mia

Carter29072

Trying to figure out if that is a good redemption if I am going to cancel my Prestige card in the near future anyway?

sdsearch

It depends on what other options you'd consider for redemption.

I just redeemed 30k HHonors points for a one-night stay at a hotel that's $200ish + tax for that night. To me, that was a decent HHonors redemption.

That would require 15k TYP points during the current promo. If you were to use 120k TYP points to transfer to an airline and use it for a longhaul business class flight, I'd bet you'd get much more than $200ish x 8 = $1600ish of value out of that. So compared to that I'd say it's a poor value, unless you don't have enough ponts to transfer to an airline (for such a high-value purpose), or have no idea which airline to transfer to (given that many of TYP's partner airlines have horrid "hard" expiration policies, and thus you may not want to "park" miles there).

But can you get better than $200ish value out of 15k points in other ways? I dunno, I'm not familiar with the values of using TYP points in ways other than for transfers.

Meanwhile, as the above example points out, if you only have a few dozen TYP points and have to get rid of them now, then maybe Hilton is a good place to get rid of such a smaller number, because the smaller number used at an airline would only be good for a short coach flight where the redemption value tends to be way way less. Ie, if in theory 25k TYP points turned into miles gets you a cheap domestic flight that would have cost $350 cash or less, then 15k for a $200ish + tax hotel sounds like a better value all of a sudden.

And that's why it so completely depends on what you're comparing to, as well as how much you want to transfer and how soon you're going to lose your TYP points, as to whether this promo is a good value or not.

mikesyr18

The redemption rate could be 3 HH points per 1 ThankYou point, and it's still a horrible redemption option. I'm not redeeming 30,000 points/night for some room at a $179/night hotel, when I can redeem 8,000 points for a $250/night Hyatt room at 1:1 through Chase UR or with the Hyatt credit card.

To show you the weak value of HH points, just look at their credit cards. I believe one has a 12x, 6x, and 3x points per dollar reward program.

sdsearch

There are no Hyatts in the location where I redeemed those 30000 points for a $200ish + tax Hampton Inn. There are only Hamptons, a Holdiay Inn (with poor reviews), a Best Western (which requires even more points), and Super 8s and stuff like that.

It's a location in Oregon east of Portland (in the Columbia Gorge area, but not so far from the PDX airport either) a couple days after the eclipse. Thus the high cash rates.

How in the world does redeeming for a Hyatt help you in locations where there are no Hyatts??? Hyatt has the smallest "footprint" (number of properties) of any of the "major" hotel programs. It may great if you only travel to big cities that have Hyatt's, but it's pretty useless if you like to stay in smaller towns/cities or in far suburbs to be closer to nature.

mikesyr18

Obviously I didn't know there weren't any Hyatt's in that area, but my point still stands that HH points are worthless which is why even the credit cards that are offered for them have an inflated earning program.

Was there a Staybridge Suites out that way? IHG points are almost as invaluable as HH points, except Staybridge Suites are nicer than a Hilton at the same price point, plus include free breakfast and other amenities.

mia

Value is determined by the amount of spending required to earn an award, not the quantity of points. Hyatt's program may provide better, equal or worse value than Hilton, IHG or Marriott, but to determine this we need to look at more than the number of points listed on a redemption chart.

krazykanuck

This. For actual revenue hotel stays, I have an excel spreadsheet set up for Hilton and SPG, my 2 most common programs, where I drop in the pretax room rate, it figures my point earning, I have to edit based on quarterly promotions, but more often than not I get more value earning my "worthless" Hilton points at a 0.5 cent value than earning SPG points (I think I have it set to 2 cents or 2.5 cents, I don't remember) due to the various multipliers.

It's like comparing yen and dollars. They're different currencies, doesn't mean one is worth more than the other.


That being said, I do think that 1000:2000 for TYP to Hilton is a poor value, but that's a different point from the first part of my post.

mikesyr18

... So your data is inaccurate because it should be set closer to 3, not 2-2.5.

One currency is worth more than the other. Bring pesos to the United States and see how valuable they are compared to dollars. Then bring dollars to Mexico and still see how much more valuable they are.

As I've said, I can get a $250/night Hyatt for 8,000 points with a combination of 1-2 points earned per dollar on the Hyatt card. I spend $4,000-$8,000 to get a $250 reward. Each point is worth 3.1 cents a piece.

Earlier this year I used 60,000 HHonors points for two nights a crappy $179/night hotel. You can easily see the worth of each Hilton Honors point. Each room was 30,000 points a night amounting to less than 1 cent per point.

You could multiply HHonors points x3 and still get less value per point than 1 Hyatt point should get you, which is basically what the top Hilton card tries to do in order to make up for the crappy value of HH points.

I would have to spend $10,000 to get one free night at a Hilton that's $179/night. I would have to spend $8,000 to get a $250/night Hyatt, with all spending in base categories. Heck there's even an option at one hotel I just looked up to get a Hyatt room at 6,000 points + $75... Total spending? $6,075 for a $250/night room.

sdsearch

I'm very familiar with the IHG program, and I know Staybridge Suites are nicer. No, like I said, all there is is a Hampton, a lousy old HI, and budget program motels of various kinds.

IME there are rarely Staybriges in many towns closer to nature / further away from big cities. Just Hampton Inns, Fairfield Inns, HIXs or Holiday Inns, etc, or in really small towns maybe only Choice and/or Best Western and/or WyndhamRewards (and usually the lower-end brands within those).

If all I wanted to do was to be reasonably close to PDX airport, there's a StayBridge in another direction (in nearby Washington state). But it's uselessly located for the Columbia Gorge on the Oregon Side. (And the nature of the Columbia River Gorge is that there are no bridges for long distances.)

Also IMHO HH points are not worthless, as long as you earn(ed) them cheaply and you only use them where the value is better (like for me in this case that Hampton). I earned many hundreds of thousands by frequently churning the no-fee HH Visa card while it existed and before Citi imposed 18/24 month rules. I use them very rarely, because in many places they aren't a good value. But in this particular case IMHO they were.

I have over 800k HH points (mostly from all those churns). Why shouldn't I use them sometimes, especially when nothing better is around?

mikesyr18

Of course you should use them if you've earned them from churning. I'm speaking for people who don't churn and earn them by spending money on their credit card... Those who get a few HH points/dollar spent. I'd rather just earn 1 Hyatt point because each is more valuable, and I just gave you an example of a monetary and points value comparison.

sdsearch

But that's not an option if you don't have the right Chase card (since AFAIK the only cards that either earn Hyatt points or can transfer to Hyatt points are from Chase).

And, like I said, while IHG and Marriot+SPG and Choice and Best Western and WyndhamRewards may sometimes be better options in smaller cities/towns than Hilton perhaps, Hyatt is hardly ever there. So for someone who mostly needs points outside of big cities, Hyatt is a fairly useless currency to concentrate on. (It may be a fine currency for them to use on the occasions where they need a hotel where there is a Hyatt, since much of the time they will need a hotel where there is no Hyatt, placing Hyatt point accumulation first doesn't make sense for them.)

Obviously, for someone who mostly travels to bigger cities with Hyatts in them, like it sounds you do, then putting a priority on collecting Hyatt points may make a lot of sense for such people.

mikesyr18

Chase also offers the Hyatt credit card that earns Hyatt points.

Of course the bolded applies to any issuer. You can't earn TY Points with the Citi Expedia card for example.

I understand the footprint of Hilton is bigger, so it's a solid point. However, if you're traveling to vacation areas more than areas that are in the middle of nowhere (I think most people) the points are better off being stashed in a different program. Now with that said if I get a particular card (like AMEX Plat) some do offer gold status for Starwood or Hilton, and since Starwood will be merging their rewards program with Marriott soon, who knows if the Plat will continue to honor gold status for those members, so Hilton might make more sense to park all of your points IF you can find a way to at least triple your point earnings per dollar on every category with another card.

trouble747

Citi doesn't transfer to Hyatt AFAIK so I guess I'm missing the point.

mia

Hyatt is being used as a benchmark to judge whether a transfer to Hilton will deliver good value at 1000:2000. The more important comparison is probably whether transfer to Hilton is better value than redemption through the TY travel portal or transfer to an airline partner.