Another risk is if your card is stolen by hackers it's on you - there was someone found out someone drained their card and Marriott only compensated him with points.

I get closer to 2 cents out of Hyatt points. The Hyatt offers are really the only thing in this entire sale I have any interest in, but with so few available I doubt I'll even try.

Too many issues/risks with Marriott gift cards. Not worth a minor saving. Rather just pay for the hotel stays using a Bonvoy credit card.

I have reached the same conclusion even without any Bonvoy credit card.

The problem is that it makes sense to buy a huge amount of it, but then the bigger the amount, the more $ you would lose if someone did steal your card. Also, the interest rate is pretty high at the moment, I know you won't get 20% return on your investment, you get something like 4+% here in Scandinavia if you put them into a bank.

Another minus for non-USD earner is that USD is too high at the moment, so it makes zero sense to buy the card and use it next year (it's very likely that USD will drop a bit next year). Furthermore, the US has gotten so expensive that I found out that even if the airfare is $300 cheaper per person to fly to the US, it is still cheaper overall to visit Japan from Denmark (as long as you are ok with staying in Japanese business hotels). Not to mention the insane increase from $12 to $21 to get a ESTA just to enter the US vs. 5 EUR for the EU and the ESTA only lasts for 2 years.

I bought some Marriott a few years ago and still have them.

Easily half the 20% that I "saved" has been eroded by loss of interest.

Totally not worthwhile unless you know you will use them within a year or two.

Now Hyatt I would take in a heartbeat, but none of us have any chance.

This is something I've been thinking about, not necessarily re Marriott gift cards but regarding all of them. I regularly acquire gift cards for various airlines and other things, if I see an opportunity to get them at a good discount or with extra points/resale/trade whatever. And then I put them away until I need or remember to use them -- often not until a year or two (or I'm ashamed to say) sometimes longer. So if I buy something at say 15% discount, I feel like a genius. Until I realize by the time I use it that I've been losing at least 5.5% per year compared to saving that money in just a regular money market. Same with buying and holding points/miles. It just doesn't have the same economic formula as a few years ago when interest rates were close to nonexistent

So the Hilton points price is exactly the same as buying points right on the Hilton website.

Thanks for looking out for us, Daily Getaways.

Pathetic.

As mentioned in the previous years: the various loyalty programmes donate the goodies to the association who is free to sell them at any price. Why should they sell it below value?

To make us find value there and thus a reason to come back?

I find the point purchases to be only a matter of timing.
Just used most of my IHG points and to add some back now is not a bad thing.
I just used 550K Hilton and see no need for the rest of the year and passed.

However I agree, if none of these are real deals and the timing would not be a concern, would not even look in the future.

Huh?
 

Huh?
so Hilton is a massive donor compare to Hyatt?
and the Vegas properties with one suite get good exposure/ advertising.

perhaps Vegas hotels And Hyatt donate.
i find it hard to believe Hilton “donate” given the massive number of packages offered.
Now a processing fee for providing product placement and processing credit card payments , I can see.

But why would Hilton donate so many points?
Afterall , a. much smaller “ donation “ would yield identical exposure for the loyalty program .

The donation theory is news to me and doesn't really make any sense. Have the same question as writetorich -- why would Choice, IHG and Hilton donate so many points when Hyatt gets the same exposure with a handful of packages?

In any case, I got very lucky with the IHG sale today. Immediately grabbed 5 packages of 100k, 4 packages of 50k, and 5 packages of 25k. After finalizing payment on the 100k and 50k packages, moved on to the 25k packages on my phone, and it froze. Clicked again on my desktop, and immediately managed to grab 5x 25k again, and succeeded with payment. So 825k points total, not a bad haul! Looking forward to another couple dozen nights with discounts of 50-70% vs cash rates!

I already had 500,000 in my account, so added 2 x 100,000 and 5 x 25,000. Can still buy 150,000 this year with 100% bonus = 300,000 and that will take care of what we need :). Great for multiple room reservations at the Seafire with family during ski week.

As I didn't participate in Daily Getaways in the last few years: Does anybody remember how long it take until the points (in my case Hilton) get credited?

https://www.ustravel.org/programs/daily-getaways

Its a fund raiser, the offers are donated to the association who sells them and uses the money for its work.

That says the offers are "provided," not that they are provided free. I'd also find this hard to believe for the programs that provide so many millions (billions?) of points. I mean some years IHG has "restocked" in later weeks of the promo so what does that mean- they decided to donate more??

I get that there are tax advantages of companies donating products and services but find it hard to believe all of this is from donatiions.

In any case, I wasted 50 minutes of my life on IHG yesterday, clicking nonstop on two devices on almost every package and all were immediately in someone else's cart from 1:00:00 onwards due to automated buying. It's really not much fun when it gets like this