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The World of Hyatt has just announced that 146 of its properties will be changing award categories in a little over a month’s time and while the changes are pretty evenly split between properties moving up a category and properties moving down, it’s interesting (and a little worrying) to see that Hyatt will be moving nine of its properties into Category 8 which up until now, has been reserved for SLH properties only.
Headline news
As of 22 March 2022, 146 Hyatt properties will be moving award categories.
- 70 hotels will move to a higher category
- 76 hotels will move to a lower award category.
- 9 Hyatt properties will join a number of SLH hotels that are already in Category 8
- The Hyatt properties moving to Category 8 properties are:
- Alila Napa Valley
- Alila Ventana Big Sur
- Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort
- Park Hyatt Kyoto
- Park Hyatt Milan
- Park Hyatt New York
- Park Hyatt Niseko Hanazono
- Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme
- Park Hyatt Sydney
- The Hôtel Lou Pinet (an SLH property in France) will also be moving to Category 8
- For bookings made before March 22, reservations will follow the current free night award chart.
- For bookings made on or after March 22, reservations will follow the new free night award chart.
- Existing reservations for nights on or after March 22 will receive a refund for the point difference if the hotel moved to a lower category.
Link to the current Hyatt award chart
Quick thoughts
These are the thoughts that I had as the news broke:
This is horrible.
Yes, more properties are moving down a category than are moving up but with the exception of the Park Hyatt Maldives (which doesn’t appear to be changing award categories), all the Hyatt properties that are moving up to Category 8 – something that Hyatt told us it had no plans to do – are the properties that a lot of us save up our points to visit.
These are the most aspirational properties in the Hyatt portfolio and they will soon be costing up to 45,000 points per night.
Considering these properties have all been bookable for no more than 30,000 points/night for stays up until the end of this month and considering they were set to cost no more than 35,000 points/night from 1 March onwards, this devaluation is huge and I don’t see how Hyatt can justify increasing the cost of awards by up to 50%.
Bottom Line
Hyatt has announced that 146 properties will be moving award categories on 22 March 2022 but the big news is that we’ll be seeing Hyatt’s own properties in Category 8 for the very first time. Nine of the most aspirational Hyatt properties will soon cost up to 45,000 points per night whereas before they cost just 30,000 points per night and whichever you look at it, that’s not good news. What’s worse is that this now sets a precedent and opens the door for other Hyatt properties to be moved up to Category 8 the next time changes are made and who knows where we go from there?
