarding your calculation, I still consider it too simplistic. Although of course T&S on the cash portion can be a major factor, the example we were using was PHV, where taxes are included in the rate (or at least they were the times we stayed), and you fail to reflect the value of the pts earned on the $300 cash portion of the P+C, which in this case would be $25.5 (not considering deductions of taxes or additions for status), so we are actually looking at a cost difference of $274.5 vs. $255 = $19.5/night.

More importantly, as you pt out, 77,000 / 15,000 = 5.13 nights. My main point is that if you use up all your points simply to get the best per pt value on a portion of a single stay, then you have few options for using all-pts or P+C for further stays. For someone looking for 50 nights a year, saving $19.5/night may very well be not the best option. I try to weigh all the options with a view of the year ahead and have been using a mix of all-pts, P+C, and revenue (sometimes all 3 on the same stay). Considering the significant cost advantage of P+C at some cat 5 & & properties, I judged it to be to my advantage to use P+C for our 7-might stay at PHV (for what it is worth we used all pts for a 10-night stay the previous year), and I can understand why someone else may have also found it to their advantage to use P+C at PHV despite the low per-pt value.

Sadly, there will now be far fewer times when P+C would be the best choice for anyone.

Already noticing devaluation due to this change.

Was looking for stay in SF on points. There is availability for a basic room at the Fisherman's Wharf hotel but they only allow you to book with points & cash (7,500 points + $325) online used to be $100 + points.

Didn't try to call in to see if they would let you book with only points. Clearly looks like they just don't want people to use just points.

Update - Called Hyatt and they informed me they would not allow a points only stay at this location even though basic room available. Asked why and was told it was the last room which doesn't make much sense. Clearly the hotel wants to take advantage of higher rate to receive cash. Clear devaluation.

Update #2 - Now when I check the hotel, both options are available. But started to check other dates with high room rates and the same thing is shown online. Only points & cash available for basic room. I wrote into Hyatt to get its policy if its possible to have points & cash for basic room option available but all points not. Will share the response received.

Update #3 - Response received.

"If the room is available for the standard rate the points should be available as well. Checking into the dates it looks like the hotel is sold out now, so we would not be able to set that up at this time. If you see this in the future I would try calling the hotels in house reservation department, or us in central reservations. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused."

Clearly, this is not was showing online or what the agent told me when I called in. There was clearly a standard room available, points and cash stay showing up, but all points not showing up. And when I called in they told me I couldn't book all points.

The same thing may have just happened to me, but I'm not sure exactly what the deal is.

Scenario at a Hyatt Centric property:

• Standard room available for cash (standard rate, member discount, AAA, etc.)
• Standard room available for cash+points (at new cost).
• Standard room not available for point redemption.

I called twice and got different explanations. The first time I was told that there were minimum stay requirements that weren't being met (which wouldn't make sense since it's available with cash or cash+points). The second time I was told that the hotel "selected" this period as one of the two times per year when they can choose not to release award nights even when standard room is available for purchase. If that's the case, that's news to me since the T&C are pretty clear:
I called back yet again and got an agent who forced the issue and made the reservation for me.

Can the experts help educate me? Am I just uninformed about the "2 times a year" exception to standard room inventory?

Man, this can get annoying fast if we have to fight properties for availability on points. I have zero interest in booking pts+cash with the changes.

I have noticed that what shows up on the website doesn't always match reality. Once I was trying to book one night with a free night cert and one night points+cash. The points+cash option did not show up on the website but the agent did it for me.

More recently I had booked a 2-night stay with a 20% of promo code. I wanted to extend it to a 3rd night (keep my original 2 nights, but arrive 1 day earlier). When I tried to do it on the website it was removing the promo code from the stay AND charging me a higher rate for all 3 nights. When I called in, the agent got me the third night at the same rate (with promo code attached) as the original 2 nights.

Even more recently I was trying to book 2 nights with cat 1-4 certs and 2 nights on pts. It was showing the option for pts but not for the free night certs (even when selecting a 2-night stay). I called and the agent did it with no problem.

I'm not sure if this is because I'm calling the globalist line... maybe they are better trained or more experienced or something.. but they seem to be able to do things that I can't. So I use the website to get an idea of what's available, but I call and ask if I don't see what I want.

In 2018, the inventory should be available online....

This was all 2018. The last one was a week ago.