Hyatt's Bombshell Devaluation

Brutal. Ouch. Mayday. Hyatt just detonated one of the most reliable award charts in travel. Although I have personally not been a big fan of Hyatt, it has always been a program that I felt like you could redeem your points and expect solid value, even if you didn’t do the math. That may be a thing of the past. 

What’s changing?

Hyatt’s award chart historically contained costs and made its points the most valuable major hotel currency by a wide margin. Standard hotels ran 5,000–15,000 points, and even the most expensive topped out at 45,000 — even if the cash rate was thousands per night. 

The new chart coming in April raises the standard rates to 6,000-20,000 points, and a maximum rate of 75,000 points. There are also now five pricing bands within categories, so it is possible that properties will spend more time in the higher price bands. One Mile at a Time has a good breakdown with some additional details. The main takeaway: award prices are going up — in some cases dramatically.

It’s not all bad news, though. The points rates for some – mostly off-peak, low-end – hotels are going down. Points sharing, which used to require a paper form, will soon be possible to do online. And elites and cardholders will get access to points bookings a month earlier, up to 13 months in advance.  

Lazy Take 🦥

We’ll have to wait and see exactly how much this affects the value of Hyatt points (and, by extension, transfer partners Bilt and Chase), but it doesn’t look pretty right now. If you’re sitting on Hyatt points, I’d strongly consider locking in redemptions at current rates before April.

That said, I’m not too worried. Hyatt’s main role in my points strategy has been for cheap redemptions at their most affordable properties, and those are the least affected by the changes. I already preferred IHG and Hilton cards for direct hotel bookings and points stays, I like Choice for award chart value, and my Hilton Aspire free night certificate lets me dabble in aspirational travel. But for a lot of people who relied on Hyatt’s reliable value for a long time, this news is going to hurt for a while. 

This week on the blog 📝

I wrote about Bilt’s messy rollout of Bilt 2.0: what went wrong, what’s frustrating, how it could be addressed, and why I still think Bilt offers outstanding value despite its flaws.  

Quick Points of the Week ⚡

Special offers ✨

Today only: Bilt Rent Day, Massive JAL transfer bonus. JAL is a bit of a niche program, but I’m really excited about this one. (LazyPoints)

$80 bonus with Capital One Shopping. No purchase necessary, you just have to sign up via a referral link – I don’t have one, but you can find one in the link – and keep the browser extension active for 90 days. (Thrifty Traveler)

More value 📈

Resy merging with Tock. That means a lot more opportunities to get value from Resy credits on the many Amex cards that offer them. (TPG)

Chase adds Wyndham as a transfer partner. Wyndham is no replacement for Hyatt’s previous value, but they have some very cheap redemption options and award chart pricing for some decent value plays. (NerdWallet)

Perks for elite members on Alaska vacations. Although the value could be hit or miss, this could be an asset for those with Alaska’s relatively accessible status. (Frequent Miler)

Flying Blue points are now easier to extend. The Air France-KLM loyalty program previously had different tracks for points expiration, but now any qualifying activity will extend all points for another 24 months. (Flying Blue)

Good news and bad news 📈📉

Amex pausing transfers to ANA. Thankfully, they are supposed to come back online tomorrow. The Japanese airline has some sneaky value, especially for premium redemptions, so some fear a potential change to the current 1:1 transfer ratio. (Frequent Miler)

Sign up bonus of the week 🎯

_{Links marked with an * are affiliate or referral links, meaning we may earn if you apply via our link.} 

Coincidentally — or deliberately? — just as Hyatt was slashing the value of their points and program, Hilton released an outstanding slate of welcome offers on its co-branded credit cards: 

• 70,000 points and a free night certificate on the no-fee Honors card

• 130,000 points and a free night certificate on the $150-fee Surpass card

• 175,000 points on the $550-fee Aspire card

The offers require spending $2,000, $3,000, and $6,000, respectively, in the first 6 months. 

Looking at the cards’ offer history from AwardWallet, this is nearly the best-ever offer on the Aspire (albeit one we typically see about twice per year), and extremely strong on the other two cards – the best offer in my personal opinion. 

Hilton charges massive sums of points for most stays, even at modest properties, so the value per point can be underwhelming. In fact, I completely ignored Hilton until I got my Aspire; earning 34x total on Hilton stays made direct bookings with Hilton much more palatable. I think it’s a great card overall, too. And Hilton does have the odd sweet spot, like European SLH properties.

I don’t feel as positive about the Honors or Surpass. The Honors card doesn’t hurt to have–it has no fee, earns 7x at Hilton and offers Silver status, good for 20% bonus points, a fifth night free on award stays (if you can ever get enough points for four), and free bottled water with your stay. The Surpass’s Gold status perks are better, but the card only offers a $50 Hilton credit every three months – if you don’t use that credit in at least three different quarters, you’re effectively paying to keep the card.

But what makes these offers special is the free night certificate. I used mine last year for a $2,000-per-night hotel stay, so you can get incredible value and access to unique experiences that might be inaccessible with cash or even points. These offers allow you to access that without needing an expensive premium card like the Aspire.

Personally, I’ll be asking my wife to get one so we can stack free night certificates for a ski vacation. Ski-in/ski-out in Hokkaido without using points or cash? Yes please. 🔥🔥 (Aspire) 🔥 (Honors, Surpass)

Other great sign-up bonuses this week

50,000 points+ $300 Bilt Cash + Bilt Gold status on the Bilt Palladium (our take: 🔥🔥🔥🔥)

70-125k points on Delta co-branded cards (our take: 🔥🔥🔥 for Gold) ends 4/1

175k points in the IHG Premier (our take: 🔥🔥🔥)

125k pointson the Chase Sapphire Reserve*(our take: 🔥🔥🔥)

80k miles on the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select (our take: 🔥🔥)

20-40k + companion pass on Southwest cards (our take: 🔥🔥) ends 3/18

5 free nights + airline credits on the Marriott Boundless (our take: 🔥🔥) 

75k points on the Chase Sapphire Preferred* (our take: 🔥)

75k points + $250 travel credit on the Capital One Venture Rewards (our take: 🔥)

60k points on the no-fee Choice Privileges Mastercard (our take: 🔥)

70k points on the JetBlue Plus (our take: 🔥)

Up to 100/175k on the Amex Gold/Platinum (our take)

How we rate bonus offers. 

Enjoy the weekend! 🦥

If you have Hyatt points, book those great deals while you can.

Sometimes we include referral or affiliate links (we’ll mark them clearly). If you use them, we may earn a commission—never at extra cost to you. We do our best to share great offers, but always double-check for the best deal available. Thanks for supporting LazyPoints 🦥