Everywhere you look, people are telling you to transfer bank points to Hyatt because “Hyatt is the best hotel program.” The brand is practically Teflon. It’s about time that someone call it out, so we ran the numbers.
Hyatt is often the best hotel program. It is also a program that has been devaluing year after year, in very predictable ways, while people keep pretending it is some sort of sacred cow. If you have been redeeming Hyatt points for aspirational hotels, popular leisure destinations, school holiday travel, or anything involving free night certificates, you already know what happened from 2023 through 2025:
Prices went up.
Not for everything. Not evenly. Not in a way that shows up cleanly in a simple average. But the places and dates people actually want went up, and they did so consistently, and they did so by a surprisingly high percentage.
The Math Behind Points Bookings
Hyatt pays hotels in actual money when you redeem. The amount of money varies depending upon where you book, how you book, and how busy the hotel is on the night that you book.
The reimbursement math usually looks something like this:
- When occupancy is low, the program pays an amount closer to marginal cost (think the cost of housekeeping).
- When occupancy is high (e.g. the hotel is basically full), the program pays an amount closer to the nightly rate.
Now take the 2023-2025 travel environment: strong demand, higher average daily room rates, higher operating costs, and lots of full hotels in the markets people actually travel to. That means more award nights trigger the expensive reimbursement tier. This left Hyatt with a two choices:
- Accept worse economics for the loyalty program, or
- Raise the cost of redemptions
Hyatt chose the second option. Repeatedly.
How Hyatt Has Devalued The Program
1) The Category Shuffle
This is the annual game. Hotels move up and down categories. The important part is that Hyatt category moves are step changes, not gentle inflation. Some examples:
- Category 4 to 5: 15,000 to 20,000 points (33% more)
- Category 7 to 8: 30,000 to 40,000 points (33% more)
- Category 1 to 2: 5,000 to 8,000 points (60% more)
So yes, luxury got more expensive. However, budget hotels are where Hyatt members really get wrecked.
2) Peak Pricing
Peak and off-peak pricing gives Hyatt a way to raise prices on the exact dates you want, while keeping the award chart on the website so everyone can keep saying “Hyatt still has an award chart.”
Example (Category 5):
- Off-peak: 17,000
- Standard: 20,000
- Peak: 23,000
On paper, fine.
In practice, for high-demand hotels on high-demand dates, you see a lot of Peak. Standard becomes something you get on random weekdays in the shoulder season. Peak pricing is a stealth tax on normal travel patterns.
3) The Category 4 Certificate Cliff
Hyatt’s Category 1-4 free night awards (credit card, milestone rewards) are binary. They work at Category 4 and below. The moment a useful hotel moves to Category 5, your certificate is worthless there.
So Category 4 to 5 is not just “33% more points.” For certificate users, it is “you cannot use this anymore.” Hyatt has leaned into this hard, with many hotels moving up to Category 5.
What Happened Each Year
2023: Post-Pandemic Inflation
This was the first major reset after global travel demand came back. And the devaluations were brutal:
- Total properties changing: 372
- Up: 214
- Down: 152
- Net: +62
The net number is not the real story. The real story is where the up-moves happened: high-demand leisure destinations and major US markets.
Category 4 cliff examples:
- The Bellevue Hotel (Philadelphia): 4 to 5
- Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport: 4 to 5
- Hyatt Regency Newport Beach: 4 to 5
Luxury pressure was already visible too:
- Andaz Costa Rica Peninsula Papagayo: 6 to 7 (25k to 30k)
2023 was the year Hyatt started making it clear that “easy value” was a target.
2024: Fewer Moves, Uglier Ratio
2024 had fewer total changes than 2023. The directionality got worse:
- Total properties changing: 183
- Up: 137
- Down: 46
- Net: +91
This is the year where you saw a lot of quotes about an “average points increase” that sounds small, while ignoring that percentage pain shows up at the low end. A few thousand points is not the same everywhere. Category 1 to 2 is a 60% hit!
2024 also sharpened the all-inclusive repricing. When an all-inclusive moves up within the A-F system, the increases are meaningful, and Peak magnifies it further. And the Category 4 certificate usefulness continued to get chopped down:
- Thompson Chicago: 4 to 5
- Grand Hyatt Washington: 4 to 5
- Hyatt Regency Boston: 4 to 5
By the end of 2024, the direction became obvious: Hyatt is pushing strong full-service properties out of certificate range.
2025: Category 8 Becomes The New Luxury Ceiling
2025 is the year the “aspirational ceiling” moved:
- Total properties changing: 151
- Up: 118
- Down: 33
- Net: +85
The defining move was Category 8 expansion. Category 7 to 8 is not a small change:
- Standard: 30,000 to 40,000 (33% more)
- Peak: 35,000 to 45,000 (about 28% more)
Psychologically, this matters because Hyatt redemptions used to feel capped at 30k standard for Hyatt-branded hotels. Now the number you actually run into on desirable dates is 45k.
Japan getting hit hard makes sense in a market-dynamics way (weak currency, high inbound demand, crazy cash rates). But it also creates a real elite-benefit problem: certificates capped at Category 7 stop working at the flagships people care about.
Peak Pricing: Stealth Inflation
Category changes happen once a year. Peak pricing hits every time you try to book:
- Category 1: 5,000 to 6,500 (30% more)
- Category 7: 30,000 to 35,000 (16.7% more)
- Category 8: 40,000 to 45,000 (12.5% more)
The bigger issue is distribution. Peak pricing clusters around the dates people actually travel: weekends, holidays, school breaks, and major events. So even if a hotel never changes category, your real redemption cost can still creep upward. And when category moves stack with Peak pricing, you get the real “this is why it feels awful” effect.
Take the Andaz Costa Rica for example:
- 2022: 25k (Category 6, flat)
- 2025 Peak: 45k (Category 8 Peak)
That is an 80% increase in cost for the same room on a peak date.
True Devaluation From 2023 to 2025
How much did Hyatt really devalue? There are two answers, and the difference between them is cause for a lot of online arguments.
The Marketing Answer
Most properties do not move each year. So if you average across the entire Hyatt universe, the inflation looks like a modest single-digit number. Pay no attention to the devaluation behind the curtain!
This is technically defensible. It is also not how people really redeem.
The Real Answer
The increases are concentrated in the parts of the program people actually want:
- Category 4 to 5 (certificate destruction)
- Category 7 to 8 (luxury ceiling lift)
- Peak pricing on normal travel dates
This yields an effective devaluation for an engaged leisure redeemer in the neighborhood of the low-to-mid 20% range over the period.
This also likely tracks with your lived experience: if you chase sweet spots and travel during popular windows, Hyatt has gotten materially more expensive.
Hyatt Can Still Be The Best Deal (Anyway)
Even after all this, Hyatt still often beats competitors because the award chart preserves the possibility of outsized redemptions when cash rates go off the rails. Dynamic programs tend to compress value. Hyatt still lets you optimize.
The difference is that the “easy button” sweet spots keep disappearing. Category 4 certificates used to be a simple strategy. Category 7 used to feel like the aspirational ceiling. Both have been effectively nerfed. Hyatt is still a strong program. It is just not the same program you were playing a few years ago.
