It’s a Brave (?) New World … of Hyatt. The hotel chain (almost) everybody loves officially brought down the hammer with some sweeping and painful changes to its award program. So with Gunnar overseas - probably crying into his Italian red wine - Nick joins Kyle to delve deep into the data behind what’s changed: the good, the bad, and the ugly. And yes, there is good news here. Plus, they try to answer the most important question: What does this mean now for Hyatt and your transferable credit card points? Thanks to Bellroy for sponsoring this episode! Get 10% off your next great Bellroy travel bag with our special link!
It’s a Brave (?) New World … of Hyatt. The hotel chain (almost) everybody loves officially brought down the hammer with some sweeping and painful changes to its award program. So with Gunnar overseas - probably crying into his Italian red wine - Nick joins Kyle to delve deep into the data behind what’s changed: the good, the bad, and the ugly. And yes, there is good news here. Plus, they try to answer the most important question: What does this mean now for Hyatt and your transferable credit card points?
Thanks to Bellroy for sponsoring this episode! Get 10% off your next great Bellroy travel bag with our special link!
Watch us on YouTube!
01:20 - Nick fills in to catch you up on Hyatt
06:13 - Cali & Waverly welcome us back from a Hyatt in Hawaii!
08:00 - The nuts & bolts of Hyatt’s big changes
10:15 - Analyzing 1,200+ Hyatt properties, before & after…
12:24 - Our big-picture takeaways
15:35 - How Hyatt handled the changeover
18:40 - The big winners in the new World of Hyatt
22:46 - & the bigger losers
31:38 - Get your tickets for our live podcast event now!
32:38 - Big surprises: Availability & top-priced nights
34:56 - What’s next? Will this get worse?
36:35 - An introspective conversation about hotels
40:51 - What to do to maximize your Hyatt points now
44:58 - & what to do with your transferable points
48:46 - Helping Jessica pick the right hotel booking
52:04 - On the Spot: Nick’s Hyatt hotel that got away
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
I feel like one of the most underrated travel problems is just having a terrible bag. I've talked about it before on the show. I've been searching for the perfect bag for years. I can't stand digging for my passport at security, dealing with tangled chargers somewhere in the bottom of the bag. Nothing has a place. It's chaos. As you listeners know, I'm a bit of a messy, chaotic traveler, but I'm really happy to report, Kyle, not anymore. We've both been testing Bellroy's light travel packs lately. I've got the 38 liter. You've got the 30 liter over there. It's been a total game changer for me. I love that it opens up all the way, if you can see us on video, like a suitcase. Uh, it has this outside laptop pocket as well, which is really good. I don't have to do the laptop squeeze shimmy like I have to do with all of my other, other bags. I love this thing. Yeah, the biggest difference is just how organized everything is. You're not digging around. Everything actually has a place, and it still feels lightweight even when it's fully packed. It's also really well built and designed to last. Plus, they use recycled materials and more responsible sourcing, which is something we always appreciate when we're traveling. It's one of those bags that just makes travel a lot smoother. Yeah. Check out Bellroy's travel gear and get 10% off using our link in the show notes. They've got the perfect design for any kind of traveler. Okay, let's get to the show. Yo, welcome to the show. I am not Gunnar Olsen. I wish I was. Gunnar is probably enjoying two, if not four, if not six or more glasses of red wine over in Italy. Uh, I am Kyle Potter, our executive editor here at Thrifty Traveler, and instead we've got co-founder Nick Seroti with us in the studio. Nick, welcome. Thanks, Kyle. Good to be back on the show. It's, it's fitting that you're here because you are fresh off what is undeniably the most luxurious hotel stay in the world. Uh, I'm c- talking of course about the Great Wolf Lodge near the Mall of America in Minneapolis. Yes. Uh, so I got a little book C a few weeks ago, and, uh, I have the Bilt Palladium card, which comes with a $200 semi-annual hotel credit, uh, which I didn't have a great way to use it before the, before the expiration. So, uh, like all parents of young children do, I took my oldest two daughters, uh, to the Great Wolf Lodge, burned that credit, and I even kicked in an extra $100 credit from the Bilt cash that comes on that card. Uh, so we, we went on Friday night, stayed Friday night, stayed Saturday, and left Sunday, and that was my first Great Wolf Lodge experience, and let me tell you, it is, it is something. My daughters had an absolute blast. I was completely wiped out by Sunday morning. I was ready to get out of there. I was gonna say, it doesn't sound like you really had a long holiday weekend. Uh, no. Uh, my daughters are already asking when we're gonna go back, so I think I made a huge mistake by introducing them to the Great Wolf Lodge. Um, I don't know if I can do it by myself again, but, uh, yeah, it is, it is absolutely built for kids, not so much for adults. Um- But like I said, they had a great time, and I guess at the end of the day, that's what, that's the most important thing. I spent all weekend replacing and hauling 60 bags of mulch, and I think I had a better weekend than you did. I think I would trade you. I definitely think I would trade you. All right, we're actually here to talk Hyatt. It's been a week and change since Hyatt really kinda blew up its award chart, raising award rates at hundreds, maybe even thousands of properties, and introducing a new five-tiered pricing system, and just generally makes things a lot more confusing when it comes to what is broadly considered what we've talked about is close to, if not the single best hotel rewards program, period. We've had a little time to process. We have analyzed gobs of data, and we've cried a little bit too, at least I, I maybe have. In case people turn this off, Nick, uh, because they just want to hear Gunner, Gunner, and more Gunner, what is the big picture takeaway of what Hyatt did here? How are you feeling about Hyatt now as compared to a week ago? Yeah, I think, you know, like you said, we've now got this five-tier pricing structure of low, or excuse me, lowest, low, moderate, upper, and top, uh, that replaced the, the st- the previous structure of off-peak, standard, and peak. Um, I think from the very top level, um, if you're redeeming Hyatt points for those lower end properties, you know, the stuff that slots into category one, two, even three, um, you're probably gonna come out okay. There's a lot of these properties actually got a little bit cheaper, nothing substantial, but like f- you know, talking 500 points a night or less. But if the, if the vast majority of your Hyatt redemptions are on that top end, the category sevens and eights, uh, this change is, is pretty brutal. Those, uh, not a single property in category eight got cheaper, which I don't think was, uh, was a surprise. Um, but in, you know, depending on the time of the year, just with this new five-tier structure and how they can kinda work this around holidays and things where, you know, pricing is going to be more expensive, um, it's pretty brutal. There's, there's properties, uh, just as an example, the, the Park Hyatt Paris, uh, pro- p- popular property in the Hyatt portfolio, there are now nights that are bookable for 75,000 points, where previously that topped out at, at 45,000 points. So depending on where you're looking, the damage is, is pretty bad, but, uh, you know, I think Peter, Peter Thornton on our team, St. Peter, uh, he, he dropped a message into the company Slack last week, and he's like, "You know, I have a, I have a bunch of category one and two Hyatt property bookings," and I went and checked them, and, um, some of them got cheaper. He's like, "This actually doesn't seem too bad." And I think Peter's the, the poster child for if you're booking on the low end, you're probably gonna come out all right. Um, but like I said, at, on the top end, this, this is pretty brutal. Yeah, I mean, I think 2026 for, for Hyatt after these changes is bad, but could have been worse, and the could have been worse part is really looming large over 2027. So we're gonna, we're gonna talk about it. Uh, today on the show, we're diving deep into Hyatt after its big blow up. Is it apocalyptic? Is it Armageddon, or is it much ado about nothing? What are the upsides, and maybe most importantly, what should you do with all those transferable Chase or bill points now? All that and more. Welcome back. Welcome back. To the Thrifty Traveler Podcast from Grand Hyatt Kauai Welcoming us back to the show today, fittingly, were Waverly and Callie from the Grand Hyatt on Kauai. Uh, full disclosure, this is full-on nepotism. When Gunner leaves, I get to call the shots, and that meant that I pulled this video from my friend and very loyal TT Pod listener, and one of my favorite toddlers in the world. And honestly, Nick, I think they may be smiling in part because they booked that stay for half of what it would cost today. I actually pulled the rates, um, for a night in April, which is when they were there earlier this year. Hyatt is now charging 55,000 points per night, and, uh, just a week or so ago, that would have cost 40,000 points a night. And in fact, they booked it before a previous devaluation, which means that they were there for just 30,000 Hyatt points a night, which m- Awesome ... I have not stayed at that property myself, but I've walked through those grounds. It is stunning. It's probably one of the, like, top 10 Hyatt redemptions in the world, I would say. Yeah. That's awesome, and that's a, it's a good reminder that your points are not getting more valuable. Use them. Uh, Hyatt, this is a perfect example of that. And I think to Hyatt's credit too, they, they do a, a decent job of letting people know when these devaluations are coming to let you prepare and kind of figure out what you wanna book before, before these big changes come. So, you know, a lot of airlines will do this overnight with no, no notice, and it just hurts. Um, you know, Hyatt generally Gives about a month of notice and, you know, really lets you kinda figure out what you're gonna do. So while the changes are, are a little brutal, um, I think they do deserve a little credit for that. Yeah, absolutely. And so let's, let's talk about those changes just to give, catch people up to speed here. We actually first heard in this case, uh, way back in March that big changes were coming. We didn't know exactly when. We knew it would happen sometime in the spring, but back in m- March, Hyatt announced that it was transitioning away from the old, more reliable award chart that they had had in place for, you know, now three, four years with off-peak, standard, and peak pricing, and instead moving to a new, I would say, dynamic-ish- Yeah award chart with five different tiers of pricing that you laid out before, from lowest on the very bottom end at the slowest times, to top award pricing with the highest rates, um, across their entire portfolio. What questions did you have going into this, um, bef- before we got to, you know, doomsday, May 20th, which was circled on, I think, every calendar, um, in the award travel world? Yeah. Yeah, I think one of my biggest questions was, like, you know, the, the, the previous tier of the off-peak, uh, standard and peak, how is that gonna map over to, you know, this new five-tier structure? Was, was peak gonna just automatically jump into that top level and just, you know, move from, for a category eight, for example, where those previously topped out at 45,000, was that just gonna immediately go to the 75,000? Um, so I think that was one of my big questions, and then just, you know, generally speaking, how are they gonna, how are they gonna use those two new, like, top-level tiers? Is it gonna be, you know, just based around the seasonality of, of each property? Um, you know, h- popular dates like New Year's, Christmas, things like that. How exactly are they gonna implement that? I think those are probably my two biggest questions. How about you? Yeah. So it's the same. I think with these kinds of changes, it, on, on paper it was bound to be negative just because, you know, the award rates that Hyatt spelled out were coming could have been significantly higher, you know, to the point that you made before, where the top end before was 45,000 points a night that went as high as 75,000 under this new system. And so then the question is, how many award nights actually price out there? And that was something, uh, we just didn't really have a, a whole lot of color or sense of. Yep. So going into this, it is Wednesday, May 20th, a week and change ago And, I mean, the reason why you're talking with me today, why we're talking about this, is you spearheaded some massive analysis of exactly how this change, really diving into the details. So what did that look like on your end? Yeah. So we started talking about, like, how do we actually make sense of this data and, uh, you know, come up with an analysis that, that's, like, representative of what actually happened? And we started trying to come up with a, like a little basket of properties, and we're like, "You know what? This, this isn't really gonna work. We, we gotta look at the whole portfolio." So across our team, um, in the span of about, you know, f- five-ish days, uh, we took a look at pretty much every single award rate at all 1,200 plus Hyatt properties, uh, before the changeover, and then did the same analysis after the changeover on, on May 20th. And, you know, looking back, I think that's really the only way to do this because how they handled each of the properties in the different categories was so different that if we would've just grabbed, um, you know, like a handful of category eights and a handful of category fives and maybe a couple of one and twos and called it good, it wouldn't have been representative of what actually happened. So I think the data that we pulled is, is a, is a really good clear picture of, of what Hyatt's doing here. Yeah. And everything else that I've seen, and this is not, like, a, a slight against any others who are talking about Hyatt or covering it, but it's always been a very subjective list of, "Here are my upcoming half dozen Hyatt stays that I have on the books. Here's what I booked them for, and here's what those are pricing at now." But, you know, for most people, they're gonna be booking things that are generally speaking in the same category. Peter is booking a lot of those categories, ones and twos on the lower end w- at, you know, as low as 3,500 points per night. And, you know, others that write for sites that do something like what we do or podcast about it are booking category eights and sevens that cost, you know, 25,000, 35,000 points a night or more. So there, it's just a different ballgame. Yep. So all of that said, what's the, what's the big takeaway of what we learned from the data to you? Like, what stands out to you most about what has changed in this new world of Hyatt? Yeah. I think, you know, big takeaways for me is if I'm looking to book a Hyatt on the lower end, it's, uh, it's still going to be a, a good value. If I need a, you know, a Hyatt night by an airport for an overnight stay or whatever at a Hyatt House or a Hyatt Place, I'm probably not gonna think twice about that, uh, just in terms of like, is this still a good deal? Um, the data is telling us that that's not really where, where Hyatt took their, their, uh, scalpel and, and made some changes. Um, on the flip side of that, though, you know, what really stands out is the category seven and eights. Um, that's really where they're using this new, this new, you know, five-tier pricing structure with the top level. Um, it's not a slam dunk like it used to be, and I think, you know, previously if I was booking a trip and I wanted to stay at a, a nice property and use points to do that, Hyatt was generally one of my first stops, um, just because, you know, the value there at the top end it was so good. It was, you know, probably unsustainable. Um- Yeah ... but I think just looking at the data, that is, like I said, that is where the damage occurred, and I think it's just not really a slam dunk anymore. There's other options, which I know we're gonna talk about. Um, but it also has me, like, thinking more of like, you know, is Hilton a better option here, especially with when you start looking at Hilton, you can transfer to Hilton, you know, one to two from Amex. Um, and if you're looking at a, a, a Hyatt property that now costs 75,000 points, and Amex typically does, not typically, but every often, every so often they do transfer bonuses to Hilton. So the math has gotten a little fuzzier on the top end in terms of whether or not this makes sense. Yeah. And, you know, I wanna revisit this later, but let's just stress the top end is not everything when it comes to Hyatt. Yep. There's nothing wrong with, in fact, I would say one of, if not the biggest thing that Hyatt is rightly beloved for is those 3,500, 3,000, 5,000-point award night stays for those times when you just need a hotel. And, you know, Hilton may charge 35,000 points or even more, 50,000 for a Hilton Garden Inn in Dubuque, Iowa. Yep. I don't know if that really exists- ... but you get my point. Um, and, and Hyatt hasn't done that, and they still are not doing that. Yep. I think to me If there's one takeaway here in what we've learned from the data, it's that there are a ton of properties of those cheaper Hyatt House, Hyatt Place, maybe a Hyatt Regency here or there that went down in points by a little bit. I mean, we're talking you might save 500 points per night. That's certainly not nothing, especially if you're staying at a lot of these places and you're trying to just stretch your points as far as you can go. You can genuinely come out ahead from this. But it's those, you know, pie in the sky, top dollar redemptions, the things that really, right or wrong, drive the conversation about Hyatt, that's where things are, A, looking painful, more painful now, and B, are only going to get worse over time One thing that, that we just noticed in kind of analyzing this data is how cleanly Hyatt mapped over the awards from the before system to the after system. So you raised a question like, uh, would all of the peak rates, uh, instantly price out at the priciest top 75,000 points for a category eight Park Hyatt? And the answer for now is no. We, what we know now is that, uh, the, the previous off-peak rate almost universally became the lowest price, the cheapest tier bucket for booking an award stay with Hyatt. Then standard became, um, low, so number two on the list, the second cheapest, and then peak became moderate, number three slotting right in at the middle. There are some exceptions here, and they're really important exceptions, but I'm, honestly, I'm shocked at how cleanly- Yep ... everything mapped over that way. Yep. I think, you know, importantly the, the previous peak is now moderate, which gives them the ability to price two categories higher. But l- to your point, they haven't, they haven't done that yet. That's not what we're seeing. Um, I think another, another thing that's worth pointing out, uh, which I found m- maybe not surprising, but I think it's definitely worth, worth acknowledging, is the Hyatt category four. So category four is, I think, important because that is the category, the top category that you can use a free night certificate at. Yeah. Um, so you can get a free night certificate from the Hyatt credit card. Um, they have something called Brand Explorer, where if you stay at a certain number of different Hyatt brands, you'll get a free night certificate. Um, I would argue, um, that those actually got a little more valuable because a lot of those properties, even if they go into that very top, uh, redemption category where, you know, previously I think it was, um, you know, what was it, 12,000, 15,000 and up to like 17,000 was the, was the, the, the band on category fours. That can price out much higher now, uh, but as long as it's a category four, you can still use your certificate there. Um, I think it's also worth acknowledging that Hyatt has, has removed a lot of value from the category four over the years because of these free night certificates. So, you know, a lot of times the, the very popular category fours jump into H- to category five and eventually even a, a category six. But, um, if you've got those certificates, um, I would argue that they're a little bit more valuable now just because of the, the potential that they could price out much higher than they previously were. And you know what? When, when Hyatt first announced it was doing this early this spring, they even said that part of the motivation for adding these higher tiers of pricing is that then over time they don't have to lean so much on shuffling properties- Yep between the different categories so that over, again, over time there should be fewer moves from category four to five, which to your point, is what makes those properties ineligible to use these certificates. Yep. So no question, the f- free night certificates, whether you have a World of Hyatt credit card or you do those Brand Explorer nights, that is a big win here. What other winners? Let's, let's be p- be positive for once on this podcast. Yeah. I, it takes some effort on my part, but let's be positive. What other winners do you have on your list? I've got, so again, we've touched on this already, but, uh, just looking at some, some data Category one and two, so again, these are not the, the, the luxurious Hyatts that are gonna be on Instagram and the places that, you know, are really aspirational, but 93% of category one and two properties got cheaper. Um, and again, you know, we're talking 500 points a night cheaper, so it's not, it's not earth-shattering, but in the world of points and miles, if you've been in this, this space for long enough, it's not very often that stuff gets cheaper. Uh, it almost never happens. Nor that 93% of nights, not just 93% of properties, but 93% of award nights across the entire calendar at the, at the lowest, cheapest category one. Uh, this is, this is huge, and I don't think it should go underappreciated because, again, while, you know, the Park Hyatts and Alilas in the Maldives take up all of the oxygen in the room when people talk about Hyatt, I don't think that's fair. People can and should use their Hyatts to stay at places for road trips or when they're traveling abroad and they just need kind of a basic hotel room in order to stay for cheap. This is a big deal. Yep. What about you? What are some, uh, winners that you, you think are worth highlighting? You know, two, two big things come to mind for me. One is that we just aren't seeing Hyatt use those upper and top, the priciest award tiers very much yet. In fact, across the entire portfolio, we saw l- basically just over 1% of award nights total are pricing out in those tiers. That skews higher end, so for category seven and eight, the pricier, you know, Park Hyatts, Alilas, Andaz here and there, that's where we see it most often. But even then, you know, I think we're seeing at most 3% of nights at those top-tier Hyatt properties charging the priciest upper and top rates, which I think is a big win- Yep for now. For now. Yeah. And we, again, we, you know, have to stress for now because Hyatt, again, has also said that they were going to phase in these pricier rates slowly, which means maybe by the end of the year, maybe even sooner, or maybe sometime in 2027 it's gonna look a lot different. But for now, the pain isn't as severe as it looked like it might be on paper. And then, you know, while category seven hotels, which, you know, aren't the cream of the crop, uh, but there are some really great properties all around the world Category seven was mostly unchanged comparing the award rates before and after this big changeover last Wednesday, which again, is a, is a big win. You know, I have been to Oman a couple of times, and I have unfortunately not made it to the Alila Jabal Akhdar, which is, uh, an hour and change just outside of Muscat. That is a category seven hotel. That has not changed. There's a Park Hyatt in Marrakech that just opened recently. Award nights, generally speaking there, have not changed. I mean, we could go on and on, but that is worth calling out because while the pain is really drastic as you go just one tier higher in highest categories- Yep ... this one is mostly a no news is good news kinda situation. Yep. So we've talked a lot about, like, categories just holistically across the portfolio. Is there, is there any, like, regions or areas of the world that, that, that came out ahead in, in this whole reshuffle? I mean, the numbers show very clearly that, um, Asia and the Pacific, and maybe especially China, and to a lesser extent India, are where things are, generally speaking, cheaper than they were under the old system. And, you know, that's a byproduct of the fact that that is where the most category one and category two properties are. Um- Yep ... there's a lot of those across, you know, a good chunk of, uh, Asia as a whole, but especially China and India. So again, you know, if either of those are on your wish list for 2026 or 2027, there's a tremendous upside here. Yep That's enough positivity, positivity at least for now. What are the big losers here? Yeah, I think, uh, as we've said, not to sound like a broken record, but overall category eight is a huge loser. Um, you know, these are the Alila Napa Valley, Park Hyatt Tokyo, Park Hyatt Kyoto, the, you know, the very top of the top Hyatt properties. Uh, 67% of these properties... Sorry, not 67% of the properties. 67% of the nights in these properties got more expensive. So that's like looking at, uh, 11, 12, 13 months of calendar data. 67% of the properties in this, in this bucket got more expensive, the nights. And very importantly, not a single night actually got cheaper. Yeah. I think we, we kind of expected that, that that wasn't really a possibility. But again, to see more than two-thirds of award nights at these top tier, the ones that are always papered over Instagram, 67% of those award nights getting pricier and there being literally no upside whatsoever is a little disappointing, if not unsurprising. Yeah. I would say, you know, definitely not unsurprising just looking at the, the economics of this. Um, you know, I think a good example of this is a few years back, my wife and I booked a stay at the, the Alila Napa Valley, which is a category eight. Uh, it's pretty difficult to find a cash night at that property for less than 1,100 to 1,200 bucks a night. It was bookable with Hyatt points for 40,000 points a night. So when you just look at like the economics of that, 40,000 points for a, a $1,200 a night hotel, um, I mean, that's incredible value for your Hyatt points, but at the same time just probably not sustainable. And when you're, when you're thinking about this from the hotel operator's perspective, um, they want, they want a bigger piece of the pie, right? They want, they want, uh, you know, 'cause the more Hyatt points you have to use, the more money they're actually gonna get from Hyatt. So, uh, it's, it's not surprising. Um, it is a little disappointing. Right. And to the point we made earlier, the, the upside is undeniable for those cheaper Hyatt stays, but those are getting a little bit cheaper by 500 points here or there. The downside for this smaller set of the top-tier luxury properties is things are getting more expensive by a lot. We're talking, you know, by as much as 5,000, even 10,000, even 15,000 points per night compared to what Hyatt was charging just a couple of days ago. And if there's one region where this is most pronounced, it's an exception to Asia and the Pacific because Japan got hit harder than anywhere else- Yep on the planet. I mean, the Park Hyatt Tokyo, um, the, certainly the Park Hyatt in Kyoto, even the Grand Hyatt and the Hyatt Regency, all of these are pricing out higher than they did before. Even, uh, towards the lower end, there's a new Cap, Hyatt Caption property in a great neighborhood of Tokyo that is pricing out significantly higher than it was just a couple of days ago. W- when we ran the numbers, we saw 40% of award nights in the entire country of Japan are pricier than they were just a week and change ago. Yeah. And I think it's also worth noting that n- not only are they pricier, but, you know, uh, a lot of those nights, they were pretty surgical about where they implemented them. And if you're looking to go to Japan, you know, for peak cherry blossom season, those nights all exploded. Um, so I think it's a pretty, it's a poster child for kind of how they're gonna implement or use this new five-tier system of, you know, really kind of matching those, those high demand times with the, the highest peak rates in the, in the award calendar. Um, I would say Japan, like I said, is, is probably a little bit on an island in terms of how they implemented that from the get-go in terms of, you know, there's, there's some, um, uh- New Year's, Christmas, holiday, things like that, right? And I don't think we saw the, the, the explosion of price where we did in Japan specifically around cherry blossom season where it's just like, whoa, this is, this is bad. Yeah, I mean, the, the three, the, the three exceptions to not seeing a ton of upper and top, the priciest award rates are Japan in general, um, the Park Hyatt in Paris, especially over peak summer- Yep ... and then, uh, ski season resorts like, um, you know, around Vail and Aspen and, and most of the Rockies, I would say. Uh, you know, during peak ski season, we're seeing some of those priciest award rates creep through. Yep. For years, more than a decade really, one of the bright spots of Hyatt, in a sea of many of them, has been being able to book all-inclusive resorts using points, and that has been chipped away year over year- Yep as Hyatt has made its annual changes to w- where properties slot on their award chart. And after we ran these numbers, it was clear that the value is just really not even there anymore- Yeah ... right? Yeah, I think, you know, the, a, a great example of kinda what's, what happened on the all-inclusive side is the Hyatt Ziva and Zilara Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic. So if you've been there, that is one resort. Zilara is the adults only side, and, and Ziva is the, is the family friendly side. But really it's, it's one resort, um, and it's always kinda priced out the same. Um, I stayed there back in 2022, I believe it was, and at the time, uh, Hyatt still had the, all of their all-inclusives, like the top end of them was, was 25,000 points a night, which was an insane value when you're talking about a room, uh, the ability to eat and drink and, you know, do all the things on the resort for 25,000 points a night. They started to kinda chip away at that, uh, a few years ago and, and really started removing value from, from, uh, all-inclusive award nights, um, moving those up to, you know, 40 to 50,000 points for a, for a stay specifically at the, the Har- the Hyatt Ziva and Zilara. Um, so just looking at some, some numbers here, um- The cheapest nights at the Hyatt Ziven Solaro went from 42,000 points a night up to 45,000 points. So a 3,000 point jump, that's not earth shattering. Um, but then you look at around Christmas, New Year's, spring break, a lot of those nights went from 50 up to 55,000 points. Uh, and then the very top of the top went from 58 up to 65,000 points a night. So you're talking about a property or a group of properties in all-inclusives that used to, you know, three or four years ago, were 25,000 points a night, you could now be looking at as much as 65,000 points a night. I mean, that's, that was like previously almost a, a three or four night stay, which is now ... It just doesn't really make sense in terms of using your points to book a H- Hyatt all-inclusive. No, it doesn't, and I think that gets to what is maybe the biggest downside for this whole new system, is just predictability- Yeah overall. I, I mean, you, I think you said it perfectly at the top of the show. You used to go into Hyatt knowing that I was gonna get the best possible deal with whatever points I had by turning to Hyatt, whether you were trying to book a Hyatt House in Des Moines, Iowa, or the Park Hyatt in Marrakesh. And because of this huge range in what one award stay can cost you at the exact same property depending on when you're there, I mean, there, there's a 40,000 point swing- Yeah between going to a category eight hotel when it's charging the cheapest rate and when it's at its busiest and most expensive. That's, that's a little absurd, I think. Yep. And, and really, I think people are gonna have to reckon with what this means and how they feel about Hyatt as a whole. Yeah. I think, you know- This really hurts the novice traveler that's not gonna spend a lot of time understanding the award chart and just says like, "You know, I've got Hyatt points," or, "I've got Chase points and build points and I wanna book a stay." And they're gonna search their dates, and they might see just something obnoxious for the price where, where previously it was pretty predictable in terms of what you could find. So like you said, if nothing else, this is, this is just gonna make planning a trip a little bit more difficult 'cause you- you're gonna have to check more places. You're gonna have to look at, you know, what if I shift my dates by one or two? It just, flexibility, uh, is going to become key in, both in terms of booking a Hyatt, um, and potentially booking other properties and, and with your dates, just because there's gonna be a lot of, there's gonna be a lot of movement around the award calendar based on those, those different, those five different tiers now. Yeah, absolutely. There's, it, it's gonna take time for people to understand what this means for, for their Hyatt strategy. Um, we're gonna talk more about that, um, what this all means and what might be next, but first we're gonna take a quick break. We are just two weeks away from taking the Thrifty Traveler podcast live Friday, June 12th at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis. Tickets are on sale now. Buy yours at thriftytraveler.com/live. Nick, I know you bought your tickets. You got your tickets. What are you most excited for for the show? I'm most excited to watch you and Gunner make fools of yourself on stage. Maybe watch Gunner drink a couple of red wines. Uh, but I think most importantly, watching and getting to meet, uh, all of our Thrifty Traveler podcast listeners and, and readers of the website. So excited to, to meet with the community. I am also excited for that. The only thing that I'm more excited for is an absolutely brutal on-the-spot that I have planned for Gunner. Um, I don't know if he can drink two red wines on stage. That might be an HR violation. Uh, but again, buy your tickets now, and you can find out in person. Go to thriftytraveler.com/live. Premium members, be sure to check your inboxes or log into your accounts for a promo code to get $10 off. All right, back to the show. Okay, we're back, and yes, it's more Hyatt. Nick, looking back at what happened last week, what we've learned since, what surprised you the most about this big Hyatt changeover? I, I think one thing that really surprised me was that availability, meaning the number of nights that are actually bookable with points, did not improve. And I think, you know, when, when airlines and hotels move to a dynamic system, that's, that's kind of like an implied change that happens is, you know, I think Delta's the poster child for this, where, you know, you can book a Delta SkyMiles business class flight on just about any night that you look. It's just gonna cost you an insane amount of points, like 300, 400,000 points. But technically it is available. And with Hyatt kinda going to this dynamic-ish light pricing, uh, pricing makeup, we kind of made the assumption that because of that, there's gonna be more nights available, they're just gonna be priced at higher, higher rates. And we, a- as of, as of today, that is not really the case. Uh, availability looks the same, but just what was there is now priced higher. Yeah. Uh, you know, and I don't think we were wrong to assume that availability was going to improve. I think that that should be the case. I think it really needs to. And there's an element here where I think it probably will, and again, it has to improve over time. Part of this may be that there was just this mad dash to book everything- Sure ... under the sun before award rates changed on Wednesday, May 20th, and so it may just take a couple of weeks for that availability picture to look a little bit rosier. But the fact that it didn't at all, I think, is really a knock against Hyatt, that they didn't really consider how to make this more palatable to members. On the plus side, um, the biggest surprise to me is that we didn't see more of these even pricier upper and top award rates. Again, only 1% of nights across Hyatt's entire portfolio are pricing into those highest buckets. I- we knew that Hyatt was gonna phase this in slowly. I didn't expect it to be this slowly, which is a good thing because, you know, while there certainly are going to be nights that are pricing out at, uh, you know, 55,000, even 75,000 points per night at some of these top-tier properties, there are fewer of them than I really expected to see. So what's next? I mean, we've, we know that another shoe is going to drop. Yeah. It's only a matter of time. When do we start to see Hyatt really start to turn the screws on charging even more during the busiest stays? Yeah, I think, like you said, you know, we, we didn't necessarily see that very top tier being used as of, as of now, and I think that probably suggests that this is potentially as good as it's gonna get. And I think, you know, 2026 is a, is probably should be looked at as more of a transition year of like we've got this new system in place now. Um, the hotel operators are kind of learning how to use this in terms of pricing their award nights. Um, so it's gonna be really interesting to see how this is used more fully in 2027, especially around, you know, peak dates for different properties and, like you said, the ski resorts and places that have, like, very clear peak season demand and very clear off-season demand, um, how that's all gonna shake out. 'Cause I, I think, you know, like we said, this, this might be as good as it gets. Right. Well, and I think importantly, Hyatt has said that there are going to be no limits on how often a property can charge the highest top rates, which means odds are we're never gonna see, uh, another, you know, sub 50,000-point night at a place like the Alila Ventana Big Sur. Yep. Probably the number one redemption in Hyatt's entire portfolio. That is always going to be priced out much higher, and there's nothing to stop them from doing that. Yep. At least once this kind of gets rolled out fully. The, that Alila is, is maybe the poster child of how much attention- Yeah ... these top tier category seven and eight properties get. Is that fair? Uh, and we're, let's be clear, we're guilty of this too. Oh, yeah. We talk a lot about this, and we've taken flack on this podcast, in fact, for really focusing on the aspirational thousand dollar plus a night redemptions, and not saying as much about, you know, the, the times when you just need a hotel room. You just want a basic bed, and you wanna book it with points so you're not paying cash. Are we doing it wrong? Yes and no. I think, you know, when you're looking at getting the most value out of your points, uh, whether you're booking flights or hotels, that's naturally gonna come at the top end. So, you know, when you, when you're comparing the cash prices, um, you know, I think the Ventana, the Alila Ventana Big Sur gets a lot of attention because nights there are, like, 2,000 to 2,500, thous- or 2,500 bucks a night. And so when you could previously book that for, like, 40,000, 45,000 points a night, that was incredible value, right? And that's, that's what people, a lot of people in this hobby are trying to get max value out of their points. Whether that's right or wrong is, is for you to decide. Um, but that is why I think those properties get, you know, get the attention that they do. Um, on the low end, you're still getting good value. It's just not gonna be as the, the outsized value that you're gonna get at the top end. Um, so, uh, uh, y- I think importantly, what I always tell people is, like, points and miles is not a black and white, you did this right or wrong. It is very much a choose-your-own-adventure. What, what matters to you? Um, you know, if you don't care about those top end properties, like we said at the top of the show, and you're, you're fine booking those category one and twos, you're, you're probably coming out ahead on this whole reshuffle, at least for now To me, and I, I have to tell myself this regularly because so much of the conversation leading into this about Hyatt, just in general about all things points and miles, travel is not about numbers. Yeah. Is it cool to book a business class seat for 80,000 points instead of $4,000? It sure is, and I do want to fly business class, and nice hotels are an experience in and of themselves. Yep. But there is more to travel than just getting max cents per mile, cents per point. There's a lot more to it than that, and I think if you just broaden your worldview and, and what you care about to think maybe a little bit less about cents per point and maximizing the value of every point you get, and more just about, what is it I wanna do and where is that gonna take me, and what is Hyatt going to allow me to do? Maybe you open yourself up to the possibility of s- you know, s- booking a Hyatt House instead of an Andaz or an Alila because you can book five nights there for the price of one, if that. Yep. I think that's an important way to think about this, and just maybe kinda broaden your view of what you want to do with your Hyatt points. No question. I think what we, what we often say and tell readers and listeners is, you know, the best use of your points is for something that you otherwise wouldn't afford or wouldn't have f- wouldn't have paid cash for. And I think especially at these, you know, top-end Hyatt properties that I've stayed at, that, that is 100% kind of the, the rationale of You know, I had a stay booked at the Vin, uh, the Alila Ventana Big Sur a few years ago with my wife that ultimately didn't happen because the, uh, the highway to get to the property f- collapsed and fell into the ocean. Just normal infrastructure- Yep ... things in California. Yep, and they, uh ... So there was, there was literally no way to get to the property, so the property closed for, you know, a few months. But that was a pr- a, a stay that I was excited for and we booked primarily because I had the Chase points to do it, and probably never would've booked it otherwise. Um, unfortunately, that stay never materialized because we had to cancel it, and- Yeah ... award availability is really difficult. But, uh, you know, I think that is a, that's a perfect example of, um, you know, I, I wouldn't have done that stay if I didn't have the Hyatt points, and that's what makes this whole thing so exciting. So on that, what, what do we think, what can we help listeners with for what they should be doing with their Hyatt points now to make sure that they're getting a good deal? Because it is harder to pin down exactly- Yeah ... what a good deal looks like. A good deal looks quite a bit different than what it looked like just a week or so ago. Yeah. I think, you know, a couple things come to mind for me. Um, o- one being, uh, sometime, I believe it was last year, Hyatt kind of Totally overhauled their award calendar on their website. So you previously just, like, could not look at a calendar of bookable dates. Um, then they did add it, but it, it didn't correlate with actual award availability. It just showed you, like, what dates each of the different, at the time, off-peak, peak, and standard rates bucketed in it. Now you can pull up the award calendar on any property, and it will show you live award availability. So I think that is, like, a really important thing to take a look at, especially if you're, if you're planning a trip and just kinda trying to understand, like, what is gonna be possible with Hyatt, uh, at these properties. That's a, it's a great first stop. Um, I also think if you've got Chase points and before you actually make that transfer to Hyatt, this is probably more specifically for people holding the Sapphire p- or Sapphire Reserve, excuse me, the, the top Chase card. Um, but Chase implemented something called Points Boost where, um, there's a rotating list of hotels and flights that are going to be worth more if you book them through the portal, the Chase's travel portal. So for example, um, I believe right now as we record this podcast, the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley, which is in Park City, Utah, is one of those boosted properties where you can get up to 2.5 cents per point, um, if you book it through Chase Travel. So when you compare that math in terms of, like, transferring to Chase, or excuse me, transferring to Hyatt to book that, you're probably gonna come out ahead just booking it directly through Chase without actually transferring to Hyatt. So definitely look at that. Um, it's kind of hard to pin down which properties are on Points Boost, but in- unfortunately, this is, this whole This whole changeover, is this gonna require a little bit more research on all of your bookings? Where before it was like, "This is what it's gonna cost, this is the Hyatt points I have, I know what I'm booking," I think that's kind of out the window at this point, and there's just gonna be a little bit more research that goes into every trip. Yeah, I mean, I can't say enough how critical that points calendar for every single property is going to be. And, you know, maybe a, another su- surprise in a good way that I didn't mention before is that that points calendar is very, very functional even under this new system- Yeah ... where, you know, the lowest and the lower priced awards stays, the cheaper ones that you can get, are clearly marked in green, calling attention to when you can save. So having that, I think if your, if your top priority is stretching your Chase or Bilt that you transfer to Hyatt, or just stash of World of Hyatt points that you have, if your top priority is stretching them as far as you can and getting the best deal, you may just need to be more methodical in how you go about booking your trips that involve Hyatt stays. Where, you know, we have the flight first rule. The number one thing that every traveler should do is search for their flights first in order to get a better deal on prices, because that gives you flexibility. You kinda need a Hyatt first rule now. Yeah. To go into your travel planning process when you go to hyatt.com with the flexibility of, well, if, you know, staying at this property in April instead of January is gonna save me 30,000 points per night, and that means that I can book a stay for five nights instead of two, I have no idea if that math works out. It surely doesn't. But you get the point. It, that, that gives you some flexibility to capitalize on when Hyatt is still offering you a much better deal- Yep ... or at least an equivalent deal to what you could get before. I think that, that could be potentially massive. Again, if and only if that's one of your top priorities. It doesn't have to be. Yep. If your top priority is just, "I wanna stay wherever," those category one and two hotels are gonna come in seriously clutch. No question. So big picture, I want you to answer this, like, on the one hand personally, but then also offer just, like, evergreen advice to people. What does this mean for Hyatt? What does this mean for people who have been hoarding Chase points for Hyatt and only Hyatt? Because I know there are many of them, uh, that in many ways includes myself. Yep. How are you thinking differently about Hyatt? Yeah. I think, you know, previously my balance of Chase points was always like, uh, I don't know if I, like, said this specifically to myself, but it was nine out of 10 redemptions for my Chase points would be s- would be transferred to Hyatt to make a booking, and I don't think that that's gonna be the case anymore, where it's kind of gonna open Chase points up to, to, to other transfer partners, where before it was like, "This is what I'm gonna do with my Chase points, is I'm gonna transfer them to Hyatt." And I, I covered this on the pod a few weeks ago that I was on with Gunner of just, like, I think the, the whole conversation was, is Chase still the king of travel rewards? And part of my argument was, you know, Chase was, like, the way to get Hyatt points previously, and Hyatt had this, like, totally outsized value in terms of booking hotels. Um, I think they got hit a couple different ways from that. Like, you can get Chase ... You can get Hyatt points from Bilt now, and then also with this devaluation it just totally, in my opinion, changes, changes the game in terms of what, how much Chase points matter and how much you should be actually using them for, for Hyatt stays. So I think a lot of people in this hobby, you know, collected Chase points specifically for Hyatt, and I think that that's probably not the right approach anymore. I agree. I mean, I think I, like you, had basically earmarked all of my Chase points for Hyatt, um, with very few exceptions. The, the one that comes to mind is a couple of years ago, there was the first, at the time, 40% transfer bonus from Chase to Virgin. Then American Express made me look like an idiot and did the same thing like a month later, but that's not my point. I think people just need to broaden their, their priorities for how they use Chase points, and not just reserve them for Hyatt and only Hyatt. Can you still get a good deal using Hyatt? You absolutely can. It's not like Hyatt has joined, fully joined the race to the bottom, and it's just another Marriott Bonvoy or IHG Rewards. Yep. We're not even close to there yet. But it is not so much of a silver bullet in, as the best way to use Chase points or even built rewards as it was, you know, eight days ago. Yep. Uh, a lot of that has changed. It's gonna require a lot more research of different options or maybe even different properties than what you would have booked before, which means I think everybody just needs to step back and really assess what they want out of their points, what role Hyatt plays in that, and then figure out, okay, what does this mean for the points that I want to earn for my future travels? Because maybe, maybe earning Chase and built rewards points at the scale that you did last year just doesn't make sense anymore because Hyatt isn't gonna play so outsized of a role as it did before. Yep. Yeah, I think the point I made earlier about this is gonna hurt, you know, novice travelers that have these points that just don't fully understand the changeover, at least yet. Um, I feel like this is gonna hurt them the most where b- you know, before, if you had Chase points or transferred Chase to Hyatt or built to Hyatt, it was kind of automatic, like you were gonna get good value out of them, and I think that's, that's not the case anymore, and it just re- it's gonna require a little bit more back of the napkin math about whether this makes sense. Um, so I think it just, like we said, it's just gonna require a little bit more thought and a little bit more patience maybe, um, in terms of using Chase points for, for solid value. Um, it's not always gonna be Hyatt anymore. Should we help out a listener? Yeah, let's do it. So Jessica wrote in, uh, saying, "I feel like the answer should be obvious, but I can't find it where anyone talks about it, so I'm wondering if it is not so cut and dry. If I see a hotel in the Capital One travel portal that is equivalent or a bit more than a Hyatt, is it more valuable to pay cash, use points to cover the cost while earning 5X in points by booking through Capital One rather than transferring some Chase points or Bill points to Hyatt?" So as an example, she says, "I found a hotel in the heart of Milan for $252 a night with free breakfast," or which she could book for 50,000 points total. But the Hyatt Centric in North Milan is 40,000 points total. It's further north, but doesn't include free breakfast. "Hyatt is a bit more valuable per point," Jessica says, "but the Capital One portal room seems a better deal considering all factors." She goes on to explain she already used, um, some hotel credits and Chase points for airfare. Um, but I don't know, Nick, what, where would you lean on this one? Do you book through Capital One and earn some points and maybe spend a little bit more, or book through, um, Hyatt, transfer some points for a little bit less, but have a different experience? Yeah. So I think this is an example where there's not, there's not a wrong answer here. I think it's just gonna be weigh some of the factors that are most important to you. Um, you know, me personally, I would probably choose that, that option in the heart of Milan, which is a little bit more expensive that you're booking through Capital One. You know, it includes breakfast. You're ultimately probably gonna spend a little bit less on transportation getting to and from the places that you wanna be, just because of its, you know, more central location. Um, and then this is another thing if you're booking via Capital One. If you have the Venture card, you'll get those 5X points, um, per dollar spent on hotels booked through the portal. If you have the Venture X, it's up to 10X points. So what you can do is actually book that through the Capital One travel portal, earn those points, um, and then once that charge hits your account, you can go in and use, uh, the, what previously was called the purchase eraser, and go in and erase that charge. So you'll actually earn more points, and then you can use those points to, to remove it, uh, on the back end. Um, so you know, is the Hyatt option bad? Definitely not. I think this is just one of those, those situations where j- do what makes most sense for you. Yeah, again, it, it should always be about the experience, and if you feel like you're gonna have a better experience paying a little bit more, booking through Capital One, using the workaround, Nick, you just explained of actually paying on your credit card and then going back and erasing that purchase using your miles rather than just applying the miles up front, that seems to me like the, the most likely answer, not that there is a right or a wrong. I mean, the X factor here is how many Chase points do you have? Yeah. The opportunity cost, if you, if you only have 40,000 Chase points and this brings your balance down to zero, well, maybe it's, maybe that's not the right redemption. Maybe you save those for a future trip. But if you have a ton, you might as well use them and check to see whether, you know, the cost of these nights at the Hyatt Centric in North Milan has changed since Hyatt, you know, hit the detonate button a week and change ago. All right. To close, as always, we're going on the spot, and Nick, I'm putting you on the spot this week. Oh, boy. You can't answer the Alila Ventana Big Sur. Okay. ' Cause you already mentioned that. What's the Hyatt redemption that got away for you? What's something that you wanted to book but didn't, or did have on the books but can't do, and probably costs more now? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I would probably say the Park Hyatt Tokyo. Um, I did stay at the Park Hyatt Kyoto a couple years ago, which was probably one of the coolest hotels I've ever stayed at. Uh, both the location and just the property itself was unbelievable. Um, the Park Hyatt Tokyo was not open, or it was closed for renovation when I was there. Um, and I did not book it. I was kinda hoping to, to get some sort of a return trip to Tokyo on the books, and it just, it didn't materialize, um, before this changeover. That doesn't mean I won't book it, it just means that booking it at the old, kind of automatic guaranteed rates is, is out the window. Um, what about you? I know I'm on the spot, but I'm curious to know your answer too. You don't, you don't get to do that. That's not the rules. No, um, you know, I don't have one that's gotten away. I, I am booked. I booked shortly before this changeover at the Park Hyatt Tokyo in August, which is, on the one hand, the lowest rate now, so it's still 35,000 points per night, the, the previous low rate. It is, however, going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of, like, 87 degrees in Tokyo, which is not really what you want, uh, when you're in Japan. Uh, but, you know, Tokyo any time of year is a treat. I'm looking forward to it. Um, it'll, it'll be a fun trip. All right. Thanks so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Sam's gunner this time. Rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, like and subscribe to us on YouTube, and be sure to send to somebody who you know needs to get a little bit smarter about their world of Hyatt points. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you. Nick, tell us about our TT Podcast team. This episode was produced by Kyle Potter. It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas, and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.