🏨 What to do before Hyatt D-Day

Estimated read time: 5 minutes and 6 seconds

Howdy friends, and welcome back to Daily Drop.

A lot of you have been asking about how to navigate the upcoming Hyatt changes – and that’s exactly what we’ll talk about today.

Oh… and if you read the whole newsletter, you’ll get to experience an embarrassing part of my past life. 😉

Here we go:

• 🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

• 🏨 What to do before D-Day

• ✈️ Transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic

• 🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

🤓 Travel Trivia Tuesday

The answer is blowing in the (very coastal, slightly chaotic) wind… 🌊

🏨 What to do before D-Day

As many of you know, Hyatt is dead. 🪦

If you don’t know what I mean, here’s the quick version: In May, Hyatt is coming out with a whole new award chart that involves every category of hotel drastically increasing in price.

I’m calling it “Devaluation Day,” or D-Day for short.

And here’s the real headline:

The hotels that matter most (the Park Hyatts, all-inclusives, and other aspirational properties) are about to be hit the hardest.

Take the Park Hyatt Tokyo, for example.

Right now, you can book it for 45,000 points per night, which is an amazing deal considering the $1,500+ cash cost per night.

In May? That same night can jump to 75,000 points. Same hotel. Same room. Just… 30,000 more points for fun.

Book now, figure it out later

So here’s the move:

If there’s anything on your radar, book it now.

Summer trip. Fall trip. Random December idea you haven’t fully thought through yet. Doesn’t matter.

Because as long as you book before D-Day, you lock in current pricing – even if your stay is later.

And since most award bookings are refundable, you’re not committing to anything (of course, make sure you double-check the cancellation policy when booking).

You’re just locking in a better rate for future-you and deciding later if you actually go.

April is where things get worse

Before we even get to May, Hyatt is dropping its annual category changes in April.

And this is where some hotels are going to get absolutely wrecked. Because a handful of properties will get the “double whammy” treatment:

They move up a category… and then get more expensive within that category under the new pricing.

That’s how a hotel goes from “solid redemption” to “hard pass” overnight.

The tiny silver linings

Look, it’s not all bad… but it’s close.

Every now and then, Hyatt randomly drops a hotel into a lower category. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it can be ridiculous.

Last year, the Park Hyatt Jakarta dropped from Category 4 to 3.

Now, it costs as few as 9,000 points per night, which makes absolutely no sense because it’s easily one of the nicest Park Hyatts in the world (if you’ve stayed there, you already know).

There’s also a new ultra-off-peak pricing tier, which means some hotels will be cheaper than they are now.

For example, I’m in Estonia right now at a Category 2 Hyatt Place.

It’s currently 6,500 points per night, and under the new chart, some nights will drop to 6,000.

Nice. Cool. Love that.

Is that going to make up for 75k nights at luxury hotels?

Yeah… no.

One thing to keep in your back pocket: Points + Cash

There’s one tactic that becomes way more interesting in all of this: Points + Cash.

It’s kind of a weird loophole where you can squeeze more value out of your points without paying the full award price.

Take the Hyatt House in Melbourne.

It’s a brand-new property that opened last year and costs as few as 9,000 points per night or $178 in cash.

That gives you a baseline value of about 2 cents per point, which is solid.

But switch to Points + Cash and things get interesting.

You’ll pay 4,500 points (half the points price)… but only $53 in cash (way less than half the cash price):

So those 4,500 points are now worth 2.8 cents each.

You’re keeping your out-of-pocket cost low, still getting solid value, and stretching your points further.

And the best part? This option doesn’t go away after D-Day.

So even when full award pricing starts to feel painful, this is a really nice middle ground to keep in mind.

Bottom line

Hyatt hotels will be more expensive. Soon.

For those of you who locked in this welcome offer for 75,000 UR points, I’d recommend transferring them to Hyatt and locking in some stays for this year.

If you don’t have UR points to transfer to Hyatt, it’s technically not too late if you can get that card and meet the minimum spend in the next month.

✈️ Transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic

We’re back again.

There’s a 30% transfer bonus from ThankYou Points to Virgin Atlantic.

While this isn’t rare, it’s still one of the most consistently valuable ways to use your points.

U.S. to Europe for stupid cheap

You can fly from the U.S. to London for as little as 6,000 miles one-way.

With the 30% bonus, that drops to about 4,700 ThankYou Points.

So yeah… crossing the Atlantic for under 5k points is very much on the table here.

Business class without the pain

If you want something a little nicer, Virgin occasionally releases business-class seats for around 29,000 miles one-way.

With the bonus, that’s about 22,500 ThankYou Points for a lie-flat seat.

Taxes are higher, sure… but the points price is so low that it still ends up being a great deal.

The underrated sweet spot

This is the part people forget about.

Virgin lets you book short-haul flights within Europe on partners like KLM and Air France for:

• 4,000 miles in economy

• 8,000 miles in business class

With the bonus, those get even cheaper.

If you’re bouncing around Europe (especially in peak season), this can save you a surprising amount of cash.

Why this matters right now

Literally yesterday, I told you about how ThankYou points are lowering their transfer ratios to multiple programs…

So using those same points for a program like Virgin (especially with a bonus) looks a lot more appealing after the recent news.

Bottom line

These 30% bonuses come around a few times a year… but that doesn’t make them any less useful.

If you’ve got ThankYou Points sitting around, this is one of the better ways to turn them into real trips (bonus ends April 18).

🌎 Travel Trivia Reveal

Earlier, we asked which small town U.S. News ranked as the best small town to visit in the USA for 2026…

If you chose Bar Harbor, Maine — congrats! 🎉

U.S. News ranked Bar Harbor as the #1 best small town to visit in the USA.

Why Bar Harbor? Classic coastal Maine charm. Cottage-style inns, shops, and art galleries. Direct access to Acadia National Park…

And once you’re there, you’ve got:

🚶 Scenic walks along the Shore Path
⛵ Boat, history, and culinary tours
🥣 Fresh lobster (and plenty of other seafood)

And if you want an extra little treat…

… I’ve actually been to Bar Harbor before. 👀

I was there in 2012 because… and this is totally true… I was featured as a singer and actor in a holiday TV commercial for the clothing company Nautica.

And before you ask, yes. There’s video evidence. 👇

My best friend and I are the ones singing the duet of “Bring it on Home to Me” with an acapella group (you can also catch a glimpse of me wearing a light blue sweater and beanie around the 20-second mark).

ANYWAY… now that I’ve released that into the wild… 🤦‍♂️

Bar Harbor. We love it.

If you want postcard-worthy coastal views, fresh seafood, and easy access to one of the best national parks in the country, Bar Harbor is very worth the hype.

Alrighty, folks. That’s gonna do it for today. I hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter, and I’ll see you again tomorrow.

Hüvasti,

59.4370° N, 24.7536° E

With contributions by McKay Moffitt and Sam Anthony