Nobody likes a points devaluation, but it’s a reality of the points and miles games. With that, I want to give credit where credit is due and say that Hyatt’s latest devaluation was a master class in how to do it right.
Background
In the U.S., there’s currently no, or very little, regulation on points and miles, meaning that airlines, hotels, and credit cards can devalue points and miles with no notice and have the devaluation take effect immediately. This now seems to be more-or-less industry standard.
Hyatt devalued their points in an ethical way
In my opinion, Hyatt’s devaluation was done in an ethical manner. Even though Hyatt had no legal obligations to take these steps:
- Hyatt gave plenty of notice of our their upcoming devaluations (I believe the official announcement came February 25, 2026 with the devaluation happening on May 20, 2026 — about 3 months later).
- Hyatt didn’t play any games with making hotels less available to book between the announcement and when the devaluation went live (i.e., they didn’t block off availability between Feb-May to funnel people into paying more for bookings post-devaluation).
Bottom line
While I’m not a fan of paying more points, I really think Hyatt’s recent devaluation should serve as the bare minimum of what airlines, credit cards, and hotels should do if they need to devalue their points.
What do you think about Hyatt handled its recent points devaluation? Let me know in the comments.
1 comment
Hyatt is becoming Marriott but it will fail since they don’t have the same footprint. Hyatt points are also dead and not im leaving Hyatt