Effective 12/13 at 12am CST, there will be 8 Hyatt hotels that go up in category and cost more points and 1 hotel that will go down and cost fewer points.
You won’t find any information on Hyatt.com, but I have confirmed with Hyatt that there will be changes made tonight and that they don’t plan on announcing it on their site.
You can lock in lower rates on hotels getting more expensive by booking future reservations before 12:59am EST tonight.
If you booked a hotel that is going down in price, Hyatt will automatically credit you the point difference.
Here is the Hyatt award chart:
| Hotel Category | Standard Room Award | Suite Night Award | Points+Cash Standard Room Award | Cost of points saved with P+C Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5K | 8K | 2.5K+$50 | 2 cents/point |
| 2 | 8K | 13K | 4K+$55 | 1.38 cents/point |
| 3 | 12K | 20K | 6K+$75 | 1.25 cents/point |
| 4 | 15K | 24K | 7.5K+$100 | 1.33 cents/point |
| 5 | 20K | 32K | 10K+$125 | 1.25 cents/point |
| 6 | 25K | 40K | 12.5K+$150 | 1.2 cents/point |
| 7 | 30K | 48K | 15K+$300 | 2 cents/point |
When booking a points+cash reservation I included a metric in the chart above that shows the rate that you’re effectively buying your points back at. The category 6 rate is the biggest points+cash bargain. You “buy” back or save 12.5K points per night for $150. Effectively you paid just 1.2 cents per point ($150/12,500) to save those 12.5K points per night. The category 1 and 7 points + cash deals are the worst as you are effectively paying 2 cents per point.
Note that standard awards have no blackouts or capacity controls on standard rooms and suites. However points+cash reservations are capacity controlled. A nice benefit of points+cash rooms is that they are considered a paid rate, so they qualify for all promotions that apply to paid hotel stays and you can use a diamond suite upgrade certificate to confirm them into a suite.
Suite nights require a 3 night minimum stay and can only be booked over the phone.
You can transfer Chase points to Hyatt or you can also earn points and get an annual anniversary night valid at category 1-4 Hyatt hotels on the Chase Hyatt card.
Hotels getting more expensive:
- Hyatt Place Orlando Airport, FL goes from category 1 to 2.
- Hyatt Place Lake Mary/Orlando-North, FL goes from category 1 to 2.
- Hyatt Place St. Paul/Downtown, MN goes from category 1 to 2.
- Hyatt Place Shenzhen Dongmen, China goes from category 1 to 2.
- Hyatt Place Long Island City/New York City, NY goes from category 2 to 3.
- Hyatt Place Augusta, GA goes from category 2 to 3.
- Hyatt Place Santa Cruz, CA goes from category 2 to 4.
- Hyatt Carmel Highlands, CA goes from category 6 to 7.
The only hotel getting less expensive:
- Confidante Miami Beach, FL goes from category 6 to 4.
I’ve long wanted to drive down the PCH and stay at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, so it stinks to see that climb to a top-tier category 7. There’s no way that the hotel offers anything near category 7 Park Hyatt service.
But it’s nice to have a another affordable points and anniversary night option in Miami Beach. The Confidante joins the Hyatt Centric South Beach as category 4 options in Miami Beach.
Will you book any awards before tonight?
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27 Comments On "9 Hyatt Hotels Changing Categories Tonight In Stealth Devaluation"
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Dan- you note that standard room awards have no capacity controls. I tried to book an award night and was told there is no availability only availability for a paid stay. Any ideas?
Were they selling standard rooms for your dates?
Which hotel and date?
Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme- has standard room rates available and when I call they say there are no award rooms available Jan 21-24
When I search for all 3 nights I don’t see any Park Twin or Park Queen rooms, but when I search for each night individually I do see them selling those rooms at the advance purchase rate.
Try sending a DM to https://twitter.com/Hyattconcierge and ask them to book each night separately with points as they are selling Park Twin and Park Queen that way.
Thank you,
as a side note, is this the nicest Hyatt property in Paris? or would you recommend a different Hyatt?
Yes, it’s a wonderful hotel.
Not my favorite Hyatt, but in my top 10 easily.
You are correct, if the nights are available at the standard rate, they will be available for World of Hyatt award redemption. I have checked all 3 nights at the hotel and the standard room is only available at the Advance Purchase Rate and not the Standard rate. ^SJF
This was their response- any tips/ideas?
I’d call and ask for a manager.
Or call the hotel directly.
Hyatt plays nasty games these days.
Thank you so much- BH it took numerous calls but I got it
thank you many times over
I for sure panicked thinking the all-inclusive’s where going up when I got the tweet. Phew.
Granted these changes aren’t huge but still very customer unfriendly to institute them almost immediately without warning. Hopefully this doesn’t set a precedent.
A hotel like Hyatt Place Santa Cruz goes from 8K to 15K points without warning to 99.9% of Hyatt members.
Not a good precedent here.
I’m going to Tweet them and urge all others to as well voicing their concern over this stealth devaluation. It can’t hurt.
Just did the same:
https://twitter.com/DansDeals/status/940668891717611522
To be fair, they gave 2 days notice, not 1. And I wouldnt call this a program change. I’d call this ‘hotel realignment’
In the past they gave several weeks advance notice on their site of category changes.
There is no information there at all. That’s not OK. Nothing fair about this. 99.9% of Hyatt members have not been informed.
@Dan, considering staying in a Hyatt in Cancun in Feb. Do you think this will be affected in any way?
Also have Sapphire Reserve points, is there any benefit of transferring to Hyatt?
No.
Check the rate in Chase points, check the rate in Hyatt points, check the rate in Hyatt cash+points, and decide.
Having this Miami Beach location go down is worth having the Hyatt card alone. At the end I will take the 8 bad for this one good.
The 6 to 7 change is the smallest percentage increase of all those properties when it comes to point only Awards. I think that for a nice property that’s a minuscule increase. And for the Miami Beach property, that’s a Whopper of a savings, for a relatively decent property
Points+Cash goes from 12.5K+$150 to 15K+$300. That’s a very big jump.
I do category 6 points plus cash often but would never do it on a category 7.
Ouch, that Hyatt Place LIC jump hurts.
My wife and I stayed at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands this past summer, they even upgraded us to a suite on a standard room stay because we have the Hyatt CC. If you are planning on booking this hotel, it is totally worth it!!!
Funny that you mention that the Hyatt Carmel highlands doesn’t have Park Hyatt Service, on Apple maps this hotel is marked as Park Hyatt – unsure what to make of that.
It was a PH many years ago, but it didn’t have the service standards to keep it.
Stayed at Hyatt Carmel a number of times. Not close to PH level of service. Proximity to Silicon Valley and not much competition in the area create the high price in my opinion.
The changes have already taken effect before the 12:59am EST deadline. Was trying to make a booking at Hyatt Place Long Island City at 12:26am EST/11:26pm CST and it was already Cat 3 12k pts.
Call or tweet Hyatt and complain.
This whole change was bush league.