Hyatt’s 2025 category changes: Particularly bad for mattress running & free night certificates

Update 3/18/25: Just a quick reminder that these World of Hyatt category changes will be going in to force on Wednesday March 25, 2025 at 9am ET. If you’re interested in booking a stay at any of the properties that’ll be going up on price, you’ll therefore need to do that ASAP if you want to lock in the lower redemption rate.

From what I can remember of past changes like these, Hyatt sometimes implements the changes a little ahead of schedule. I’d therefore be wary about waiting until 8:50am ET on March 25 to make your booking(s) in case the prices jump before 9am on the dot.

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Every March, World of Hyatt revalues the award pricing for its hotels, moving properties up or down a category (or two in rare circumstances). Hyatt has today announced changes to its program that will take effect from March 25, 2025.

There’s some minor good news with this latest revaluation/devaluation, but the changes are going to be brutal for anyone looking to mattress run their way to Globalist status, as well as for those who earn category 1-4 and category 1-7 free night certificates.

You can find the full list of category changes here. In total, 151 properties will be changing. 118 will be increasing in price, while 33 will be decreasing. That means that almost 80% of the changes involve an award pricing increase, but note that only ~15% of World of Hyatt hotels overall are being affected one way or another.

Here’s a summary of the most notable changes.

Harder mattress running

One of the biggest changes is that there’s a significant number of properties increasing from category 1 to category 2. There are 41 of those worldwide, with 22 of those being in the US.

Some areas are particularly badly hit. Detroit is one such area, as all three of its category 1 properties will be moving to category 2. Dallas/Fort Worth is another, with five properties increasing in price, while the Houston area has three category 1 hotels becoming more expensive. In Germany, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf will each have two of their properties becoming category 2 locations from March 25.

This is particularly bad news for anyone looking to mattress run their way to Globalist status at the end of the year. Many people who need a few more elite night credits to hit 60 nights for the year (and thus earn Globalist status) will book a stay at a category 1 property as a low cost way of earning those credits. With these changes, 22 hotels in the US will go from costing 3,500-6,500 points per night to costing 6,500-9,500 points per night depending on if it’s at off-peak, standard or peak pricing. Having those hotels now cost 3,000 points more per night could have a big impact on the economics of mattress running and could make it more worthwhile booking a cash rate rather than an award night.

Fewer category 4 hotels

Hyatt’s most common type of free night certificate is one that can be redeemed at properties falling in to categories 1-4. These can be earned in a number of ways such as credit card renewals, spending $15,000 on a Hyatt personal card, earning 30 elite night credits and through the Brand Explorer feature.

Over the years, Hyatt has steadily chipped away at the number of hotels at which you can redeem those certificates for good value and that’s once again the case for 2025. Thankfully the overall impact isn’t as pronounced as the category 1 to 2 changes. This year, 11 properties will be going up from category 4 to 5, while 6 properties will decrease from category 5 to 4 – a net loss of five hotels.

The category 4 losses are:

• Hyatt Regency Newport Beach, CA
• Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport, FL
• The Bellevue Hotel, PA
• Hyatt Place Fort Worth Historic Stockyards, TX
• Hyatt Regency Hong Kong, Tsim Sha Tsui
• Hyatt House Tokyo Shibuya, Japan
• Hyatt Regency Tokyo, Japan
• Hyatt Regency Koh Samui, Thailand
• Hyatt Regency Vancouver, Canada
• Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile, France
• Hyatt Centric The Liberties Dublin, Ireland

There are some big losses there, particularly the Hyatt Regency properties in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo and the Hyatt Centric in Dublin.

Here’s a list of the hotels that will be newly-bookable with a category 1-4 free night certificate:

• Hotel Figueroa, CA
• Dream South Beach, FL
• Thompson Atlanta – Buckhead, GA
• Park Hyatt Doha, Qatar
• Grand Hyatt Sanya Haitang Bay Resort and Spa, China
• Grand Hyatt Jeju, South Korea

These reductions don’t really make up for the category 4 properties that are going up to category 5, but it is nice to have another Park Hyatt bookable with a free night certificate.

Fewer category 7 properties

The other type of free night certificate issued by Hyatt is one that can be redeemed at category 1-7 properties. In the past, that meant you could redeem those certificate at any Hyatt worldwide, but a few years ago the World of Hyatt program introduced a category 8 level.

Initially, only a handful of properties were placed in that category, but its number has slowly increased over the last few years and 2025 is no exception. There will be zero hotels dropping from category 8 to 7, but there will be six going up to category 8:

• Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa, HI
• Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills, Japan
• Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Japan
• Park Hyatt Tokyo, Japan
• Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort, Costa Rica
• IL Tornabuoni Hotel, Italy

For anyone wanting to use free night certificates in Tokyo, this is particularly awful news. It’s also disappointing seeing the Grand Hyatt Kauai moving up to category 8 as that’s one of the best properties in the US.

It’s also sad to see the Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort moving up to category 8. This used to be a category 4 hotel and was widely regarded at the time as being one of the best uses of a category 1-4 free night certificate. Having this now not be bookable even with a category 1-7 certificate is wild.

Other notable changes

With 151 hotels moving up or down a category, there are too many changes to list here individually. However, here are a few other adjustments that caught my eye.

• Grand Hyatt at SFO – this is going up from category 5 to 6. This is a very popular hotel for people to stay at when flying in or out of San Francisco due to the ease with which you can access the terminal. It’s now becoming worse value for points.
• Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa – somewhat surprisingly (given the cost of hotels in Hawaii), this hotel will be dropping from category 7 to 6. This and the Grand Hyatt Kauai used to both be category 7 locations, so there’ll now be a two category disparity between them seeing as the Grand Hyatt Kauai is going up to category 8. Having stayed at both of them a couple of months ago, this seems fair as the Grand Hyatt Kauai was a significantly better experience than the Hyatt Regency in Maui.
• Hyatt Regency Pittsburgh International Airport – this is another very convenient airport hotel that’s only a short walk from the terminal, so it’s a shame this is going up in price.
• Grand Hyatt Bali and Hyatt Regency Bali – these properties fluctuated between categories 1 and 2 for several years, but disappointingly both will now be going up to category 3.

Silver Lining

As I’ve mentioned repeatedly already, there are some real hits to the World of Hyatt program here, particularly when it comes to free night certificates and category 1 properties.

However, it isn’t all bad news. For starters, Hyatt is maintaining its award chart overall. There’s no new category 9 and there’s no increase in the number of points required for each of the category levels. In a world where nearly every hotel loyalty program has moved to dynamic pricing, it’s wonderful that there’s currently due to be no expansion of that with Hyatt.

Hyatt also deserves credit for the transparent, up-front and customer-friendly way that they conduct these changes every year. While many loyalty programs conduct devaluations overnight with no notice, Hyatt instead announces their annual revaluations a month ahead of time, providing the list of changes in an easily viewable method rather than trying to obfuscate the changes.

Providing a month’s notice of these changes therefore gives you plenty of time to book award nights at hotels that will be going up in price from March 25. If you book those stays before March 25, once March 25 comes you won’t be charged the difference. In a pro-consumer move though, if you book a stay now for a property that will be moving down a category, Hyatt will proactively refund you the additional points post-March 25 without you needing to lift a finger to rebook your stay.

Quick Tips

As mentioned above, if you notice that one or more hotels that you want to book a stay at will be going up in price towards the end of March, it’s worth booking it now to lock in the lower award pricing.

For properties going down in price, it might be worth doing the same thing. With award pricing at those hotels becoming cheaper, they could become more popular with World of Hyatt members, reducing the award availability from March 25.

If you think you might need to conduct a mattress run towards the end of the year, it could also be worth booking stays right now if the hotel closest to you that you normally use will be going up from category 1 to 2. If that’s your plan, it’d be worth booking the stays in one night increments so that you can cancel one or more of those nights if they later end up not being needed.

Question

What are your thoughts on these changes? Does it impact on your loyalty to Hyatt? Will the loss of some of the category 4 hotels affect your willingness to renew your Hyatt credit card? Let us know in the comments below.

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