This is the third installment of a series I’ve been working on comparing point values within hotel programs broken down by what the hotel presents as the “value” of a property vis a vis the reward category assigned to each hotel. For both SPG and IHG there was a rather distinctive pattern showing that the cheaper hotels were a much better value than the more expensive ones. Hyatt Gold Passport shows a similar pattern, but at the high end things skew quite differently.

There are a couple factors which play in to these results. One of them is that the average room rate at the Category 7 properties is spectacularly high. It is 30% higher than the prices at top SPG hotels, for example, while the additional points required increases linearly. It is also possible that the results are skewed by there not being enough Category 7 search results in the data. Overall only about 0.5% of the searches where Hyatt properties are returned were Cat 7 hotels, at least when an award night is available. Even worse is that it only covers 6 specific properties:
- Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort and Spa
- Park Hyatt New York
- Park Hyatt Sydney
- Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome
- Park Hyatt Zurich
- Park Hyatt Milan
So, while the numbers look better on the graph in this case I’m not nearly as convinced of the statistical significance here as in other cases. Of course, with only 8 properties in the Category 7 classification maybe the numbers really do make sense.
Aside from the Category 7 properties the numbers continue to suggest that higher-end hotels are, generally speaking, a worse value for redemption when considering the value of the points. Something to consider when looking at your account balances and trying to figure out how to “maximize” the reach of the points.
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With the 20% rebate right now, It seems like award stays are an even better deal, and potentially a good use of UR.
That rebate is nice but also not open to everyone and not permanent so I didn’t account for it in the numbers.
Thanks for doing this research. I am new to Hyatt GP and find this helpful. I try to only use points when they are >$.02, looks like Category 1 & 2 are the most cost effective.
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Great article, love the data! My anecdotal evidence/gut feel is similar: I got some good deals at category 1 hotels at Hyatt Kota Kinabalu, Kathmandu and Bali…