how recent was the devaluation?
 

I am deciding whether to apply for the Hyatt or Marriott card. Just want to know what date was the last devaluation and how often does this usually happen?

TIA

Hotel category updates occur. The announcement of the next one should be within a few months.

Should be announced between now and the end of this month to take effect mid May. Your favorite and any sort of useful & desirable properties will go up the mandatory 1 Category or 5000 points each year. A few Fairfield Inns on the side of an Interstate in the Midwest will decline by 1 Cat in an attempt to placate us. Hotels on both coasts will be a minimum of Cat 6. I peg the devalue at 18-20% year over year and occurs every May.

Half of us will offer complex calculations supporting the move as necessary to keep up with inflation and lecture the other half of us about hoarding points for future years instead of traveling even more during our busy point earning years.

Just my cynical (and years of experience) point of view, yours will vary. No idea how bad/good Hyatt is from real practical perspective.

Hey, didn't you hear? There is no inflation and the risk is deflation. The Federal Reserve says there is no inflation and we need more inflation. So I guess the annual devaluations are only a mirage and really don't exist.

Easy answer for you: get both cards. Both pay for themselves and then some.

There are two kinds of hotel devaluation: structural program changes (semi-rare) and hotel category creep (annual).

Marriott's structure as a program has been pretty stable for a few years. The last structural "devaluation" (IMHO, about 7% for a Platinum member) was a few years ago when they removed the two-tier redemption. But in the "new" program, I've actually had better luck redeeming awards, so I won't complain about that 7% (The two-tier era was frustrating, because I'd frequently find a string of 7 nights broken up by one or two with no availability.)

The biggest risk to a structural devaluation with Marriott is if they try to do something creative when they ingest the Starwood members and properties into MR. That said, my bigger concern is for my 200,000+ Starpoints, which I personally enjoy using at about 3x the value per point as a Marriott point.

I'll worry about that in a year. Won't affect 2016.

"Easy answer for you: get both cards. Both pay for themselves and then some."

It depends if I can be approved for both automatically . With the rumored 5/24 coming in April (hoping it is the end of April), not sure if I apply for the Marriott today, I will be approved for the Hyatt just b4 the cut off date in April. I am concern about the number of inquires which is 6 presently.

I won't be able to use the 2 free hyatt nights till at least mid june 2017.

I just got the Hyatt Visa for the 2 free night certificates. In checking our redemption requirements, it appears to me that Hyatt Visa will give better return. The value of Marriott Visa is not nearly as good as SPG AMEX or Hyatt Visa in terms of earnings from everyday spend towards free nights.

If you cannot use Hyatt free night certificates until mid June 2017, then you should delay the $1000 spend in 3 months that triggers the issuing of 2 free night certificates.

Category changes just announced yesterday.