World of Hyatt has long been my favorite hotel rewards program. It offers great point value, multiple ways to book suites at a good value, shareable perks, and the best top-tier elite benefits of any major hotel chain. Sadly, the first item, “great point value,” is about to devalue. Hyatt has announced that new 5-price-tiers-per-category award charts will take effect in May 2026. On average, point prices will be considerably higher than before. Worse, the top, extreme-peak pricing will be way higher (38% to 67%, depending on the hotel category). Full details can be found here: Mayday — Hyatt to launch a brutal new World of Hyatt chart in May 2026.
So… What now? Will I continue to turn to Hyatt for hotel bookings? Will I continue to pursue Hyatt Globalist status?
My general hotel-booking approach won’t change
While I’m a fan of Hyatt’s loyalty program, I don’t usually go out of my way to book Hyatt hotels. Instead, when picking a hotel, I look at its location, reviews, and whatever other factors are important to me for that trip. I also look at whether I can use hotel credits, free night certificates, or points for good value. When a Hyatt hotel makes my short list, I often find I can get great value by booking it with Hyatt points (usually by transferring points from Chase Ultimate Rewards to Hyatt).
When Hyatt’s point prices go up, there’s no reason for me to change my approach to booking hotels. Instead, I expect that booking with Hyatt points will be the “winner” less often. To be clear — it will still happen. There will still be plenty of times when Hyatt points offer the best value compared to any other option. But I think it will happen less often than it does today. Instead, I’ll probably find more opportunities to book with other hotel points (Marriott, IHG, etc.), use various free-night certificates or hotel credits, or book through Chase when Points Boosts are available.
Reconsidering Hyatt Globalist status
I love Hyatt Globalist status for perks such as daily free breakfast, free parking on award stays, free upgrades, and waived resort fees on all stays. Those benefits are only valuable, though, when staying at Hyatt hotels. If increased award pricing leads me to stay at Hyatt hotels less often, the value of Globalist status will decrease accordingly. Additionally, as I book more hotels through Fine Hotels + Resorts® and The Edit by Chase Travel℠, Globalist benefits become less meaningful even when staying at Hyatt hotels. Recently, for example, I stayed at the Park Hyatt Melbourne, which I had booked through Fine Hotels + Resorts. Booking through Fine Hotels + Resorts automatically provides free breakfast, a free room upgrade, and property credit. As a result, I didn’t benefit at all from my Globalist status during this stay. I received the exact same treatment (which was very good, by the way) as if I had no status at all. If I had parked a car at the hotel or if the hotel charged resort fees, I would have benefited from Globalist status, since those fees would have been waived. Neither was the case for this particular trip.
I have no doubt that I will have some Hyatt stays where Globalist status will be meaningful. In those cases, I would just need to find people willing to gift me Guest of Honor certificates so I could receive Globalist benefits for those stays. Within the Frequent Miler Insiders group on Facebook, there’s the “Wild West Sharing Thread” where people regularly offer up their Guest of Honor certificates.
Logically, it doesn’t make sense for me to continue to pursue Hyatt Globalist status. Emotionally, though, it’s tough to give it up. Recently, I’ve received incredible upgrades at a couple of Hyatt properties. I’m not convinced that I would have had the same luck with Guest of Honor certificates. And in at least one of those stays, I wouldn’t have bothered to look for a Guest of Honor certificate, since it was just one night.
I’ll probably continue to pursue Globalist status this year as planned (See: Greg’s elite plans for 2026). That will give me Globalist status through February 2028. And it will give me plenty of time to evaluate Globalist status under the new award chart to see whether it still delivers enough value to be worth the effort.
The wild card — a new Hyatt card
In the sections above, I stated that I’ll probably book Hyatt hotels with points less often, which will make Globalist status less valuable. There’s one wild card that could change things, though: we expect Hyatt to introduce a new credit card this year. It’s possible that the new card will offer perks that lead me to stay at Hyatt hotels more rather than less. For example, if the new card unlocks the ability to top off free night certificates with points to access higher-category hotels, and/or makes it possible to earn more category 1-7 free night certificates, then Hyatt’s higher point pricing may be less of an issue.
In case you missed it, I wrote up my dreams for the new Hyatt card here: My Hyatt premium card wishlist.
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Sad times. This is the last year of Globalist for me, after many years. The loss of SLH was huge. It took away TONS of possible room inventory.
Now, there are simply too many people chasing too few rooms/suites/upgrades with Hyatt. I don’t care about AIs. I want real properties, actual hotels and resorts, not unlimited cheap booze and middling cuisine.
Also, MMS has zero meaningful benefits (and is more expensive when booked via Hyatt vs. direct.) What a stupid “addition.” My concierge can’t even adjust those reservations.
As crazy as it is, Hilton > Hyatt now, and it’s not close. I’ll not be staying at Hyatts except to use whatever points/awards in have left. My cash nights are now SLH/Hilton.
Another factor is Hyatt’s increasing dedication to all-inclusives, limited service hotels like Hyatt Place, and other properties that offer little to Globalists such as Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Hyatt has increasingly drifted away from full service hotels with the amenities that made them successful and status desirable. Many if not most Hyatt Regency hotels in the USA now don’t even have a club lounge. With so many stays not offering suite upgrades or lounge access, the free parking and no resort fee on substantially more expensive awards are pretty meager as a solace.
We’ll see just how bad the changes will be but I was expecting category 1-4 certificates to make the long overdue change to 1-5 to mitigate any bad news. I also didn’t figure the bad news would be <i>quite</i> so bad. I will say that regardless, I’m certainly less loyal to Hyatt than a month ago. I’ll reach Globalist this year and perhaps even my wife as well (as planned) but suddenly next year seems a lot more doubtful.
You nailed it.
Seems reasonable. You probably have enough planned bookings to easily hit globalist this year, so why not see how it looks next year. I however would require significant effort to renew globalist this year, and my enthusiasm for doing that is dead. No more effort, no mattress runs, no Hyatt cc spend, no more Hyatt places. I’ll use my certs and do some speculative bookings before February. After that, it’s probably gonna be adios Pritzkers, I enjoyed being an unprofitable customer.
I’m rather surprised they didn’t announce this later in the year, when more people would be committed to hitting globalist. But now, I imagine there will be many like me who just bail on any effort for status.
Your point about staying with FHR and The Edit more often is too true. I have more credits for luxury bookings than I could possibly use (well, for this year), and I cancelled my Hyatt visa. If Hyatt wants my business, they need to be more competitive. Currently they are going in the wrong trajectory.
I’ll guess that Hyatt is on a path that ultimately brings it in line with the metrics of the other programs. Of course, no one wants that. But, it seems to be the way of the world.
Sorry I asked in the other post too. Any word on whether this points devaluation will at least help with room availability for points bookings?
Where’s are you?
Receiving guest of honor is not sustainable at all. Other people are just thinking like you, and not maintaining globalist status and/or reaching milestones. There will be fewer and fewer guest of honor circulating in the market.
I routinely find and buy GOH certs on ebay for $75 or less. There’s always plenty of farmers out there to sell them. We’ll see if that changes.