Today Hyatt announced a significant update to its World of Hyatt loyalty program that will affect how members redeem points for free nights. The changes, which take effect beginning in May 2026, mark the most structural update to the award chart since the introduction of off-peak and peak pricing in 2021. With prices set to rise by up to 67%, the changes are nothing short of brutal.
World of Hyatt Officially Updates Award Chart With New Five-Level Pricing
World of Hyatt will maintain its existing eight award categories, but the way awards are priced within those categories is changing. Instead of the current three-tier pricing system of off-peak, standard, and peak, each category will now have five pricing levels:
- Lowest
- Low
- Moderate
- Upper
- Top
Hyatt says this framework will help better align award pricing with demand while preserving the predictability of a published award chart.
According to Hyatt:
- The five pricing levels will apply to standard room redemptions across all eight categories
- In 2026, only a “limited number” of nights at a limited number of hotels will be priced at the new Upper and Top bands, with broader adoption over time
- Hyatt insists it is not moving to full dynamic pricing and that award thresholds will remain fixed within defined category caps
- These changes are designed to reduce the need for large category shifts year over year by allowing more nuanced pricing within each category
I view this as the introduction of dynamic pricing with upper price limits. Below you can see the contrast between current pricing and the updated, which will go into effect at an unspecified point in May.
You’ll note that no Category 4-8 hotels will drop in price on “lowest” or “low” days while these rooms will rise up to 67% on “top” days:
- Category 1 properties rise from 3,500-6,500 points to 3,000-9,000 points (14% decrease to 38% increase)
- Category 2 properties rise from 6,500-9,500 points to 6,000-15,000 points (8% decrease to 58% increase)
- Category 3 properties rise from 9,000-15,000 points to 8,000-20,000 points (11% decrease to 33% increase)
- Category 4 properties rise from 12,000-18,000 points to 12,000-25,000 points (up to 39% increase)
- Category 5 properties rise from 17,000-23,000 points to 15,000-35,000 points (up to 52% increase)
- Category 6 properties rise from 21,000-29,000 points to 20,000-40,000 points (up to 38% increase)
- Category 7 properties rise from 25,000-35,000 points to 25,000-55,000 points (up to 57% increase)
- Category 8 properties rise from 35,000-45,000 points to 35,000-75,000 points (up to 67% increase)
This is a staggering increase in cost for top properties in the World of Hyatt portfolio. Even worse, there will be no limits on how a property may choose to classify dates within the five-tier pricing structure. So the Park Hyatt Kyoto or the Ventana Big Sur, for example, could choose to make every single night of the year a “top” night, charging 75,000 points per night. Currently, hotels must, at worst, evenly distribute nights between off-peak, standard, and peak. The new policy does not guarantee a minimum number of “lowest” nights per year nor does it cap the number of “upper” or “top” numbers per year.
We will also see similar prices increases by up to 67% in Hyatt’s “all-inclusive” resorts, which fall under a different award chart. You can view the updated charts here.
Hyatt Will Make Points Sharing Easier, Give Early Access to Awards for WOH Elite Members
In addition to the award chart changes, Hyatt is introducing two (small) positive changes:
- Digital points sharing, making it easier to send points to family and friends (currently it requires each member to fill out a form and fax it into Hyatt)
- Early access to award night availability for elite members and World of Hyatt credit card holders (one month before others)
Club access and suite upgrade awards will also not go up in price. Also, free night awards will be valid at any level within a category (including Upper and Top), making those certs more valuable than before.
Hyatt leadership emphasized that the company remains committed to a published award chart, believing it offers transparency and planning confidence that members value, even as the program evolves. But there’s a disconnect between those words and reality.
From Top To Bottom: Will These Changes Eviscerate The Value Of Aspirational Redemptions?
This is a devaluation, no matter what Hyatt wants to call it.
One of the reasons World of Hyatt has long been a favorite among savvy points collectors is that it still uses a published award chart. Expanding from three pricing levels to five gives Hyatt more flexibility to adjust award costs with greater precision. On the positive side, cheaper nights at low-end properties may be available during periods of lower demand, particularly for travelers with flexible schedules.
But the downside is significant. The introduction of Upper and Top pricing bands will mean paying tens of thousands more points for the same room compared to today’s peak pricing. Inflation has been bad, but 67%? This isn’t Venezuela…yet.
My biggest concern is the impact on aspirational properties. These are the hotels where Hyatt points have historically delivered outsized value. With five pricing levels, these properties now have a structure that allows redemptions to be pushed far higher at peak demand than before.
The worst part of this is that hotels do not even have to offer any lowest/low/moderate nights…they can all be priced at peak levels.
Hyatt says this is an “award chart we will live in and grow into in the years to come” and promises that the move will be “gradual” into upper/top pricing, but I suspect we can kiss goodbye staying at Hyatt’s top properties at reasonable rates any longer. Why? Because Hilton and Marriott are even worse…there are not better options beyond total free agency, even with the devaluation.
While Hyatt maintains that it is not adopting dynamic pricing, the practical effect is that pricing will become dynamic, with upper limits. That introduces uncertainty for members who have long relied on predictable award costs for high-end redemptions and undercuts the idea that by staying loyal to Hyatt for all your mediocre stays, you could redeem your points at aspirational properties for good value that actually made sense.
For members who collect Hyatt points specifically for aspirational redemptions, I predict those days are fast coming to an end. This is a structural change that reshapes how value is extracted from the program over time and Hyatt has decided, as its global footprint grows, it does not have to be generous any longer to keep folks from defecting to Hilton or Marriott.
I appreciate the advance notice from Hyatt and intend to make as many bookings as I can for travel over the next 13 months. At least there is that. But it pains me that I may soon be shut out from the Park Hyatt in Paris or Sydney or New York…but it all may be liberating. I’ll discuss that in an upcoming post.
You will have to think twice about transferring Chase points to Hyatt now and carefully run the numbers. Take the Park Hyatt Paris. If it’s 65,000 points per night (upper, not even top, pricing), it may make sense to book the cash price through the Chase Travel portal, which would come with benefits akin to elite status like breakfast and late checkout, especially if you could get 1.5 cents per point on your Chase redemption.
CONCLUSION
World of Hyatt is still better than Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors, but that is increasingly a low bar rather than a ringing endorsement. What made Hyatt special was not just that it had an award chart, but that the chart actually meant something: you could plan, save, and ultimately justify loyalty because the payoff at the top end felt fair.
This update fundamentally changes that equation. Hyatt has not abandoned an award chart, but it has hollowed it out by building in a mechanism that allows top-tier redemptions to become dramatically more expensive and left pricing to the discretion of individual properties. The math speaks for itself: outsized aspirational redemptions are on the way out.
There will still be opportunities to extract value, but the idea that you can grind through dozens of uninspiring Hyatt stays in order to unlock a 4-5 cent per night redemption at a Park Hyatt will not be in the cards…I think we can confidently say that based on past Hyatt devaluations (and yes, today is a massive devaluation of the program).
Hyatt gave ample notice, and members should take advantage of it. Book aggressively for travel through early 2027, reassess how you earn and transfer points, and be honest about whether Hyatt still deserves your long-term loyalty. For many, this will mark the end of World of Hyatt as the last truly aspirational hotel loyalty program…and I count myself as one of them.
Gosh, I wish that college kid had been correct in his reddit prank…
I think what makes this awful is the fact that there’s no tangible addition or improvement of defined elite status benefits. They should have thrown a bone to globalists. Something. And of course, globalist concierge service is awful — even Marriott Bonvoy has better service for ambassador elites than Hyatt does for globalists.
Without credit card transfers, how does anyone just starting this points game with Hyatt ever earn enough points for a week at some aspirational property?
I suppose that is what they are banking on, but I hope hotels will balance the idea that their reimbursement rate will remain steady (I think?) based on daily rate and so it is not prudent to charge so many points, even if they can. Yet I feel like whether they are charging 75K or 50K, it won’t make a huge difference in demand at top properties, which is exactly why Hyatt is making these changes in the first place.
If my math is right a Hyatt globalist doing 100 nights a year at $230 per night, he or she is getting 149,500 points per year on stays. If the same person had Marriott ambassador status, they would earn 402,500 points per year. That’s probably an extreme example. My guess is more people are like 40-70 actual, butt-in-bed nights at $125-$175 per night.
At least with Hyatt there’s some remnant of an award chart. So I know how many points I need to earn to redeem for that aspirational trip or the special vacation a year from now. With Marriott, I have no idea..
But still, without transferring points from AmEx or Chase based on a massive amount of credit card spend, even road warriors will struggle to get enough points for the best Hyatt properties.
“World of Hyatt is still better than Marriott Bonvoy or Hilton Honors”
Is it? I see them all similiar now, although Hilton at least has certificates that can be used at 100% of properties.
I meant better in the sense that they still publish award charts, which is such an important accountability tool.
Outside beach resorts and all-inclusives, Hyatt doesn’t have the footprint to play games with elites. If you’re going to get bonoyed, you might as well use Bonvoy.
The fact that the “prank” devaluation and the actual one mirror each other tells you everything you need to know about Hyatt’s changes. Hope the student gets an A on their project.
Shows how “smart” ChatGPT is…
Tough day for Hyatt loyalists. Yet another day for the daily reminder that flexible points are worth more than brand-specific points.
You are an excellent voice in thinking about the value of loyalty programs and “how to travel / when to use points”. Looking forward to your upcoming “liberation” post.
In general, I do think this is one of those areas where a cpp calculation itself does not equate to lived experience. There are just so many hotels out there. Luxury hotels are nice of course, but so are non-luxury hotels as well as boutique / non-branded hotels. AirBnB/VRBO also a great way to stay in places. If you just want to stay at a resort, I get it, but if the destination is the journey, there’s only so much I value a, say, $1000 a night luxury hotel notwithstanding any cpp metric. Hotels at half that price are often excellent as well.
The journey to the destination, at least for me, is much more limiting. There are only so many airlines and ideal routings. The ability to use points to elevate that experience is, at least for me, more valuable than whatever a pure cpp metric might suggest. For instance, folks can complain about lounges all they want, but having access to a lounge or even a domestic FC seat on a tough travel day is worth far more than the “market price” of that lounge or seat.
An interesting debate for sure with various perspectives. I do think the perceived value of points versus the actual cash value of points is always fascinating to consider.
I have the same view – redeeming points for hotels matters far far far less than for airlines, since there are soo many hotels to chose from but only so many airlines/routes to chose from, without making the journey a giant PITA.
Matt, didn’t you (and the other bloggers) recently say that dramatic changes were ‘fake’ or a ‘hoax’…
Yeah, check the tape, because I called it. Seemed like they were just testing the waters, leaking, then backtracking, only to proceed anyway (like BILT did with 2.0).
Regardless of calling it Category 9 or 10, or not, it’s as if they added more categories by raising the cost of these redemptions.
Well, Hyatt officially has an award chart still. But I think it is safe to declare that in substance, the chart is now quasi-dynamic with 5, as opposed to tens, of price points for any given property.
Welp. About 2/3 of the way to lifetime globalist with $50K in spend a year. Absolutely no point sticking to Hyatt if the good redemptions don’t have value. Better to be indifferent.
As a Hyatt globalist, if I do 100 nights with Hyatt at $175 per night, I earn 113,750 points (excluding bonuses based on credit cards or World of Hyatt promotions). Those 113,750 points would give me 1 “free” night at a Mirval property with my a spouse/partner/girlfriend or 1.5 “free” nights at the most expensive Park Hyatt.
The same 100 nights and $175 per night spend as an ambassador with Marriott would earn me 306,250 points as a Bonvoy ambassador. Let’s say I earn another 40,000 points from Marriott based on the 1,000 elite welcome gift benefit at many brands. Additionally, I can earn additional points with Marriott for on-property incidentals, like booze or food. So, those 346,250 Bonvoy points probably get me five “free” nights at most non-resort Marriott properties. Maybe even a sixth or seventh night depending on the market and the brand.
The only reason to stick with Hyatt is, I suppose, the nominal award chart. At least you know how many points you need to accumulate for redemption, unlike Marriott. But the question is: can a normal traveler ever accumulate enough points moving forward without massive gamesmanship or credit card point transfers/bonuses?