Loyalty devaluation is no longer a slow background trend. In the eighteen months to mid-2026, virtually every major travel rewards programme repriced its top-end awards sharply upward, some by more than 60%, and the structural forces behind the moves appear durable rather than temporary.
The practical effect is straightforward. A points balance that covered a business-class redemption in December 2024 may fall meaningfully short of the same seat today. For the tens of millions of travellers who hold points as a form of deferred purchasing power, that is a real and largely irreversible loss.
How Far Awards Have Actually Moved
The clearest single data point comes from the air side. AwardFares reports that British Airways raised Avios redemption costs on 15 December 2025, with the increase touching every zone, every cabin and every partner programme. Most awards rose by around 10%, with some reaching 14%. AwardFares notes that BA cited Air Passenger Duty, third-party charges, market conditions and inflation as the drivers.
On the hotel side, the repricing has been broader still. According to NerdWallet, Marriott Bonvoy's move to dynamic pricing resulted in around 95% of properties carrying a higher effective cost by mid-2026, a figure WanderWise also records. At the very top of the World of Hyatt chart, NerdWallet reports that the ceiling for certain Category 8 properties climbed from 45,000 to 75,000 points per night, representing a 67% increase.
WanderWise reports that World of Hyatt overhauled its award chart on 20 May 2026, expanding from three tiers to five, with 136 hotels landing in a new category and 112 of those moving into a higher one. At Marriott, WanderWise reports that the switch to dynamic pricing left around 95% of properties at a greater points cost by mid-2026. WanderWise also reports that on 12 March 2026 Marriott lifted the Free Night Award top-off cap from 15,000 to 25,000 points, which means cardholders must now commit more points to redeem an annual benefit whose nominal value has remained unchanged. WanderWise further reports that on 15 September 2026 Wyndham Rewards moved from a three-tier to a four-tier structure, introducing a cheaper entry level at one end while adding a more expensive top tier at the other.
The Structural Forces at Work
Programmes are not devaluing carelessly. They are responding to real cost pressures and, more importantly, to a business model that has evolved in their favour.
Airlines sell miles to banks and credit-card partners at a fixed price per point. Those sales generate revenue that is often more predictable and higher-margin than seat revenue. When a programme devalues its award chart, the miles it has already sold to third parties become cheaper to redeem, which improves the programme's own economics without reducing the income from future mile sales. Passengers absorb the cost; the programme captures the benefit.
BA's cited reasons, APD, third-party charges and inflation, are genuine cost items. But the mechanics of loyalty accounting mean that any cost increase can justify a chart reprice while the programme continues to sell new miles at unchanged or higher prices. The passenger holding points has no hedge against that asymmetry.
Who Bears the Cost of Loyalty Devaluation
The travellers most exposed are those who accumulated large balances on credit-card spend rather than actual flying, precisely the customers the programmes have spent a decade recruiting. They tend to hold points longer and redeem less frequently, which means each devaluation event erodes a larger stored balance.
Frequent flyers who redeem quickly after earning are less affected in absolute terms, though they still face higher prices at the top of the chart where aspirational redemptions sit. The Spirit Airlines shutdown, reported by NerdWallet in May 2026, is a reminder that programme liabilities can disappear entirely when an airline fails, a risk that sits alongside devaluation for any points holder.
You can track the airlines involved in these changes using our Airline Search tool.
What Washington Is Watching
The US Department of Transportation has opened a probe into loyalty programme practices, and the Senate's Protect Your Points Act would impose new disclosure requirements on large programmes. Both are live questions in the industry.
Our view, based on the facts above, is that neither intervention is likely to prevent further devaluation in its current form. Disclosure rules would tell consumers more about what a point is worth at the moment of reading, not at the moment of redemption years later. Chart repricing is not illegal. The DOT probe may produce guidance or fines, but award pricing has never been treated as a consumer-protection matter in the way that fare advertising has.
The more durable check on devaluation is competitive: if one programme devalues aggressively while a rival holds value, credit-card customers and high-spending travellers can and do shift. That competitive pressure has limited, but not reversed, the trend visible in the data above.
The Bottom Line
The loyalty devaluation wave of 2025 and 2026 is real, measurable and broad-based, touching airlines, hotel chains and co-branded card benefits simultaneously. The structural incentives that produced it have not changed. Points holders who treat their balances as long-term savings face the greatest erosion. Washington's attention is worth monitoring, but the facts so far do not support the conclusion that regulatory action will meaningfully alter the economics of programme management. What to watch next: whether any major programme reverses a reprice in response to competitive pressure, and whether the DOT probe produces enforceable standards rather than guidance.
This article draws on reporting by NerdWallet, WanderWise and AwardFares.
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