josephstern

Yeah - I'll have to rethink my trips to Emeryville. I don't love those properties to begin with, especially the street access and parking issues, so this is a good shove to dig around.

Red259

I was not thrilled with them bumping the Andaz Tokyo up into category 7. It is actually one of my favorite properties for hyatt redemptions. I saw they dropped the price for Singapore Andaz which I was considering for a stay. Also now going to look a bit closer at the value of the GH Bali since I will be in the area.

MarkOK

Some good and some bad in my case. Most the properties I care about are unchanged, a couple moved down and a couple moved up. Overall, from the properties I am familiar with, the change is well-justified. The only change that I really don't like is the move of GH DFW from cat 4 to 5. I loved using my cat4s certs there, I think I have redeemed something like 5 certs there in the last 2 years. Perfect place to use them for quick decision trips to the metroplex. I really wonder if I'll end up blowing them at cat1s now for lack of better options in my travel schedule....

spgplat21

Pretty terrible list for me. The Centric Park City (remember when this was a Cat. 4 a couple years ago?) and GH DFW (where will I use my Cat. 4 certs now?!?!?!) are the worst hits to me. I guess I still have the Bellevue in Philadelphia and HR Austin as my go to Cat. 4s.

On the bright side, they aren't moving any legacy Hyatt properties to Cat. 8 yet and the Andaz London is going down a category. The few reductions in NYC will also be good during crazy busy times. And it could always be worse.

Aventine

PH Seoul is totally not deserving of Cat. 6. It was a Cat. 4 not too long ago!

PH Busan also should have stayed at Cat. 4. The Japanese properties seem to be points hungry these days.

jpdx

I woke up to cries of devaluation on various WA groups, but looking at the chart, it doesn't look bad to me. There are significant changes in some regions of the US, but even here, some places are going up, some down. Tech boom regions like Bay Area or Seattle are getting hit (anybody surprised?), but there are also plenty of positive changes, like Centric Waikiki going down, and some of the San Diego and NYC properties. In Asia, it's not bad at all, IMO. Japan has a lot of properties going up, but it's still better than expected given the increase in tourism and rates commanded by hotels. In other parts of Asia, lots of hotels going down -- PH Siem Reap, GH Bali, Andaz Singapore, lots of China properties. IMO, this is a VERY mild devaluation, especially since Hyatt didn't have much of a devaluation last year. And this is nothing compared to Marriott's now bi-annual bloodbaths.

TalkingPoint

very fair & very cool

josephstern

Hyatt Centric Park City is taking reservations for next year, but they're all non-refundable currently.

I do wonder if they'll go ahead and drop that restriction after the award redemption increase.

3rdworldresident

Boraxo

This latest deval is particularly bad for me as it hits hard at some of my favorite properties including Napa, Incline Village, and Maui. And a 5k bump on the Hyatt scale is equivalent to a 10-15k bump on the Marriott scale. To be fair some of the top Marriott (formerly SPG) properties are soon going up to 85k or more, but they were smart to sweeten the news by temporarily reducing the old rate to 60k for a few months. Kudos to Hyatt for providing sufficient advance notice, which is something we don't see from HIlton, Delta, and other miscreants.

As my parents the landlords like to say, better to implement small increases annually (i.e. 1K bump) than large one-off rent hikes. But hotel chains are only concerned with today's bottom line, not the long-term value of the brand.

mahasamatman

Nice to see Spirit Ridge drop. It might actually be worth it now.

antonius66

Why do we need constant changes every year? I don't get why people say stuff like "reasonable" etc acting like we HAVE to have devaluation EACH year. Devaluation is what it is since 90% of the negative changes are to the properties people care about.

I mean, 1 category changes are 20-60% increases! Why does this have to happen every year?! Do hotel chains just have no real idea of the value of a hotel night? I find it hard to believe that the corresponding cash rates of these properties are up 20-60% year over year.

Given a lack of other outside changes, I don't see any reason we should have to expect this every single year and the fact that we are happy about "mild" annual increases of 20, 30, 50+% says a lot about the state of "loyalty". Hey, your credit card night and your 30 night award are still useful at the HP Inner Tsingtao Fuchou Industrial Complex though so...

mahasamatman

Why do people expect to get a raise every year? Why isn't milk $0.49 a gallon like it was when I was a kid? Life is not stagnant.

craigthemif

As usual, the gems where you'd tend to pay with points are going up a category whilst those where you always paid cash are coming closer to reality.

Shame about Andaz Papagayo and HR Cartagena...

antonius66

People don't get 50 percent raises every year. Inflation isn't 25 percent. Milk hasn't gone from $6 to $9.60 in a year. Somehow I don't think the cost of hotel operations have gone up 20-60% last year. I'm certain the staff didn't all get 40 percent raises.