Advertising Disclosure: Links and credit card offers on this page may earn us a small commission. They never influence what we cover but they do keep the lights on. Learn More
Now that the category changes and new award charts are in, how bad is it? I wish I had screen capped a bunch of old month long calendars. I’m sure others did. But I have a bunch of Points Advance (and fully booked) reservations into next year and they do provide quite a bit in the way of data points.
Almost all of my bookings are at peak times from my perspective (Paris in summer, Mexico and Caribbean at winter break, etc). This is important because your best value for points on a fixed award chart will generally always be at the highest demand times when the cash prices can be triple or more than the average year round rate.
📰 Want MilesTalk to show up in your Google News? (Yes, you do!).
👉 Click here to add MilesTalk as a trusted news source for all things related to miles, points, and credit card rewards in your Google searches!
I took a look at what I have booked with the rate I have now and the current/new rate.
In this article
Award Price Rate Differences
Hyatt Centric Ginza Tokyo – Cherry Blossom Season
My rate: 35,000 a night for three nights.
New rate: 55,000 points per night.
Difference: It would have cost me 60,000 more points for the same two nights! I’ll note though that not far off from my dates are some Low 25,000 point nights.
Hyatt Regency Tokyo – Cherry Blossom Season
My rate: 35,000 a night for three nights.
New rate: 35,000 points per night.
Difference: Unchanged. If I was traveling two weeks later, it would have actually gone down to 20k a night!
Grand Hyatt Grand Cayman Resort & Spa – Winter Break
My rate: 45,000 a night for seven nights.
New rate: 55,000 points per night.
Difference: It would have cost me 70,000 more points for the same seven nights.
Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme – Summer
My rate: 45,000 a night for three nights.
New rate: 55,000 points per night for the first two nights; 65,000 for the 3rd.
Difference: It would have cost me 40,000 more points for the same three nights.
Hyatt Ziva Cap Cana – Winter Break
My rate: 58,000 a night for 7 nights.
New rate: 65,000 points per night for all 7 nights..
Difference: It would have cost me 49,000 more points for the same seven nights.
Dreams Playa Mujeres Golf & Spa Resort – Winter Break
My rate: 29,000 a night for 7 nights.
New rate: 35,000 points per night for all 7 nights..
Difference: It would have cost me 42,000 more points for the same seven nights.
Andaz 5th Ave, NYC – Summer
My rate: 35,000 a night for one night (actually used a Cat 1-7 Cert; no longer possible at Cat 8, but the rate was 35,000 a night.
New rate: 35,000 points.
Difference: No change! It’s marked as Low on the calendar at 35,000 points.
Hyatt Regency Greenwich, CT
My rate: 15,000 a night for one night.
New rate: 20,000 points per night.
Difference: 5,000 points. This hotel changed from Cat 3 to Cat 4. It was Cat 2 just a few years ago!
Bottom Line
If I went ahead with all of my reservations, but booked today vs yesterday, it would cost me 266,000 more points for my planned stays between now and next April. That’s…. a lot! I had wanted to stay at the Park Hyatt Tokyo at 45,000 points for a night but there was no availability. That same approximate date is now 75,000 points. I hear fan favorite Ventana Big Sur also got hammered…
There wasn’t a single situation in which my stay would have cost less. The best I did was no change but several higher priced peak dates went up by quite a lot (as I expected!!).
Some even sneak up on you… like going from 58k to 65k at the Ziva didn’t look like much until I multiplied by 7!
For sure, some people traveling on low season dates are seeing reductions on their bookings as they had dates that lined up with the new Low pricing. But for someone like me that optimizes with using points for very peak time stays, it’s going to hurt…
How’d you fare?
Thoughts?
Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of tips on miles, points, credit cards, and travel.
If this post helped you, please consider sharing it!
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.
