bstv69

Glad to see Hyatt on the Bund go down to 12k which is where it should be imo, but Hyatt Regency TST going up to 20k sucks and Andaz and Centric Ginza in Tokyo both going up 5k is ridiculous imo

Sente

Did a quick check on US properties...came up with 95 up and 55 down - net +40

OsakaWino

Wow, 6 properties in Japan went up a category, that's about half the Japan portfolio! And not a single one went down!

toomanybooks

VegasGambler

I'm happy to two San Diego Hyatts (Andaz and Manchester Grand) drop from Cat 5 to Cat 4.

I find Cat 1-4 certs kind of hard to use; it's nice to have a couple of options for a close-by weekend getaway (coming from SFO) Great properties too.

JackE

Suppose when you were a kid you went to a supermarket and paid that 49 cents for a gallon of milk in the year 2019. Would that be unfair to the supermarket, given they had your money for all these years and that 49 cents was worth a gallon of milk then?

sch_flyer

Definitely not happy about the changes, as many properties that I frequent have gone up, and only a couple I'd be interested in have gone down. It looks like a number of "seasonal" properties have gone up - they may still be a good deal during their high season, but are definitely not even a consideration on points during their low season.

Overall, Hyatt has not been good to its customers this year - between gutting C&P, negative changes to Glob re-qualification, Cat 8 introduction meaning the inevitable will happen soon enough, and now this... And they still have the best loyalty program across all chains, so they know they can push it...

iflyjetz

I'm very happy that Hyatt's not gone to dynamic pricing for points stays. There are many times that I see pretty big disparities between the cash price and points price at Hyatts.
My current go-to is the HR SFO airport. I usually pay cash on weekends and use points on weekdays, as it is a cat 3.
It looks like the GH at SFO, (scheduled for) opening in July 2019, will be Cat 5.

MarkOK

I would NOT say 90% of the negative changes are properties I care about. But anyways, Is this a devaluation? Of course, because it takes away some of the GREAT redemption values that have been out there (because the cash rates were too high by comparison), while giving pt-breaks at properties we have been perfectly happy paying cash at (because the pts rates were comparatively too high). A great program for most of us would be if Hyatt had cat-1 resort properties (where most of us burn) and "balance" that out with cat 7 HPs and HRs where work pays the cash rate anyways! We gamers like to find the great pt redemptions that come from an imbalanced categorization-- great for when we can take advantage of them (but annoying when there are no good pt redemption opportunities in other places, looking at you NYC).

Anyways, where you are wrong is by claiming these changes are 'year over year'. This year's changes are very broad and sweeping. But the last change, in December 2017, only 9 properties changed. From what I can tell doing a quick look, 1 of them (HP Augusta?) that went up then, went up again (and 1 of them that went up then, HP Shenzhen, is moving back down).

I think (though am not sure), that the last time before that change, was in January 2015, when Hyatt moved 48 hotels down a category, and 22 up a category. Again, of those that moved up, I can find 5 that are going up this year again (PH Seoul, HR Santa Clara, HP Portland Old port, HP Long Island East end, HP Dewey Beach), one that is going back down (GH Sao Paulo), and 16 that haven't moved since.

In January 2014, 21 hotels moved up, and 17 hotels moved down, and the cat 5 and 6s upped a few thousand points, and cat 7 was introduced. Again, most of the properties that went up a category then haven't moved since or are moving now.

Let's take one example of a property on this year's list whose changes does impact me, and see what the inflation has been: HR Lake Tahoe moved DOWN from cat 6 to 5 in 2014's changes, stayed there, and is no going to be cat 6 again. Which means it was 22,000 pts in 2013 (old cat 6 rate), 20,000 pts in 2014-2018, and now will be 25,000 pts. It has gone up a total of 12% in point redemption value over 6 years, a 1.9% annualized 'inflation rate'.

Let's take an example of a property with a massive up-valuation in point redemption -- HR Grand Cypress. It was a Cat 5 in 2014. It will now be a cat 3 with 2019 changes. That means it will cost 8,000 less this year compared to 2014. That is an annualized rate of going down 10% per year. We can also look at HR Perth -- it was a cat 4 in 2014 (moving up from cat 3 in 2013's changes). It will be now a cat 2. That is a 12.6% yearly rate of decrease in pts needed to stay there since 2014, or a 7% yearly rate of decrease if you compare to 2013.

Let's take what looks to me to be perhaps the worse devaluation in pt redemption - PH Seoul. It was a cat 4 in 2014, now will be a cat 6. That means it costs 10,000 more points this year than in 2014. That is an annualized inflation rate of 10% per year.

If I had all day, I would make a lovely chart, but I would bet you would be hard-pressed to find more than 2 or 3 other examples with a double digit yearly inflation rate if you go back to 2013.
Bottom line -- This years cat changes are broad-based, it is a devaluation in terms of reducing the value in otherwise great redemption opportunities at some properties, but this is not a year over year practice, there are very very few properties that have seen more than on up-categorization in the last 6 years.

josephstern

I've only stayed at the Andaz there, but I wouldn't go back. Didn't like the room, the breakfast, or the neighborhood.

jameswes

Here's an easy math example for you.
Say 10 years ago the average nightly rate was $100 across 100 nights. So you spent $10K, which earned ~75K points, which is 5 nights at a Cat 4 (15K/nt), saving you $500.
Now, the nightly rate is $200 across 100 nights. So you spent $20K, which earns ~150K points. Now that earns you 10 nights in a Cat 4, saving you $2000. So just because industry-wide the nightly rate went up, Hyatt is supposed to just give you more free nights, each of which cost them more?

That's a completely unsustainable model. If the average rate across all hotels double, they just quadrupled your loyalty bonuses. So over time in order to keep a points currency roughly equivalent value they need to do one of a few things:
1) Decrease earnings rate for points
2) Move hotels up to higher categories
3) Increase the points to redeem at each category
4) Shenanigans. (Block awards at times people want to use them, make points expire really quickly, only release a couple rooms per hotel, have "peak pricing model" where they can charge more than the category rate. Switch to a dynamic pricing model. There are lots and lots of these things they can do to actively make it difficult/impossible to use the points, or at least to do so at the advertised rate).

All of those happen with great regularity. And that's exactly why many on FT advocate the "earn and burn" methodology, because you never know when #2/3/4 are going to happen. And as a general rule, the value of the points you just earned are pretty much only going to go one direction: DOWN. And quite frankly, despite some complaints, Hyatt has been pretty good about avoiding shenanigans. I would much rather prefer a yearly small devaluation that the occasional huge devaluation (such as Marriott this year).

That doesn't mean that Hyatt is acting in bad faith. It's pretty much just math, and how all rewards programs are designed.

** Yes, I know I made assumptions that are broad, general and aren't quite correct. Inflation hasn't averaged 7% over 10 years, a Cat 4 may not be exactly in the middle of the nightly rate range, people can and do "game the system" to get better values, etc.
I'm just giving the math behind why there needs to be a devaluation given the current points earning/redeeming scheme**

beltway

Lucky's blog post says there are 12 properties dropping to Cat 4, but 18 going up above Cat 4.

tjae

How about the old P&C reservations (with the fixed cash rates)? No adjustion of the cash part...?

downinit

This is by a very wide margin the least painful award category update I have seen of all the big hotel chains in a great long while. IHG has uniformly raised all of the big city and city center hotels every year (the only ones ever reduced are small towns and suburbs), and Hilton has just become a pathetic joke. California and most of Asia were lowered and now I have more than one option for my Cat 4's on weekend trips from LA. Sad about Tokyo (Andaz and Ginza are two of my fav), but not surprised considering that the Andaz is usually $500+ a night.

eefor jfp

IMHO "the least painful award category updates...in a great long while" belong to Hyatt from 2018 and 2017 and 2016. But this is certainly the least painful of this year's crop.