MilesBuzz! - Noob Question: Best way to use miles or points for hotels

Hello, I am a noob at this CC points game. So I got on the CC churn bandwagon.

I have:
AMEX Hilton 42K points
Chase SouthWest 50K
Chase Non preferred sahphirre 30K
Chase United VIsa 55K
Marriot visa chase 70K
Citi Hilton 40K

My Dad has:
Chase United 50k
Marriot visa chase 70K
AMEX Hilton 40K
Citibank HH 40K

My Mom has
AMEX HH 40K
Chase United 50K

This is the first time I've done churning. ANyway, this decemeber/january we are going to sydney (new years plus 3 days), singapore and goa. IS there any best way to use these points for the hotel? Obvisouly Sydney is very pricey especially during new years. Do I need to go thru the CC website to book? or can I go thru the hotel's website or thrid party sites like expedia?

Thank you for your time.

It sounds like you might be a little confused as to how these points work. There are two types of points: Cash equivalent, and program specific.

You might be familiar with cash equivalent points, where 1 point = 1 penny, or so. These are easy, you just book anywhere and get credit. Chase freedom and sapphire non preferred are examples of this.

With program points you need to book with the participating company, and need to know how many points a specific room will cost. You'll want to look at award charts for the programs. Alternatively you can just do mock bookings on their sites and see how much rooms at the hotels you want to stay at will be for your travel dates.

A simplified example: A $185 hotel room will cost you 18,500 Sapphire points. Depending on the category of the hotel. If it is a category 4 hotel you'll need 30,000 or more Hilton points per night. I know in this example it looks like using your sapphire points would be best--but remember you likely get only 1 sapphire point per dollar, whereas you get 3-5 Hilton points (or more!) per dollar with your Hilton CCs. NOT ALL POINTS ARE CREATED EQUAL.

A good place to start would also be the forums for the programs here on FT:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hotel-programs-389/

I can almost guarantee whatever hotel you're looking at someone here on FT has stayed there.


Oh and welcome to FT.

Thread title edited to remove the reference to credit cards. The source of the miles and points is not important at the redemption stage.

You will receive more helpful replies if you mention the work you have already done. For example, Hilton and Marriott points can, of course, be redeemed for hotel stays at those chains. Have you looked at their websites to see the properties located at your destinations, the number of points required, and if award rooms are available?

Your first step is to look at Hilton & Marriott and see if they have award availability at a property that interests you. You redeem at the chains.

New years + 3 days is a four day stay, perfect for an HHonors AXON stay 145K (category 7), which is one of that program's best redemptions. Unfortunately you all seem to have spread your points in different accounts. And Hilton charges $$ to transfer points between accoutns.

Read this thread for Hilton redemption opportunities:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hhonors/1225861-making-sense-hilton-reward-options-axon-glon-everything-else.html

You can do a couple things here. There are lots of cards for Hilton that transfer to HHonors at favorable rates (Virgin, Hawaiian) that could top you or your day off. Also if you have had your AMEX cards for a year, AMEX may offer you some more points to upgrade to the Surpass card. That could be another 50K to your existing 82K (132K) - you would then be only 13K short, in which case it might be worth paying the fee to transfer the rest of the points ($25 per 10K - you could pay $25, then get the remaining 3K buy purchasing ~$500 in grocery store gift cards or similar in their 6x categories). In any of these top-off approaches the speed to get your points could be an issue in terms of getting your reservation in.

Or you could forego the AXON savings and separately book rooms at the GLON rates in each account.

If you go Marriott you could just split the reservation up between yours and your father's points as they don't have a program like AXON with an unusual discount for a four day stay.

to clerify do you have the points already? or did you just get these cards and this is the potential pts you will have after spend? so also if you got the hilton honors ones after the spend you should have like 43k or 44k depending on what you spent it on, at 50k you get one free night cat 7, you might consider using that card for more spend until you pass 50k each for your three accounts.

Marriott has the 5th night free award but I don't know if you have enough points to get 4 nights.

THnaks for the replies, I alrady have the points in each account. Ill try and see what to do.

Marriott has the 5th night free award but I don't know if you have enough points to get 4 nights.

Depends on the category, but with 140K he can easily find one. And unlike Hilton, Marriott allows you to combine the points for free at the time of redemption. It can work. They could also use their three separate HHonors Rewards to book several nights at one of the other places to avoid paying Hilton fees.

ANother noob question, since I have an CIti HH and Amex HH, will my HH Honors account pool points together from those CC even thought their different CC companies?

ANother noob question, since I have an CIti HH and Amex HH, will my HH Honors account pool points together from those CC even thought their different CC companies?

Yes, as long as you have the same HH account number on each. (If they don't show up in the same account, check. Sometimes credit cards mysteriously issue you a new number. Contact them to have them correct their mistake.)