searching for cheapest point redemptions
 

Is there a way (other than trial-and-error) to search for the cheapest hotels on points. I am getting ready to redeem some points to pick up nights so I make Platinum this year...

Thanks in advance.

-wahoohfd

There's no longer the option of searching only for Category 1 hotels. Categories are gone. It's also not possible to search only for nights that are below an arbitrary number of points per night.

But what would you do if you found a really cheap points rate in Southeast Asia -- or even just a thousand miles from your home?

To earn elite qualifying nights, you need to show up at the hotel, check in, enter your room, and be considered as occupying the room until your check-out date. Online check-in is not enough. There's been much discussion here on FlyerTalk about that.

Not sure if this is helpful, but the easiest way to do this is to determine which location(s) you are willing to travel and have the website/app sort your travel dates by points. Not a perfect system, but close enough. I went to Bakersfield and the sort by points returned a 4 pts for 6k points.

You can enter the state and the sort by points.

And every single time you hit the search button it defaults back to sorting the results by distance. No way I've found to get it to stick to sorting by price/points.

-RM

The lowest rates I've seen in the US are the previously mentioned Four Points in Bakersfield, CA and the Courtyard in Stafford/Sugar Land TX. They have regularly had dates at 6,500 points per night (even a bit lower some nights). It would probably be handy to have a list of former Cat 1 hotels with low point redemptions for mattress runners like OP.

Bumping this thread to ask what are the lowest point-based rates people are seeing in the US? I used to be able to find some rates around 6k/night in sleepy suburban Fairfield Inns not far from home. But now everything seems to be 10k+ per night. Is that the best I am likely to find or should I look harder?

It looks like I will fall a few nights short of 100 for Ambassador and considering a cheap points-stay to bridge the gap. But given Ambassador's limited utility these days, it has to be a cheap stay for it to be worth it.

My got to hotel is this one. 5 nights for 25K points. Fairfield Park Central

I think your best bet is to seach Greater Houston and DFW. Generally you can find rates much lower than 10k per night at the low end, and both cities are airline hubs so it should be easy to get flights there.

The thread has been dormant for a while but for anyone else trying the same tactic I've now had luck going through the Marriott search page and putting in the state then sorting by point value. You'll have to do 50 searches if you want to be exhaustive but it works pretty well.

That's pretty good. That's a short hop to get to.

Beats the Bali hotel I found for 36k points for 5 nights. This is slightly longer hop to get to.

If you’re going to Indonesia, the Fairfield Inn CGK can be had for 5K pts/night. It’s 20-21K pts for 5 nights. ;).

I had luck at the Fairfield in Russellville Arkansas.

Thinking of going to Bali in March.

CGK is further, but if I'm near that way near the end of a year and need a mattress run, now I know.