Last updated on January 20th, 2017 at 12:59 am
I realize that I don’t talk as much about earning points and miles or redeeming them as other Boarding Area bloggers, but that doesn’t mean that points and miles aren’t a major funding source for my travels. In August and September alone I booked stays at 4 hotels (11 nights total) using hotel points and free night certificates to fund my stay. I saved over $4,000 in the process using points acquired mostly through credit card signup bonuses.
This post will walk through the hotels booked and how I decided that using points is the best option.
Note: I don’t always mention the funding source of my rooms when I post hotel reviews, because it is rarely relevant to the review itself. How I got into the room does not influence my impressions of the room (unless using points had an overly negative or positive impact on the experience), so how I paid for the room may not make it into the review.
Here are hotel stays where I found using points redemptions (or free night certificates) to be the best option for my stay:
Park Hyatt Chicago (1 Night)
Room Price (cash): ~$349 per night (I did not take a screen shot of the exact amount)
Room Price (points): One Free Night from Hyatt Visa Signature Card signup bonus
Value of points redemption: $349 from the signup bonus. Annual fee for the credit card was waived.
Thoughts on this points redemption: I still had a free night left in my Hyatt account for signing up for their credit card that was about to expire in September of this year. I figured that it made a lot of sense to use the certificate on this stay, because it was one of my last trips to a city with a Park Hyatt hotel before expiration. Combined with the ~$350 redemption value I got in staying at the Park Hyatt DC with my other free night, I still can’t get over what a great deal the Hyatt Visa Signature card represents.
Aloft Hotel in Milwaukee (4 Nights)
Room Price (cash): $199 per night
Room Price (points): 7,000 Starpoints per night as a Starwood Category 3 Property
Value of points redemption: 2.84 cents per point
Thoughts on this points redemption: I needed to book 2 rooms for 2 nights as part of a guys weekend. Since we were driving from Minnesota, $800 was more than we wanted to pay for our entire weekend trip, let alone the hotel. Even though this wasn’t my single best use of Starpoints, I still got great value for the weekend. Plus, I looked like a hero by giving the group free accommodations and saving $200 per person.
Four Points by Sheraton Asheville Downtown (3 Nights)
Room Price (cash): $229 per night
Room Price (points): 7,000 Starpoints per night as a Starwood Category 3 Property
Value of points redemption: 3.27 cents per point
Thoughts on this points redemption: Booked this hotel using points because we wanted to keep our costs down for an Asheville wedding weekend. I probably could have gotten a slightly lower hotel rate as part of the wedding, but I decided that saving over $600 was top priority for this trip. Perhaps 21,000 Starpoints are more useful elsewhere, but this was a defensible use of Starpoints in my view.
Park Hyatt Milan (3 Nights)
Room Price (cash): $490 Euros per night ($662.68)
Room Price (points): 22,000 Ultimate Rewards Points Per night (converted into Hyatt Gold Passport Points)
Value of points redemption: 3.0 cents per point
Thoughts on this points redemption: This redemption was an absolute no brainer. As part of our upcoming business class mileage run to Milan, I booked 3 nights at the Park Hyatt for 66,000 Hyatt Gold Passport Points and saving $2,000 in out of pocket expenses. I have been hoarding hundreds of thousands of Chase Ultimate Rewards points over the years and always look for the best value. Short of an international first/business class redemption, this is about the best option out there. Not bad at all for the #1 rated hotel in the city on TripAdvisor.
Points Were Used Far Less Often Than Cash
What you are not seeing here is that I used cash for hotel stays more often than points for my other stays during this time period. For nights where I paid cash for a hotel room, some of the hotels costs were reimbursed for business travel and others simply didn’t offer enough redemption value.
I find that having points in your pocket allows you to be flexible in choosing when and where you use them. Understanding the value of the points in your portfolio and knowing when to redeem them can save you thousands of dollars in the process.
In my case, I saved over $4,000 on hotel redemptions (when you figure in tax and fees also being waived) using points that I earned almost exclusively through credit card signup bonuses!
