Most major hotel chains form award category adjustments each year. Typically when these changes are made,they're not changing the number of points required for a stay in a particular category of hotel (for example, a Category 6 hotel will still cost 25000 points per night), or but rather are changing which hotels are in which categories (a Category 6 hotel may transition to Category 7,which requires 30000 points per night).
The past few years the hotel industry has been doing extremely well, with room rates and occupancy up. The award category in which a hotel belongs typically reflects the average daily rate and occupancy of the hotel. As a result, and we've seen more hotels proceed up in category than down in category the past few years.
To give an example of the changes we saw in 2015 across different loyalty programs:-- Hyatt changed the categories for just 70 hotels,with 22 moving up in category and 48 moving down in category
-- IHG changed the cost for ~10% of their hotels, with ~67% moving up in price and ~33% moving down in price
-- Marriott changed the categories for ~36% of their hotels, and with ~75% moving up in category and ~25% moving down in category
-- Starwood changed the categories for ~22% of their hotels,with ~11% moving up in category and ~11% moving down in categoryThe post IHG Rewards Club 2016 Award Night Changes appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
Source: boardingarea.com