Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.Every year, most hotel programs make adjustments to their hotel categories, which alters the rate at which you can redeem points for award nights at properties that change categories. Some hotels drop and some (usually more) go up. Some years are worse than others and I am a little bit worried about 2013 since we’ve seen pretty lackluster hotel promotions and the economy is slowly, but surely, getting better. I thought that might signal a larger than normal hotel category upshift as hotel chains see more “heads in beds”.However, Hyatt is only changing the categories of 17 of their 492 properties, and 10 of those are actually going down. In fact the only two Park Hyatts on the list, Toronto and Aviara, both drop to category 4 properties, meaning they can now be used for the annual free night benefit on the Chase Hyatt Visa. That free night alone at either of those properties (or any of the other category 1-4 hotels) can be worth many times the $75 annual fee of the card, which is the reason why I’ll keep my Hyatt card in perpetuity, even though I rarely use it for purchases since I get more bang for my spend on other cards.Hotel Category Changes for 2013:HotelCurrent CategoryNew CategoryHyatt Place Chantilly/Dulles Airport-South21Hyatt Place Tulsa/Southern Hills21Hyatt Place Sterling/Dulles Airport-North21Hyatt Regency Albuquerque21Hyatt Regency Greenville21HYATT house Chicago/Naperville/Warrenville32HYATT house San Ramon12Hyatt Place Las Vegas32Hyatt Place Louisville-East12Hyatt Place Pittsburgh-North Shore13Hyatt Regency Incheon23Hyatt Regency Oubaai Golf Resort and Spa43Hyatt Santa Barbara34Park Hyatt Aviara Resort54Park Hyatt Toronto54Hyatt 48 Lex45Grand Hyatt Tokyo56The changes go into effect February 7, 2013 so if you plan to redeem for any of the properties that are going up (like the Hyatt 48 Lex), make sure you do so before the changes happen. If you are booked into a property that is going down, Hyatt will automatically credit you the difference, which is very generous.[card card-name=‘Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card’ card-id=‘22125056’ type=‘javascript’ bullet-id=‘1’]
