Wednesday was doomsday for World of Hyatt as long-awaited (and dreaded) changes finally took effect after a month's warning: Creating a new, five-tiered award chart with more unpredictability and far higher points rates.
Not a single date at a top-tier Park Hyatt, Alila, or other Category 8 property got cheaper … and more than two-thirds of those nightly stays now cost more than they did yesterday.
That's one of the biggest takeaways from our research and analysis of Hyatt's big changeover on Wednesday morning. Forget comparing prices at a dozen or so properties before and after: We built a tool to pull award rates from nearly all of Hyatt's 1,300 properties worldwide across the calendar.
That analysis just confirms: This is easily one of the most seismic changes in Hyatt's history – and, given its stature among travelers, in the world of award travel, period. It makes redeeming World of Hyatt points more expensive and more confusing. And while there are some upsides, they are few and far between.
It's still early: Things can and will change. Indeed, Hyatt has said they would slowly phase in the steepest new award rates over the course of the year.
So if this is as good as it gets for Hyatt post-May 20, travelers are in for a world of hurt. Here's a look at what's changing.
Top Tier Properties = Hardest Hit
It's been obvious for more than a month that the priciest, most luxurious, hardest-to-book Hyatt properties would be the hardest hit by this changeover.
That was clear just by looking Hyatt's new award chart unveiled in April, which would nix the off-peak, standard, and peak-pricing model Hyatt has used for years and swap in a new five-tier pricing system across its eight existing hotel categories, with a far wider range of award rates from the slowest to the busiest times. It's not full-blown dynamic pricing in the vein of Marriott and IHG … but it might as well be.
Click below for a higher-resolution version of this chart!
That award chart spelled out some truly brutal increases at the top end of Hyatt's portfolio – the key to Hyatt's outsized value and the reason why many travelers love World of Hyatt so much.
- Many standard award stays at the fanciest Park Hyatts or other top-tier Category 8 hotels would jump from 40,000 points a night to 55,000 points – nearly a 38% increase.
- The priciest stays during the busiest times at those same properties would go from 45,000 points to as much as 75,000 points a night – a 67% jump!
- And even at the lowest end during the slowest times, prices would remain unchanged.
But the devil is always in the details. How would properties map over their current award rates? Would they be generous with those lowest-priced nights?
Not even close.
Our analysis shows that just 20% to 21% of nights at high-end Category 7 and Category 8 properties are currently priced in the lowest reward bucket of 25,000 to 35,000 points, respectively. Worse yet, there's not a single night – across the entire calendar, all the way out into May 2027! – where free night awards at either category are pricing our cheaper than it was before Hyatt's big changeover.
It's particularly brutal at the highest end Category 8 properties:
- 67.3% of dates we compared at Category 8 went up in price – by 8,000 points per night, on average.
- And 32.7% of free night reward rates remained unchanged.
For example, every night at the Park Hyatt Tokyo this coming July was previously priced at the previous rock-bottom rate of 35,000 points per night or the prior standard rate of 40,000 points. Today, every single night prices out higher at 45,000 points.
The only real beneficiaries under this new pricing system are the lower-end Category 1 and Category 2 hotels: Think Hyatt Places and Hyatt Houses, maybe the occasional Hyatt Regency in a small city or somewhere far-flung. And that's nothing to scoff at: That's great for travelers who prize their World of Hyatt points (or transferable Chase Ultimate Rewards or Bilt Rewards) to stay on the cheap – it's an area where Hyatt has always excelled.
Those points could now stretch even further:
- 93% of Category 1 nights are pricing out lower
- Nearly 72% of Category 2 nights are cheaper now
But what has set Hyatt apart from the likes of Marriott, IHG, and even Hilton is the ability to get outsized value even on top-dollar properties. Hyatt just took a sledgehammer to that – and one country stands out.
Your Trip to Japan Got Much Pricier
No country got hit harder in this changeover than Japan – and the pain extends far beyond the Park Hyatt.
The new award rates across Japan stick out for a few reasons:
- More than 40% of award nights across the entire country are now pricier than they were before – double the global average
- Sky-high travel demand and peak tourism dates like cherry blossoms blooming in the spring means the higher-priced “Upper” and “Top” award rates are more prevalent in Japan than anywhere else on the globe
That's affecting the uber-popular, high-end properties as well as more affordable options around Japan, too.
Take, for example, the relatively new Caption by Hyatt Kabutocho Tokyo, a Category 5 property where nightly stays previously topped out at 23,000 points per night. Next spring, you can safely expect to fork over 35,000 points per night.
More than a third of the bookable dates at this prized Tokyo property are pricing out in the top two award tiers – both of which are significantly pricier than the peak rates under the old system. And this Tokyo property is not alone – a few other properties stand out, including:
- Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills, where award rates increased overnight on 82% of nights we analyzed
- Grand Hyatt Tokyo saw nearly 85% of its nightly award rates increase
Only outside of the big cities is there a silver lining: The Hyatt Centric Kanazawa and the Hyatt Regency Naha, Okinawa actually saw free night rates drop.
But one single hotel stands out for even more brutal increases than anything in Japan.
Park Hyatt Paris is the Poster Child
Before today, the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme had a consistent range. Catch it on a quiet winter weekday, and you could book for 35,000 points. A standard night ran 40,000, while peak dates pushed the price to 45,000 points per night. That spread – 35,000 to 45,000 points – was the pricing reality at one of Hyatt's most iconic properties.
As of today, every one of those price points is gone: The cheapest available night at the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme is now 45,000 points – what used to be the maximum. The most expensive nights have climbed to 75,000 points. The old ceiling is now the floor.
Of the 53 award nights bookable as of our morning analysis, 44 of them (83% of available dates!) are now priced higher than they were just yesterday. The increases range from 5,000 points on what used to be the quieter off-season dates, all the way up to an additional 30,000 points on the single most expensive night: Aug. 1, which jumped from 45,000 to 75,000 points overnight. Not a single date got cheaper, and the property lost 24 available award dates entirely between yesterday and today.
Now, this can (and almost certainly will) change over time as the properties adds more availability after travelers rushed to lock in a cheaper stay during a pre-devaluation surge. But for now, it's painful.
Upside for the Middle of the Pack Properties
Not everything about this devaluation cuts against travelers with Hyatt points.
Category 4, 5, and 6 hotels – the mid-tier sweet spot where a huge portion of practical Hyatt redemptions live – are a more nuanced story. And for the right traveler, there are genuine wins buried in the data.
Categories 5 and 6 are legitimately mixed. Nearly a quarter of all available award nights at Category 5 and Category 6 properties actually got cheaper overnight.
At Category 6, Hyatt Place Santa Barbara is the standout. Its quietest dates dropped from 21,000 points to 15,000, the single largest decrease of any Category 6 property in the portfolio.
Category 4 is a different story entirely. Not a single available award night got cheaper – not one. Two-thirds of nights held flat, which sounds acceptable until you consider the third that didn't: 34.3% of Category 4 award nights increased in price.
The worst hit was Jabal Omar Hyatt Regency Makkah, up nearly 6,000 points on its priciest award nights, followed by Hyatt Regency Coral Gables and Hyatt Regency Seattle.
If your target property stayed in Category 4, you're either paying the same amount or paying more.
Availability Didn’t Improve
If there's any silver lining with devaluations like this, it's that availability – the nights you can actually use points to book – generally improves.
That's what we saw when Hilton took a chainsaw to its program last summer, raising standard award rates to as high as 200,000 points per night … and again a couple of months later when they pushed the ceiling even higher. The same goes for a handful of airline programs that have raised rates in recent years.
But with Hyatt's changes? Our analysis shows that availability is more or less identical to what we saw just days ago – if not slightly worse.
Sure, availability ebbs and flows day by day, but on the whole, there aren't suddenly more dates you can book at the new, higher rates. In fact, availability decreased by 4% at top-tier Category 8 properties, including some of Hyatt's most coveted hotels like the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme, which saw nearly a month of availability (over the course of the year) wiped off the books.
Now, travelers gobbling up open dates before these changes took effect are certainly a piece of that. But that doesn't explain why we aren't seeing more nights open up at less popular hotels in Hyatt's middle and bottom tiers.
This can and should change over time. And honestly, it needs to.
If not, World of Hyatt members have to ask themselves what they're getting out of this ordeal.
More Volatility in Price Means Timing is Everything
While Hyatt deserves credit for maintaining an award chart through these changes, this new five-tier system is really just dynamic pricing by another name.
With the new chart, there's more volatility than ever within each hotel category, meaning a “free” night could cost you another 40,000 points more depending on when you stay.
Take the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek, which offers true ski-in, ski-out access in the Rockies. If you wanted to stay here in the summer offseason, you can still book a night for as low as 35,000 points.
But if you're planning to set up camp here over spring break next year (the tail-end of ski season), you're looking at a much more costly rate of 65,000 points per night.
We're currently seeing just one night available at the highest, “Top” redemption level. And it'll cost an extra 10,000 points for a whopping 75,000 points per night in total – more than double what the “lowest” demand nights go for and a big 67% increase over the old maximum of 45,000 points per night.
The same is true at a Category 7 hotel like the Alila Kothaifaru Maldives. If you plan to visit during the rainy season, you can still book a stay for as low as 25,000 points per night.
But if you want to visit during peak season, the price skyrockets to as high as 55,000 points per night. Once again, more than double the lowest nightly rate and a 57% jump from the old peak pricing.
Both of these properties have huge barbells in terms of when you can find availability, too. In the Maldives, for example, there's tons of availability at the cheapest rates: More than 36% of nights, in fact. But you want to go to the Maldives when the threat of rain is minimal in the winter and early spring … when the Alila is far more likely to be charging far higher rates.
Whether it's peak travel season or a big one-off event like Taylor Swift coming to town, this new pricing variance gives these hotels plenty of leeway to charge whatever they please … and Hyatt loyalists are left paying the price (literally).
Bottom Line
Devaluations are a constant, and they're always painful.
If we had a nickel for every traveler who swore they'd never fly an airline or stay with a hotel again only to behave and book the same as normal, we'd be rich.
But based on what we're seeing here, even diehard Hyatt loyalists should be doing the math for themselves to determine whether their (or hard-earned Chase points) are worth it anymore.
