This morning, Chase launched a number of updates to the Sapphire Preferred card. Among those updates was a major piece of news that will affect both Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card cardholders and Chase Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card holders.
Effective immediately for new Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred cardholders who apply on or after June 15, 2026 (and on October 1, 2026 for those who apply prior to June 15, 2026), the transfer ratio from Ultimate Rewards to World of Hyatt will decrease from 1:1 to a rate of 4 Ultimate Rewards points to 3 World of Hyatt points (4:3). This reduced transfer ratio also applies to Ink Plus and Corporate Flex cardholders. That represents a major devaluation on transfers to Hyatt, which comes on the heels of Hyatt devaluing awards by creating 100 different price points for its new award charts. This is certainly terrible news for those with the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred.
Those with the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card or the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business℠ Card will maintain the one-to-one transfer ratio to Hyatt.
The days of reckoning come for Chase Ultimate Rewards (June 15, 2026, and October 1, 2026)
Three years ago yesterday, I wrote that Chase needs to stop banking on Hyatt, suggesting that Ultimate Rewards really needed to enhance the program because if Hyatt ever devalued significantly, it would have an outsized impact on the value of Chase Ultimate Rewards. Unfortunately, that outsized impact has arrived.
First, it came in the form of a major Hyatt devaluation with the creation of five different price points in each category, which in turn led to more than a hundred different award price points for standard rooms over the multiple World of Hyatt award charts. When you consider hotels and resorts, all-inclusive properties, and Miraval properties, and when you further consider the multitude of price points for suites, there are so many World of Hyatt award rates that it begins to feel less like an award chart and more like dynamic award pricing. That was an indirect blow to Ultimate Rewards since transfers to Hyatt to book hotels have long been one of the best uses of Chase Ultimate Rewards (and certainly the primary use for many).
Now, as a double whammy, Chase is slashing the transfer ratio from Ultimate Rewards to World of Hyatt if you are a Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred cardholder as part of the Sapphire Preferred card refresh. Moving forward, points will transfer 4:3 from Chase Ultimate Rewards to World of Hyatt. That ratio will take effect immediately for cardholders who apply on or after June 15th, and it will apply for all cardholders after October 1st, 2026.
That’s terrible news, as it means that a property that currently costs 20,000 World of Hyatt points per night (which currently costs 20,000 Ultimate Rewards transferred to Hyatt) will, in the future, require a transfer of 27,000 points from Chase Ultimate Rewards to end up with 20,250 World of Hyatt points. That makes your points significantly less valuable, and it means that you will be orphaning small balances of points because (in most cases), you will need to transfer more points than necessary, thanks to the requirement to transfer in increments of 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
Again, the ratio will remain 1:1 for Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Reserve for business card holders, though that is cold comfort for those put off by the $795 coupon book model, who simply want a good all-around travel rewards credit card for a more manageable annual fee.
The massive devaluation of the World of Hyatt award chart for transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards at 4:3
For Sapphrie Preferred and Ink Business Preferred cardholders who have historically valued transfers to World of Hyatt, I thought it was worth comparing:
- The World of Hyatt award chart before the May 20, 2026, Hyatt devaluation (when transfers from the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred were still at a 1:1 ratio)
- The World of Hyatt award chart after the most recent devaluation
- The World of Hyatt award chart, in terms of the number of Chase Ultimate Rewards points that will be required for each award, once these new 4:3 transfer ratios take effect
World of Hyatt award chart prior to May 20, 2026
| Hotel Category | Off-peak | Standard | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,500 | 5,000 | 6,500 |
| 2 | 6,500 | 8,000 | 9,500 |
| 3 | 9,000 | 12,000 | 15,000 |
| 4 | 12,000 | 15,000 | 18,000 |
| 5 | 17,000 | 20,000 | 23,000 |
| 6 | 21,000 | 25,000 | 29,000 |
| 7 | 25,000 | 30,000 | 35,000 |
| 8 | 35,000 | 40,000 | 45,000 |
World of Hyatt Award Chart effective May 20, 2026
| Hotel Category | Lowest | Low | Moderate | Upper | Top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,000 | 4,500 | 6,000 | 7,500 | 9,000 |
| 2 | 6,000 | 7,500 | 10,000 | 12,000 | 15,000 |
| 3 | 8,000 | 12,000 | 15,000 | 17,500 | 20,000 |
| 4 | 12,000 | 15,000 | 20,000 | 22,500 | 25,000 |
| 5 | 15,000 | 20,000 | 25,000 | 30,000 | 35,000 |
| 6 | 20,000 | 25,000 | 30,000 | 35,000 | 40,000 |
| 7 | 25,000 | 30,000 | 35,000 | 45,000 | 55,000 |
| 8 | 35,000 | 45,000 | 55,000 | 65,000 | 75,000 |
Number of Chase Ultimate Rewards points required for new World of Hyatt award chart at 4:3 transfer ratio
| Hotel Category | Lowest | Low | Moderate | Upper | Top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4,000 | 6,000 | 8,000 | 10,000 | 12,000 |
| 2 | 8,000 | 10,000 | 13,333 | 16,000 | 20,000 |
| 3 | 10,667 | 16,000 | 20,000 | 23,333 | 26,667 |
| 4 | 16,000 | 20,000 | 26,667 | 30,000 | 33,333 |
| 5 | 20,000 | 26,667 | 33,333 | 40,000 | 46,667 |
| 6 | 26,667 | 33,333 | 40,000 | 46,667 | 53,333 |
| 7 | 33,333 | 40,000 | 46,667 | 60,000 | 73,333 |
| 8 | 46,667 | 60,000 | 73,333 | 86,667 | 100,000 |
Keep in mind that transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards to World of Hyatt need to be done in even increments of 1,000 points. In about half of the award chart levels, you won’t be able to transfer the exact number of points per night that you need, which means that you’ll end up with some extra orphaned Hyatt points.
Chase to Hyatt 4:3 analysis
As you can see by looking at the chart, this represents an absolutely massive devaluation over using Chase Ultimate Rewards for World of Hyatt awards. Even if we are very generous and imagine all award availability to exist in the middle of the award chart, comparing old “standard” pricing to the new “moderate” pricing, here are the percentage increases in terms of the number of Ultimate Rewards points you will now need to transfer to account for Hyatt’s new award pricing and this reduced transfer ratio:
- Category 1: 60% increase
- Category 2: 67% increase
- Category 3: 67% increase
- Category 4: 78% increase
- Category 5: 67% increase
- Category 6: 60% increase
- Category 7: 56% increase
- Category 8: 83% increase
Again, those percentages are based on the middle of the award chart. If we pick individual spots, things can be even bleaker. For instance, a category 4 top-priced hotel will now require 34,000 Ultimate Rewards points per night (since you have to transfer in increments of 1,000), which represents an 85% increase over the 18,000-point peak price of category 4 until May 20, 2026.
That is some painful point inflation. Greg made the point recently on a podcast episode that award chart inflation tends to be very jagged and noticeable, whereas inflation in cash rates tends to be more gradual. Therefore, he argued that we tend to notice the devaluations in award charts much more sharply because they happen all at once rather than gradually over time. This certainly plays to that point in the sense that this is about as jagged as one could imagine in terms of a World of Hyatt x Ultimate Rewards devaluation.
It is hard to see this as anything but a major devaluation for Chase Ultimate Rewards. Chase simply doesn’t have many of the common transfer partners that other transferable currencies have. They don’t have nearly as many transfer bonuses as competitors offer. Now, a marquee transfer partner has undergone a devaluation of its own that’s compounded by this Ultimate Rewards devaluation. That’s a huge disappointment for many who hold Ultimate Rewards points near and dear.
That’s not to say that Chase Ultimate Rewards points have become worthless. Surely many customers will still appreciate familiar domestic transfer partners like United Mileage Plus, Southwest Rapid Rewards, and JetBlue True Blue. And there will still be some situations where it will be worth transferring your points to Hyatt. However, you’ll need to be at the top end of redemptions to consider making a transfer to World of Hyatt at 4:3, given the fact that you’re giving up a huge chunk of value in the transfer.
Consider that our most recent valuation for World of Hyatt points pegged them at a value of 1.7 cents per point, and we expect that to decrease closer to 1.5c per point when we examine the latest data after the award chart changes. If you were redeeming your World of Hyatt points at a value of 1.5 cents per point, that means that after this Chase devaluation, you would only be getting about 1.1 cent per Chase Ultimate Rewards point at a 4:3 transfer ratio. Moving forward, it will probably only make sense to transfer to World of Hyatt in situations where you are getting near maximum redemption value (such as at the 90th percentile or better). That all but makes World of Hyatt irrelevant as a Chase transfer partner once this new transfer ratio takes effect.
Consider that redeeming for sub-optimal Hyatt redemptions will make less sense than cashing out your Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
For the sake of easy math, let’s imagine that you want to book a Category 2 moderately priced Hyatt award, which would cost 10,000 World of Hyatt points per night, where the alternative would be paying a cash rate of $125 per night. That offers you a value of 1.25 cents per Hyatt point. With this new transfer ratio, you would need to transfer 14,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points in order to book that award. Instead, you would be better off redeeming just 12,500 Ultimate Rewards points for $125 in cash and paying the cash rate rather than booking the award. Transferring to Hyatt in that spot with a 4:3 ratio would yield about 0.9 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.
Does this make the Chase Sapphire Reserve more attractive?
Considering this devaluation only applies to those with the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Ink Business Preferred cards (as well as the Corporate Flex and no-longer-available Ink Plus), one has to wonder if this makes the Chase Sapphire Reserve and Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business cards more attractive.
This devaluation will probably reduce the incentive for current Reserve cardholders to downgrade to a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink Business Preferred. The coupon benefits of the Reserve cards hardly pencil out to be worthwhile for most users. That is particularly true for the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card, where I don’t even understand the target market. It would be so hard for most small business owners to get enough value out of that card each year to justify its price tag.
As a result, I imagine that many Reserve cardholders have considered downgrading in year two. This change in transfer ratio will obviously make some rethink that type of strategy. I’m not sure that actually makes the Reserve cards any more valuable on the whole; it just makes the decision about whether to keep or not more challenging.
In my own household, I suppose we are much more likely now to keep one Sapphire Reserve card than we would have been before this announcement, since we almost surely would have downgraded our Reserve cards to Sapphire Preferred cards otherwise. Now, I will probably keep a Sapphire Reserve. I am willing to commit my time and effort to jumping through the hoops and getting value out of the coupon benefits in large part because I write about this stuff for a living. If I didn’t, I’m not sure that I would be considering Chase Ultimate Rewards as such an integral part of my reward strategy moving forward.
Indeed, there are still some great opportunities to earn five points per dollar with the right Chase cards, and in some cases, that will present outsized value, particularly when transferred to airline programs. However, given Chase’s generally weaker set of transfer partners, they become far less attractive to me with this change. Ironically, this new transfer ratio makes me far more interested in Bilt than ever before.
This change feels like free marketing for Bilt
This Ultimate Rewards news really highlights the value of Bilt Rewards moving forward. That is because Bilt Rewards, as far as we know, is maintaining a one-to-one transfer ratio to World of Hyatt. They also have Chase’s other nearly “unique” partners in United Mileage Plus and Southwest Rapid Rewards, while also having a stable of other useful partners (including Alaska Atmos). And when you consider the ability to stack up Bilt points, either from using their accelerators or by earning through the Rakuten shopping portal, there are excellent opportunities to earn points that will transfer one-to-one to World of Hyatt, just not with Chase.
For years, I have looked at my Chase Ultimate Rewards points as my stash of World of Hyatt points, but that focus is now moving to Bilt, where I’ll use the Bilt Palladium Card to earn a base of 2X points per dollar spent. In reality, I intend to effectively earn 3 points per dollar on the first $25,000 in purchases per year by enabling the point accelerator for each $5,000 spent, and I’ll maintain Bilt elite status through card purchases, which will, in turn, preserve 1:1 earnings from Rakuten. Chase doesn’t even offer a way to earn a base of 2 points per dollar spent on otherwise unbonused purchases, and while there is an Ultimate Rewards shopping portal, it isn’t competitive with earning rates through Rakuten.
Obviously, things could change on Bilt’s side, but unless and until they do, I will be far more interested than ever before in earning as many Bilt points as possible to transfer to World of Hyatt and far less focused on collecting Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
Bottom line
Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred cardholders who apply on or after June 15, 2026, will only have a 4:3 transfer ratio when transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to World of Hyatt. That same poor 4:3 transfer ratio will take effect on October 1, 2026, for cardholders who have applied before June 15, 2026. This is a massive change to the value proposition for Chase Ultimate Rewards, as it will significantly devalue transfers to World of Hyatt for all but Sapphire Reserve cardholders.
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And the Slaves of Hyatt still cling on. Excuse after excuse. Now, let’s hear all the reasons why the CSR is such a great card.
We got Chased away 🙁
Have we heard anything new about the Hyatt co-brand credit card from Chase? I wonder if this is trying to set that up in some way? E.g., the new Hyatt credit card will seem more appealing since the CSP is now a less ideal way to earn Hyatt points. It sure seems like Hyatt should launch their new card soon to shift the narrative away from all of these devaluations.
Suggested Title for Post “Sapphire Reserve cards are now the ONLY Chase cards with 1:1 Hyatt transfer rates”
This one really stings…
Bilt definitely has to be celebrating this. Now if Bilt would allow more than one card at a time, I could all of my spend to them. I have a reserve and most likely will keep it. But it’s only because I can do high volume spend with one specific categoriy that Bilt doesn’t have. But boy are those Chase Reserve credits bad. I am so upside down with the Edit credits. I just can’t find a good use for them where some other program doesnt beats them on value.
I live in Paris now and it has become obvious to me that the best thing to do is find a beautiful Relais and Chateau and wave bye to both Chase and Hyatt as they have so few premium properties compared with Relais. Maybe the best use of Chase points is Air France so I can’t wait for Chase customers to ruin that program as I see new leadership there that I am not excited about. Maybe it’s time to be truly French and go all in debit card and search for value instead of points!
Is this the first Chase transfer at less than 1 to 1 that Chase excepted?
Yes
This is a kick in the gut. Am I able to product change from Sapphire Preferred to Chase Marriott Bold Card then Change to Ritz Carlton Card?
No. Chase doesn’t allow changes from the CSP to a cobranded card.
This is a big marketing goof. Why would they (Chase) kick us when we’re already down on the Hyatt award chart? To many, Hyatt was the only transfer partners advantage, before Bilt came in the picture, so I agree “This change feels like free marketing for Bilt”
Well, no reason to worry about 5/24 any more. Such a liberating feeling!
I’ve been hemming and hawing over worrying about my 5/24 status over the next year, but now, why bother? As you say, free marketing for Bilt – you’d think they’d appreciate this and maybe make their program a bit more attractive rather than do the complete opposite.
Crap, looks like I’m gonna have to take another look at that Bilt cypher wheel. I’m definitely not going to be blackmailed into not downgrading my CSR.
You mentioned “free marketing for Bilt” and questioned whether this makes it more likely that you’ll keep a reserve. I have a different takeaway.
I’ve got 5 Amex business platinums and I’ve been thinking about dropping 2-3 of them in the coming months because I’ve questioned if I really need to prepay for 10 FHR/HC credits per year. Now with Chase/Hyatt racing to the bottom, FHR is looking better and better.
This really does turn me off of Chase cards. I’d been strongly considering using my last 5/24 spot on the CFU, but I don’t see the value now; I’ll either get a United card or ditch Chase entirely and not care about 5/24 at all. And yeah, I’ll likely move even more of my spending to Bilt, using my CSP only for the things where it’s bonused way more than other cards (like streaming).