I was under the impression that all major chains reimburse hotel ~90% of ADR when occupancy is >~90%; below that occupancy, they reimburse them pennies on the $$. Is that not the case with Hyatt?

IF that's also the case with Hyatt, then there's seemingly no incentive for hotels to up or down categories, since they'd get the same reimbursement from Hyatt regardless; the incentive would be for Hyatt the program to SET the categories of each hotel.

You’re absolutely right. To be fully accurate you’d also have to factor in all the annual category moves since 2021, because those shifts changed the “real” award cost of specific properties independent of the chart itself.

My ~22% figure was intentionally a quick, table-based comparison of the published charts only. Pulling in category adjustments would mean tracking each property’s category history (and ideally weighting by where people actually redeem), which is a lot more work than I can do on the fly. But yes - including category adjustments would give a more complete and more correct picture. My guess is the result could well be higher than 22%.

The idea that rates are going up 22% on average is just nonsense in reality. Sure, when you took this number and this etc and calculated a supposed across the board made up average point to use, you can get that.

In a far far more likely scenario, where Hyatt has explicitly said hotels will be able to pick whatever category level they want without limit, most properties that people really care about will assuredly be high to very high almost all or all year. A more real world accurate scenario is to use current standard pricing and compare it to high pricing, which gives 50%+ increases, and that isn't using very high pricing. The real world outcome for any moderately desirable property is going to be 50 to 75% increases.

Let's stop the apologetics about corporate revenues, ADR increases, CPI etc. This is 100% tied to the need for endless and limitless amounts of desired increases to quarterly revenue with only one concern... can we get away with imposing this on consumers and will they take it. Let's not act like it's rooted in some unavoidable consequence of nationwide inflation and monetary policy. It's endless profiteering resulting from minting points for revenues to sell to credit card partners to then whore those out to consumers while creating Weimar era style point inflation in the system to keep feeding the revenue machine at the expense of the consumer.

End of the day, Marriott still sucks and hates its elites, so Hyatt it is for me as I appreciate the Glob benefits, I’m all in on the Chase ecosystem with UA too, and I like the Hyatt brand portfolio (even as there are gaps).

I am glad that I had started to burn down my Hyatt points since mid-last year. Now sitting on about 250,000 points, and should be fine to use the majority of them within this year. I had jumped ship with Marriott Bonvoy several years ago, and looks like it will be the same going forward with Hyatt. That’s a shame.

Actually, the loyalty program which makes most sense for me now is Shangri-La Circle. It’s Diamond tier has benefits which appeal to me and are more useful than Hyatt’s. Sure, Hyatt has the SUA (if we can find redemption availability), but the Shangri-La properties are also giving me very nice upgrades, and frequently into suites. Shangri-La’s 8:00am check-in and 6:00pm check-out have been a lifesaver for me. The majority of Shangri-La’s lounges are much better than the Hyatts that I frequent (that is, if they even have a Lounge).

Of course, Shangri-La’s property footprint is minuscule, compared with most other programs. But, since the majority of my travels are in China and Southeast Asia, I am almost at 100% success in having a Shangri-La property to stay at wherever I go. I will use my loyalty points at “desirable” properties…at Shangri-La The Shard in London two years ago, several times at the Shangri-La in Tokyo, and will very soon at the Shangri-La Paris. Using the points is very fair…I know what I am getting, since the points burn rates are tied to the property’s revenue rate. The points requirement move +/- in a linear fashion, and not exponentially like other programs (and soon, Hyatt).

I am putting almost all charges (except airline, gas, dining, non-Hyatt stays which are almost none) because otherwise I wouldn't make Globalist.
Once the dust settles with this devaluation and we have a better idea of what surge tiers properties employ how often (upper vs top, etc), I will have to redo my math and potentially overhaul my entire thinking.

It doesn’t really make sense to assume many properties will suddenly move from “standard” to “high” across the board. A like-for-like comparison makes more sense here: low season vs low season, high season vs high season - not standard vs high.

Even under that framing, it’s clearly a material increase - but there’s no evidence yet that “50-75% for most moderately desirable properties” is a given.

Also, for a “real world” view, it would make sense to downweight the top-end categories since availability there is often limited and not representative of most redemptions.

The “moderately desirable property” framing misses the bigger point: it’s always a cash vs points decision. Most travelers with meaningful balances have a mix of destinations - some they want to stay at and some they have to stay at. There’s nothing wrong with burning points at a less aspirational property if the points rate beats the cash rate.

And if the expectation is “I want a specific aspirational property on a specific date,” that’s a challenge in every loyalty program. The more flexible you are, the more opportunities you typically have to redeem at solid value.

We will raise prices and you will like it, or else, seems like a new motto in the US anyways so that's on pair with this. We're rising prices to improve your well-being/utility is really a new economics.

Same here with Hyatt credit card spending, although this year I will likely aim for exactly 60 nights since the 10000 point milestones beyond 60 nights will be less valuable.

Yes, that's how markets, specifically market pricing, works. Hyatt's goal is to maximize profits and revenue. It's not running a charity here.

profitability and gouging dont necessarily have to go hand in hand, hyatt can make a gold profit while providng a good return for customers too :)

They wont know until after the changes if the market will bear these changes or not :) some will leave some will not.

More tolerable changes might have gone over better but its hyatts game

I get your point, and I’m not happy about this devaluation either.

But there’s a difference between being unhappy about a significant change and declaring the program “dead” or treating it like a sign the sky is falling. Some reactions feel a bit over the top.

The downside of that is it’s easy for decision-makers to dismiss. If the goal is to influence anything, focused criticism is usually more effective than doom posting. And it gets even harder to make the case when the core complaint is essentially “my plan of earning mostly via credit cards and redeeming on a few fixed dates at top properties doesn’t work as well anymore” - that’s probably not the primary use case Hyatt is optimizing for.

More broadly, it’s also hard to “throw the first stone” on price hikes when nearly every company has raised prices somewhere in the chain - including the ones many of us work for. It can come across as expecting price increases to be acceptable everywhere except the categories we personally buy most often.

That's kind of a non-sequitur. Businesses are only able to "gouge" successfully if the market is out of whack, where for instance a business has monopoly power or there's some sort of short-term disruption in supply or demand (such as a natural disaster). Otherwise, if a business prices in excess of market ("gouges"), the loss of business will exceed what they gain through higher prices, and the strategy will fail.

Here, Hyatt has I'm very sure surveyed the competitive landscape and considered carefully the impact these changes will have for demand on its products. Time will tell if they've made the right call. But I've no doubt they've watched Marriott and (especially) Hilton absolutely destroy their award charts with no apparent hit on profitability.

This is written, btw, from corner suite at GH SFO (upgraded from base room), where we will enjoy free breakfast and 4 pm checkout tomorrow. So while I hate to see award prices rise so substantially, for me the Hyatt program still offers significant value and I don't really see these changes impacting my motivation to hit 60 nights in 2026.

While the chart hasn't "changed" the placement of hotels in the chart has, which has caused increases in redemption costs for hundreds of hotels over the years. And yes, there are a number of hotels where redemptions are hard or near impossible to get, but that is caused by a variety of factors, not necessarily because there's too many points chasing too few hotel nights.

However, the point I'm trying to make is that there has been no adjustment in how Hyatt awards points based on spending. For sure I'm earning more points because the cost of the room has increased over the years, but the ratio at which I'm earning points hasn't. If I want to redeem at a Cat 5 property at the top level in May compared to Peak level today, that's another 12k points for the night. As a Globalist, that means I have to spend an additional $1800 (6.5 pts earned per dollar spent) to generate the points to make up the difference. At a $200 per night room rate, that's 8-9 additional nights. Since most spend on my WOH visa is unbonused, that's an additional $12k in spend (though can be reduced if I pay for my Hyatt stay or limited bonus categories). Even though rates have gone up, they haven't gone up that much to offset the redemption increases the past few years.

I guess what I'm saying is the earning rates as a Globalist (6.5x) and the earning rates on the WOH cc haven't really changed to offset all the redemption inflation the past few years. Not that it should keep pace, but at some level you want to feel like you're kind of treading water in the whole equation versus being caught in a down current pulling you down.

To me, the biggest impact on earnings has been the limited promos in recent years. That, and loss of the 1000 point Diamond amenity, but that was quite a few years ago.

I've earned a bunch of points this year on spend for an event at a Hyatt property. Hyatt only gives 1 point per dollar, but putting it on my Chase Hyatt card nets me 4x. So the answer here I'm afraid is "put more spend on your Hyatt card." This is exactly what Hyatt wants. (And same situation now with UA, where I'm generally earning more points on cc spend than on flying.)