Have You Ever Used Credit Card Rewards Points For Hotel Stays?

November 2, 2009 at 2:51 PM | by amandak | Comments (3)

We recently spent a few hours trying to decide how to spend our credit card rewards points on a hotel stay on the east coast of Australia. Something about using rewards points brings out the worst in us � we want to get the best possible value for our "money"; after all, it's taken a lot of spending to get us those points.

But we're also never quite sure if it's worth it to deplete more than half of our points on a hotel stay. Would buying two iPods be better? Or a Best Buy gift card and some airlines miles?

Aside from shopper indecision, our particular credit card rewards program offers a choice. You can buy a gift voucher for a hotel (in various denominations like $50, $150 and $200) or you can buy a night at the hotel. Choices, choices.

What would you do?

Maybe we're just one step too particular, but we got onto the hotel websites themselves and figured out what a night would cost us if we booked directly through the hotel, and used that info to figure out which loyalty points deal was going to get us the best bang for our buck.

If you're going through the same indecisive process as we did, then be careful to check the conditions � a lot of the hotel nights we could buy with our points had day-of-the-week restrictions, and in one tiny paragraph of fine print (just before we booked) we found an extra $50 fee that had to be paid directly to the hotel, for no apparent reason. We soon clicked away from that one.

Just the same, rewarding yourself with a "free" stay should be fun, and we're looking forward to ours � after all, we get to stay somewhere we normally wouldn't, and it doesn't feel like we're spending money.

Have you ever used hard-earned credit card rewards points to book a hotel stay? Was it worth it? What was the fine print like? Let us know in comments below.

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Comments (3)

Return to » Have You Ever Used Credit Card Rewards Points For Hotel Stays?

I actually did this at the Carlyle Hotel in NYC. I needed a place for one night and I used my credit card points, which was a good chunk but nothing near depletion. Plus, room rates at the hotel that night were like $495+ so using the points def. worked here.

I also redeemed points on my honeymoon in Sydney. That was for the Park Hyatt. I basically cashed out all those points then. But it was my honeymoon!

And I also did it in Barcelona and Germany last year. The only problem was that the points were really high at the properties we wanted, so we stayed in lesser hotels so as to ration our points. But in Barcelona we did splurge for one night at the Omm. Which was totally worth it.

In short, for vacations a combo of using points for one hotel and paying for another is nice and gives you variety. But if you just need a 1 night stay and the point amt is reasonable, it's totally worth it to cash in those cc points. Unless you want an iPod Nano. They do come in pretty colors now.

I use AmEx points to do it. The great thing about AmEx points is you can use them to offset costs. So if you find a room that is $400 a night, and really want it, book it through AmEx travel site and you can use enough points to shave the true cost down to $150 a night.

American Express Membership Rewards partners with a variety of hotel chains (not Hyatt Hotels though). Membership Rewards points can be exchanged into hotel points with several hotel loyalty programs. Some hotel programs have more favorable exchange rates than others.

Diners Club also has a program for transferring DC Rewards points into a variety of hotel chains. Hyatt is a partner and this is one way to get Hyatt points since Hyatt does not have a co-branded credit card at this time.

Airline miles can be exchanged from some programs (American, Hawaiian, Amtrak, Virgin Atlantic) into Hilton HHonors points.

Starwood has an American Express card for earning starpoints and starpoints can be exchanged into airline miles with nearly 30 airlines.

I analyze exchange values for hotel points and free nights regularly on my Loyalty Traveler blog.
www.boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler

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