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?

It depends on the hotel program and the specific hotel. If you could stay in a cheaper room in a different hotel program neaby for lower cost, or in an indie hotel nearby for lower cost, and are staying in the higher-cost hotel program mostly to earn points in that program, aren't you paying an opportunity cost?

When a Travelodge is costing the same as Motel 6 and indie hotels nearby, then there may not be opportunity cost to earn Wyndham Rewards points on that stay. But if a Doubletree down the street charges double of what the Travelodge charges, you are paying an opportunity cost to stay at that Doubletree to earn Hilton Honors points. Now, there may other things you like about the Doubletree more than the Travelodge (the paid breakfast at that Doubletree may be better than the free breakfast at that Travelodge), but quantifying them is difficult.

So while what you say may be true for low-end points-earning hotels which charge not much more than what all other hotels (including low-cost indie hotels) in that area charge, it's not necessarily true for midlevel-to-high-end hotels. And many points-earning chains don't have low-end hotels in most places.

Yes, if one is staying at a more expensive property ONLY to earn points, there is definitely an opportunity cost. If one would stay at a property regardless of all other factors, for example Doubletree Breckenridge (ski resort) where I stayed 20 years ago when it was in indie and have stayed 4-5 times more when it was a DT and I stay because it’s my preferred hotel based on location/price/benefits/etc., there is ZERO opportunity cost to earning Hilton Honors points. In fact, if one does not earn points in that situation one would be leaving money on the table.

Isn’t comparing Travelodge and DT like comparing apples and oranges :eek:? This quote also implies that ANY choice to stay at a more expensive property down the street has an opportunity cost. Some would see it as “getting what you pay for”, voluntarily paying more for a better product and experience. I guess “opportunity cost” and “getting what you pay for” could be considered synonymous.

What I wrote is regardless of number of stars. If one is going to stay at a hotel (for any reasons), there is no opportunity cost to earning points. One exception could be booking a less expensive rate through a 3rd party site which is not eligible for earning points although those opportunities are few and far between and some hotel chains have “best price guarantees” which renders those exceptions moot.

While Travelodge was the extreme example, in the area I stay in most often, there is Best Western Plus which is usually significantly less expensive than the Doubletree, and yet my experience in both are about the same. In fact, I only stay at that Doubletree because I can avoid the high parking fee by parking a few blocks away in a nearby residential area (other than on Wednesday nights, because they clean those streets on early Thursday morning), while the parking is free at the Best Western Plus. Now, this Best Western Plus is a couple miles away from that Doubletree, but that's a not a terrible long distance.

And that brings up the point, if you choose hotel in one program that has a parking fee over another hotel in another program that doesn't have a parking fee (while also having a somewhat lower rate), aren't you paying an opportunity cost if you have to pay that parking fee?

My point is that a lot of people who aren't considering earning hotel points don't choose hotels the same way that people who do earn hotel points choose them. And people who do earn hotel points tend to choose based on which hotel programs they belong to. I belong to almost every hotel program (BW, Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Sonesta, Wyndham, and also Radisson Americas thought that one is going away soon), but most people belong to way fewer of them.

This line of discussion started with “The cost of acquiring hotel points can be zero” and “I think there is always an opportunity cost, but I am happy to be wrong.” I never wrote “there’s NEVER a cost to acquire hotel points”. It’s correct that people choose hotels for all sorts of reasons, including loyalty programs and parking costs. That does not negate the fact that the cost of acquiring hotel points CAN be zero.

As OP only mentions "medium -tier" priced hotels, the opportunity cost for choosing a hotel credit card would be missing out on something like the Citi Double Cash card, with no annual fee and 2% cash back. For example, a Marriott Aloft Sarasota is $215 or 31K points. To accrue $215 at 2% cashback, I would need to charge about $11k on my card. So deciding whether it makes sense to go do a MR hotel card, I would need to have a feel for what my average point per dollar return would be and see if it makes sense for me, based on how much I charge and the mix of regular and bonus points. For this reason, I usually will pay cash for rooms at or less than $200 per night.

The free night/points provided with the $95 yearly fee cards changes the calculus a little, but if OP is not spending large or wanting to stay at more upscale properties, I would just opt for a 2% cash back card.

I only really collect hotel points as part of credit card bonuses or as a free night with a $100 AF card. The free nights are definitely worth it - have often stayed in hotel that would have cost $300+.

Absolutely worth it.

I've used some for high end redemptions (e.g., Park Hyatt Sydney, Conrad Bora Bora, etc.) and they can also be great for run of the mill hotels where you just need a room and/or a base of stay for a trip (e.g., Hilton Brussels Grand Place, airport hotels, hotels near sporting events).

For the former it helps to have status at that chain so you get a good room (or if it's a special event like a honeymoon -- as it was when we went to the Conrad -- reach out to see if you can pay a reasonable upgrade fee to secure a good room). If it's the latter, it usually doesn't matter that much what kind of room you get although having status helps because you usually get a better standard room and may have free access to a lounge and/or breakfast.

That said most of my hotel staying and earning is on OPM and then the redemptions are for personal travel so the opportunity cost is truly zero or even negative in my case -- not collecting hotel points while on OPM would just be money down the drain. I don't use my hotel CC except for the annual free night -- and the only time I would ever consider transferring my AMEX MR or Chase UR to a hotel is if I needed to top up for a special high-end redemption and didn't want to buy points or pay cash

Please avoid using abbreviations like this with are not in FlyerTalk glossary without explaining them and without asking for them to be added to the FlyerTalk glossary.

OPM is not in the FlyerTalk glossary, and when I look up "what is opm" on google it says Office of Personnel Management or Original Pilipino Music, which doesn't seem like it's necessarily what you meant here.

Perhaps you think it's very familiar in some other spheres, but for people don't use Social Media at all (and that's not just me, but a lot of my co-workers mentioned recently that they don't use any Social Media either), it doesn't seem familiar.

As it says when you click on Glossary at the bottom each FlyerTalk page:

Send glossary additions or corrections to [email protected]. Please include word and definition.

OPM = other people's money. I think it's reasonably common on FlyerTalk but you're right that it should be added to the glossary.

I find I get more value out of Hotel points with stays and credit card spend than I get out of airline miles. Airline miles are so much harder to redeem, and (besides the bonus points) are tough to accumulate on credit cards. I do both, but find that I get a lot more free rooms than I get free flights.

And if I am staying at a Hilton Garden and saving $140 a night with a low point redemption, I am not really concerned about upgrades. I can usually pick out my room.

That being said, I have had some really nice upgrades on point stays. Hilton Tokyo, Conrad Hong Kong, Hilton Edinburgh, etc.

Business travel. Company or client says "use Marriotts, we have a corp discount." Whether the corp discount is actually any good or whether there are better/cheaper hotels nearby often doesn't matter - you're still expected to use the chosen brand.

In that case, the points are essentially "free" to the traveler. You may be able to decline them and accept a trivial number of airline miles instead, although to be honest I'm not even sure this is an option. It's been 20+ years since I've handed a physical airline card to a hotel front desk clerk to get miles instead of points.

But certainly, for personal travel or cases where the guest has a lot of choices, points and elite benefits are just part of the overall value proposition.

I've heard people buy hotel points for cheaper then redeem at a higher rate.

It depends on the hotel program and possibly the property as to whether this is possible.

And it also depends on whether you're buying hotel points at the normal rate, or during a promotion when the rate of points to money paid is temporarily improved, or during a special situation like a points+cash booking (where the cash actually just buys the remaining points needed in at least a couple hotel programs). By the way, I don't think that all hotel programs have such periodic point buying promotions.

I've bought points as part of an IHG cash + points booking. A couple times in rare cases where the value per point was really high....such as an unusually-pricey rural hotel without a lot of competition nearby. An HIX near a national park entrance, for example.

I’ve done it with IHG and Choice a lot. Also done it with other hotel programs, but nowadays I’m doing it much more selectively than before and am more reluctant to carry big point balances.

For my case, it has been worth it all the time. Usually hotel branded credit cards gives out free night awards certificate yearly that can be worth beyond the annual fee. So, I just think of the card as no annual fee card.
Also, the points you earn during sign up and using the card can give you nice vacation without worrying the high hotel room cost. For example, Marriott Bonvoy, if you use points for 4night you get 5th night free which I love the most about the program.

Yesterday, I made the hard call to drop from the Amex Bonvoy Brilliance card to the Bevy card. (The $650 card to the $250 level.) I had been at the $450 level since the card was introduced.

When the card was $450 and included a $300 property credit plus a free night, it was a clear cut "better-than-free" card. At $650 with the credit flipped to a trickle of dining credits, even with the free night rising to a higher category, it's at best an approximately "free" card, but one where I have to front the $650 to get benefits.

The Bevy card, a straightforward $250 for a 50k cert, makes more sense for me.

Some other factors:
- I'm already LT Titanium so any comped statuses or elite-qualifying nights are meaningless to me.
- My redemption sweet spot tends to be the 40-50k hotels. I don't have a lot of one-night super-high-end stays where the 85k cert would be worth a lot to me. I'd be looking for Ritzes and such to use it at, which could be fun, but I have enough regular points to do that if I choose.
- I have the Hilton Aspire card, so the other premium Amex perks come with that, including whatever is left of Priority Pass lounge membership (which I no longer place much value on).
- The Bevy card has a couple of interesting smaller throw-ins, such as a 1k point bonus on every Marriott stay and bonus points on supermarket spend. If those add up to 20-30k a year, then it's almost like having the higher-category free night cert.
- I probably wouldn't chase the Brilliance threshold for the 2nd free night. I don't stay at $60k worth of Marriotts and even if I threw all of my restaurant and travel spend at the card I don't think I'd get there.

With Hilton Honors you pick the room you want regardless of how you are paying for it. For me, yes it has been worth getting the Hilton Honors Amer. Exp.

Yeah. Typically, you can find an OTA which is cheaper almost instantly. So you pay more for the points (and, potentially, the benefits).

Just as an example, often times major ITA's like hotels.com offer 10-15% cashback (e.g., 13% for hotels.com was available the day before yesterday). Sometimes, OTA like booking.com offer nonpublic rates that are ~15% cheaper than the direct rate (using Genius rebates and such).

Neither cash-back opportunities nor nonpublic rates are things you can leverage for a BRG. (I think BRG is mostly dead, anyhow. YMMV.) Heavily discounted rates from OTA like Ctrip which sometimes try to get rid of excess room inventory they bought can, potentially, be leveraged for a BRG claim. But, again, BRG claims have become a waste of time for the most part.

Besides, I think the most important issue in practice is that people which are invested in loyalty are less price-sensitive and much less likely to price-compare/shop around for the best offer. Lots of evidence to that effect. Instead, people invested in loyalty become more engaged within the context of the program (e.g., respond to program promos or engage with co-brands/loyalty program partners).

As others have said, generally the experience doesn't seem to be that award rooms are the worst rooms. Just because the room is free to you doesn't mean that the hotel is giving it away. You pay $0 for a "free" room, but the individual property gets paid cash from the central loyalty program (which is where the money from the credit cards goes). I'm sure the details vary by program, but we got insight here as to how the SPG program worked prior to the Marriott acquisition: if the hotel was < 90% occupied that night, then the hotel got a base amount for free rooms which at least covered their expenses (housekeeping, utilities, etc). In that case, the hotel isn't out anything, as the room would have been empty anyway, and the guest might buy something while there. If the hotel was > 90% occupancy that night, then the hotel got paid the average room rate for that night. Either way, there's no reason for the hotel to have an attitude about "free" room redemptions.

BRG, which ffgap mentioned several times times above, means Best Rate Guarantee. This site explains it a bit more:

https://www.xotels.com/en/glossary/b...rate-guarantee

I just asked for it to be added to the FlyerTalk glossary.

We have gotten numerous upgrades on reward rooms from IHG. In our experiences as travelers
having reward cards that elevate our status are the best moves we have made.

70k Best Western points for a room night with a published price approximating $2900? Good deal when all major brand hotels across the city were showing as sold out or having crazy high prices.

10k Choice points for a room night going for the equivalent of $300+? Good deal.

2k Hyatt points per room night when the nightly rate was the equivalent of $180+ and the cheapest same quality hotel in the same area is going for $80 per room night? Good deal.

I wish that I could say that airline miles provide as consistently accessible good value for me as hotel points. But the likes of Marriott and Hilton are putting a squeeze on the value of hotel points too, and this devaluation disease seems to be getting worse and is spreading.

About award nights at hotels landing in the worst rooms? That happens at times, as some of my worst rooms have been on award nights. But my best upgrades have been on award nights. I don’t find award nights to mean consistently ending up in the worst rooms consistently. If anything, for me the award nights seem to come with a lower chance of ending up in the proverbial janitor’s closet for a room. Could be a function in part of those with some hotel elite status more likely to stay on more aware nights than those without hotel elite status.

Price increases are not a disease, they are the best way that markets adjust demand to match the supply of unsold room nights.

That’s in an open, free market economy — regardless of the thoughts about inflation levels in such economy — using openly exchangeable fiat money.

Airline and hotel program miles/points, however, are funny money “currencies” whose use takes place in a corporate-controlled environment under the rules which suit airline/hotel loyalty program owners/operators and their shareholders. They are incentivized to propel ahead the miles/points devaluation disease as part of revenue and earnings management.