Are hotel points worth it?
 

Hi Seniors, do the hotels not give good rooms if booked with points as it's free? Is it really worth getting hotel credit card? I am talking about your average tier hotels which usually cost between $129 to $200 a night.

I earn and redeem points all the time. There's no downside to enrolling in the various hotel programs. As for credit cards, I have several for hotels. You have to take a look at the annual fee and decide if the award night is of greater value. Whenever I use points or use a credit card hotel certificate, I am treated comparably to an award stay. The one small difference is with Hyatt where I cannot use a suite upgrade on a credit card cert stay, though I can on a points stay. That's likely a non issue for you if you are just beginning to think about hotel loyalty programs.

It can depend on the hotel program and the hotels.

Different hotel programs have different relationships between hotel cash cost and hotel points cost.

A few of them like IHG and Hilton and Best Western now mostly (with some partial exceptions) make points cost roughly (but not exactly) proportional to cash cost.

But Marriott has historically priced points based on how many people redeem points for that hotel, not based on cash cost. So at Marriott expensive-on-cash hotels in place where hardly one redeems can sometimes be very cheap on points, and cheap-on-cash hotels in places where lots of people redeem (at other times of the year, perhaps) can sometimes be expensive on points.

Other programs where points are not all that related to cash cost include Choice Hotels and Wyndham Rewards.

And it depends what kinds of places you like to travel as to which programs are most important. If you like to travel to National Parks with only a small town near them, and you want to stay near the park, often those towns only have Choice, Wyndham, and/or Best Western, not the "big name" programs. For example, near the main entrance of Olympic National Park in Washington, there are only Choice and Wyndham hotels in terms of hotels you can redeem points for. Also only Choice and Best Western in Estes Park, Colorado, the nearest town to the main entrance to Rocky Mountains National Park. If you want to use other chain hotels, that may add an hour or two of travel in each direction, and you have to evaluate whether that is worth it (if you want to be in parks at sunrise, it may be much easier if you're close by).

On the other hand, if you're more into traveling to sizeable cities, most of the hotel programs will work.

And how to earn points may be different in different programs.

For example, in Choice, it's easier to pay for one-night stays in cheap hotels when they have a "stay twice earn 8000 points" promo like they tend to have twice a year, and/or to transfer from transferable programs. You don't earn that many points by signing up for the Choice credit card (it's good far a start, but you'll use those up quickly), so you have to earn Choice points through stays and/or ongoing spending, and/or transfers from transferable points programs.

On the other hand, there are several credit cards for each of the other hotel programs, so it's a bit easier to get a good head start by signing up for one of their credit cards when there's a good signup bonus, and then later signing up for a different card in the same program -- or in some cases upgrading, especially at Amex which offered me an upgrade points bonus from the bottom Hilton card to the middle Hilton card, and then later another upgrade points bonus from the middle Hilton card to the top Hilton card.

And another advantage to redeeming with Choice: At many Choice hotels, if one room is available on points, all rooms are available for the same number of points, even if some rooms are way more expensive on cash. So you might actually be able to get a better room with points than you would ever consider paying for, even if you might the least expensive room at the hotel affordable.

But beware a downside of huge multi-room "upgrades": If you care about having the room cool when you sleep, and you arrive late, it's much harder to cool down a hotel room that's broken up into multiple physical rooms than one compact room. The hotel rooms that have multiple physical rooms often have louse air conditioners, while the cheaper hotel room that one compact room often have better air conditioners. But even if they were the same, the bigger the area you have to cool, the longer it takes. So as senior who's found that I sleep better when the room is colder (around 66 or 67 F), I don't want upgrades to huge rooms any more. given that I often arrive at the hotel late.

I mainly open the these hotel cards for sign on bonus. Unless your fess is low, like IHG grandfather $49, it may be hard to justify to keep all majors hotel brand credit card from overhead perspective( Marriott, IHG, Hilton, Hyatt). You would rather focus on one or two and multiple free night award. In most cases, one free night award probably doesn't do any good as you may need multiple nights for a stay.

Senior here. :D

Contrary to sdsearch's experience, I find that IHG Rewards points can often offer substantial savings over a property's after-tax rate. (Point stays are exempt from most taxes.) Points are often available for purchase from IHG for 0.5¢ each. The savings for credit-card holders can be even greater on longer stays: the IHG Premier Mastercard® offers the fourth night free on a four-night or longer points redemption.

It's easy to compare the after-tax cash cost of a stay with the cost in points at ihg.com, or on the IHG app, so one can plug in the places and dates where one might typically stay and judge for oneself. And the IHG card automatically confers IHG Platinum (mid-tier) elite status.

Edited to add: Of course, the cash price posted on the IHG website will not always be the cheapest available cash rate at a property. Sites like Trivago might come up with an even cheaper cash rate.

"worth" what, would be my question. There is no cost to signing up, or earning points where you choose to stay. Paying for a credit card to earn points, or staying in a different hotel and spending more money to earn points are things I've never done, and would be a different consideration.

Since retiring, I've redeemed a large number of points traveling to my kids' colleges. Move-in, family weekend, etc., can be very high demand and quite pricey. I'm current holding multiple 21K/night Marriott award nights for Family Weekend this fall, which is always on a (Big 10) football weekend. The few rooms available for cash are $436/night, pre-paid, non-nonrefundable.

5 years and counting, 4 trips per year, 2 nights per trip - that's ~800K points to avoid $12,000 spend ($300/nt. average). Yes, quite worth it. (I accrued most of them when working, for business, so I didn't pay, so these are essentially free points. But still valuable if self-earned wisely)

In my experience the rooms you get are just as good ; you are not treated any differently booking on points or with your own cash.
Many of the cards you may be thinking about will also give status at that chain so your point based night can easily be upgraded to a much better room than you booked in addition to benefits such as late checkout, free breakfast, free internet ; depending on the chain. Some chains waive resort fees and other type charges for point stays as well as taxes.
That said, in terms of getting a good value for your points ; at least with my experiences with Hilton ; the point redemptions are often best to use at the more luxury properties or the least inexpensive properties. The $150-$250 range in most cases do not provide the best point values and generally are better to book with $$$. Unless you have points to burn and do not personally associate an internal value to them.

The biggest downside I have found is availability for points is not always a given if you are trying to book properties that are a good points value ; it takes patience, time, planning maybe even sometimes luck to get exactly what you want and that would not be good for everyone.
Related some of the offers are hard to actually take advantage of: for example Hilton has if booked on points pay for 4 nights, stay for 5 but many properties will make their calendars such that actually finding 5 nights in a row at the base award rate is near impossible.
I cannot say if other chains play similar games but these are the things that the various websites making money on advertising links do not do a good job disclosing.

Just received an offer today to buy IHG points with a 100% bonus, which brings the cost per point down to 0.5¢.

A room tonight at the Chicago Crowne Plaza O'Hare Airport is $151, including tax. (Or $143 for AARP members.)

By contrast, the same room is available for 20,000 IHG Rewards points, which cost just $100 when you can buy points for 0.5¢ apiece.

I buy hotel points periodically. When paying up to $100 for points can land me a hotel room where I would otherwise be paying $150-300 if booking a regular paid rate, it’s all good. My preferred hotel programs are pretty good about upgrading me on award stays too and providing other status benefits, so I am mostly fine in that regard too.

Using (including purchased) hotel points can unlock some incredible hotel stays that you might not consider if you were to pay cash...

IMO hotel points are MUCH better than frequent-flyer miles. Because hotels honestly want to give us free rooms. Most of the time you can book rooms with points. The hotel chains don't play games with availability as airlines do. When I look at airline tickets to summer destinations now for this August, I can buy almost any flight I want for the cheapest money-price, but they mostly demand 3--4x the normal points for award tickets!

- Are you asking whether your "free" hotel room booked on points would be the worst room in a hotel? Sometime it is the case because hotels typically list the cheapest and the lowest category room to be booked on points. However, several chains (e.g. Hyatt) would allow to use points to book a higher category room or a suite by paying more points. Typically, if you will be getting better rooms if you have a higher status with the hotel program, especially if this is the top tier status. Then you can get an upgrade to a much better room or a suite even if you pay in hotel points and your total hotel bill is zero. Note that several hotel credit card will give you some elevated status with a hotel program. For example, IHG credit card will make you PLT and give you an annual free night certificate after you pay your annual fee (my is still $49 for the legacy Chase MasterCard). I was routinely upgraded to better rooms when using free night certificates from credit card in Intercontinental hotels overseas. Of course, such upgrades are not guaranteed especially when hotels are fully booked and IHG made the use of such certificates more difficult.

I’ll echo what several others (above) have written; yes, absolutely. The cost of acquiring hotel points can be zero so any redemption is essentially a free rebate.

As others mentioned, I’ve had some great redemptions. As you wrote, I mainly STAY (and earn points) in “average tier hotels which usually cost between $129 to $200 a night”. I use my points for those occasions when I chose to stay in an above average tier hotel. For me, that’s often a ski vacation when almost any desirably located lodging will be very expensive. I’ve used points at the Hilton Resort Whistler (British Columbia), was assigned the exact room I requested and got ~a penny per point in value, pretty good for Hilton Honors. I’ve used points at Grand Hyatt Vail and Hyatt Place Park City, where all rooms are “good” (if not better) and got ~3-4 pennies per point in value.

That’s one of the paradigms for loyalty programs, earn on inexpensive flights and stays, burn (redeem) for expensive stays. Earn miles on short domestic flights, redeem for international long haul (biz if possible). Earn on average tier hotel stays, burn on 5 star hotel stays.

I agree that hotel points might be better than miles, way fewer blackout dates and less common dynamic pricing. I’ve never received a lesser room or been treated any differently when redeeming hotel points.

I am skeptical. I think there is always an opportunity cost, but I am happy to be wrong.

I meant it in that the typical cost of a hotel room is regardless of membership in the hotel chain’s loyalty program. If I’m going to stay in a hotel regardless of all other factors and I research the lowest rate I can possibly pay, I don’t see an opportunity cost (or any downside) to joining that hotel’s loyalty program and earning points for that stay. If anything, membership might include a lower (members only) rate. Granted, if one chooses to earn points in other ways, credit cards for example, there very well may be an opportunity cost.

Do you see an opportunity cost for earning points for hotel stays?