Prediction: 30 World of Hyatt properties I expect to move up a category in April

If you’re a World of Hyatt fan, you’re currently waiting on two pieces of rather important news. You’re waiting to see how bad the upcoming award chart changes will be in May, and you’re waiting to see which properties move up one or more award categories when the annual category changes are announced next month.

Neither piece of news is likely to be good. In fact, I’m expecting them both to be very bad, so for a bit of levity in an otherwise depressing holding pattern, I’ve drawn up a list of properties that I think Hyatt will move up at least one award category in April.

Once Hyatt drops the news, I’ll revisit this list to see how good or bad my predictions were.

These could be the worst set of Hyatt category changes we’ve seen in years

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. I think the upcoming category changes could prove to be the final straw for a lot of Hyatt fans.

Why? Well, not only are Hyatt loyalists about to need a lot more points per night to book a “free night” at substantial number of World of Hyatt properties (thanks to the upcoming award chart changes), but I think that we’re also likely to see a painful number of popular properties moving up at least one category in the World of Hyatt award chart.

Hyatt has said that one of the things that we can expect going forward (after the changes to the award chart have been made) is that fewer properties will be moving award categories when the future yearly reviews are carried out.

The reason for this, we’re told, is that the new 5-price award chart will give properties sufficient pricing flexibility to make future category changes less pressing.

Assuming that’s true, and that fewer category changes will be sanctioned in future years, what would you, as a hotel owner, try and do right now before any changes are made?

Personally, if I thought that it may be harder to persuade Hyatt to move one or more of my properties to a higher category in 2027 and beyond, I would probably be pushing quite hard to get some category changes done right now.

Why wouldn’t I? If I can get away with it now but may not be able to get away with it so easily in the future, why wouldn’t I strike while the iron is hot?

Hopefully, I’ll be proven wrong and we won’t see a monumental number of properties moving up a category when April comes around, but given that this may be last “easy” chance hotel owners will have to move their properties up a category, I’m expecting the worst.

My predictions

To be clear, these aren’t the only changes I’m expecting (far from it!), these are just some of the more notable changes that I think we’ll see.

Category 1 to Category 2

• Hyatt Regency Cape Town

As a Category 1 property, the Hyatt Regency Cape Town looks to offer far too much value to World of Hyatt fans, so an upgrade to Category 2 looks very likely.

Nightly rates during the northern hemisphere winter at this property can exceed $500 and even under the new award chart a standard room at this property would cost no more than 9,000 points per night (if there was no category change) and I can’t see a return of over 5.5 cents per point lasting very long.

Note: I was tempted to add the Hyatt Place Kraków (review) to this part of the list, but because you can still book this property for relatively low cash rates most of the year, I think this property may remain at Category 1.

Category 2 to Category 3

• Hyatt Regency Sofia (this was a Category 1 property until last year)
• Grand Hyatt Muscat

I made these predictions before the Middle East and the Persian Gulf were turned into a war zone, so I’m now less confident that the Grand Hyatt Muscat will move up a category, but given the prices that I’ve seen both of these properties charge, I wouldn’t be surprised to see both in Category 3 after the April changes.

Category 3 to Category 4

• Grand Hyatt Rio de Janeiro
• Grand Hyatt São Paulo
• Andaz Vienna (will be rebranding as the Hyatt Regency Vienna in April)
• Hyatt Regency London Stratford
• Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok

All of these properties feel like they’re in the wrong category. The Andaz Vienna (review) and the Grand Hyatt Erawan (review), for example, are both considerably better hotels than a lot of Category 3 and 4 properties that I’ve visited and both often charge similar room rate to hotels in higher tiers, so a move seems logical.

Category 4 to Category 5

• Thompson Washington D.C.
• Hyatt Regency Austin
• Hyatt Regency Seattle
• Hyatt Regency Chicago
• Andaz Mexico City
• Grand Hyatt Berlin
• Hyatt Regency Lisbon
• Hyatt Place London City East
• Park Hyatt Doha
• Hyatt Regency Sydney
• Grand Hyatt Melbourne

This is the category change that Hyatt fans dread the most as a move from Category 4 to Category 5 takes a property out of the scope of Hyatt’s Cat 1-4 free night certificates.

This year, I expect to see a lot of Cat 4 to Cat 5 moves, but the properties I’ve listed above are my favorites to be moved (even though the Park Hyatt Doha is currently in a war zone).

After having recently visited the Hyatt Regency Seattle (review coming soon, hopefully!) and knowing what the US hotel market is like, I cannot see this property staying within reach of the Cat 1-4 certificates for much longer and I feel the same way about the Grand Hyatt Berlin and the Thompson D.C.

I’ll be annoyed if the Hyatt Place London City East moves up to Category 5 as that’s a property I use a lot, but given that outside of the quieter nights (when room rates can be as low as $165 – a bargain for London), the property is often charging between $250 and $350 per night, that looks like Category 5 territory.

Category 5 to Category 6

• Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach
• Thompson Houston
• Hyatt Regency Amsterdam
• La Zambra Resort
• Park Hyatt Saigon
• Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui
• Park Hyatt Melbourne

A Park Hyatt at Category 5 in a country like Australia seems wrong (Oz is not a cheap place to visit), La Zambra can cost a small fortune outside of the colder winter months, I can’t remember a time when the Hyatt Regency Amsterdam cost more than it does now, and the Hyatt Regency in Kowloon has been moving prices up over the past year, and that makes me think that all four are likely to see a category move.

The Hyatt Regency Waikiki and the Thompson in Houston will move up simply because they’re in the US and, well, why not. No other US property has ever needed a very good reason to move up a category, so why start now?

Category 6 to Category 7

• Andaz Napa
• Great Scotland Yard Hotel

Both of these hotels are among my favorites to move up a category and if there was a way to place a bet on the upcoming changes, my money would be on these two.

At Category 6, the Andaz Napa looks to be relatively good value (and we can’t allow that!) and having the Great Scotland Yard (review) at Category 6 while the Churchill (review) and Park Hyatt London (review + review) sit at Category 7 doesn’t seem to make much sense, so I’d be very, very surprised if both the Andaz Napa and the GSY aren’t Category 7 properties very soon.

Category 7 to Category 8

• Park Hyatt Maldives
• Alila Kothaifaru Maldives

There aren’t many aspirational properties left that Hyatt hasn’t already shoved into Category 8 (remember when we were told that Cat. 8 was predominantly for SLH properties?), but these two stand out as likely candidates for a move up.

Bottom line

At some point next month, Hyatt will release the list of World of Hyatt properties which will be moving award categories. A lot more properties will move up a category than will move down (that’s not even up for debate), but it will be interesting to see just how many movers there will be.

Personally, I’m not looking forward to finding out what Hyatt has in store, but I’ll enjoy seeing how right or wrong my predictions turn out to be.

What are your predictions? What property (or properties) do you think Hyatt will be moving up at least once category in April 2026?