Sad Trombone: It Appears Hyatt Is Not Done Breaking Our Hearts

Hyatt Category Changes Are Still Coming

Sorry to rip the band-aid off the wound again today, but I have some more bad news to share with you. Something that I missed in the press release yesterday that had my heart sink a bit. It could be an overreaction in part by me, at least if everything works how they say it should, but I have seen enough loyalty program PR speak to highly doubt that.

Category Changes In 2026

I had hoped that these massive award chart increases (mostly 25%+ across the board) would be it for this year. I figured that would allow them to move hotels within the categories, since they span like 3 different category prices now. You could be booking a category 2 hotel at the old category 4 standard price for example. This was in the press release though:

World of Hyatt will continue its established annual hotel category review process, with yearly category changes announced in April.

I have confirmed this will still happen this April, with category changes going into effect in May. Hopefully it is very minor with the wiggle room they have within each category now.

Some Changes Happened Already

That wasn’t all though, there were some changes that are in effect immediately. This goes against what Hyatt has usually done in the past, giving us a few months to plan for upcoming changes.

Five hotels shifted up one category immediately:

• Andaz Pattaya Jomtien Beach
• Hyatt Centric Malta
• Hyatt Regency Kotor Bay Resort
• Hyatt Place San Antonio-Northwest/Medical Center
• Grand Hyatt Incheon

One hotel shifted up two categories immediately:

• Grand Hyatt Grand Cayman Resort & Spa, opening in 2026.

One hotel shifted down one category immediately:

• The Barnett, JdV by Hyatt.

They must have anticipated a run on these hotels with the upcoming devaluation. I still find it weird to single out these couple of properties.

Hyatt Category Changes

I went back and looked at some previous category changes, ones that happened before covid. It was usually pretty equal with almost as many hotels going down as they would be going up in categories. That has not been the case the last few years though. Hopefully the massive award chart devaluation means there won’t be so many moving parts going forward.

I fear that will not be the case this year though, as they do a reset under the new set up. Hopefully I am wrong, and hopefully there are minor tweaks in the years to come. We shall see though…