Check out our YouTube video!
We may receive a commission when you use our referral links. We truly appreciate your support!!
Are hotel credit cards useful? Can you really get out sized value from hotel points? Should I have a preferred hotel loyalty program or should it matter? Out of all the available credit cards and hotel brands, which one should I focus on? Or should I get them all?
With travel, there are 2 main components of your trip…. How you get to your destination and where you will stay while you’re there. I recently discussed how we used airline miles to book our flights to the Maldives and hotel points to book our resort stay while there. Those two components could be the most expensive part of your trip.
THE DIFFERENT HOTEL BRANDS
There are several popular hotel brands out there and each of them offer their own loyalty program and co-branded credit card. The popular ones are IHG, Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton. There are others, but these are the largest and more popular hotel loyalty programs. While that’s great and I use them from time to time, I’ll explain why they’re not my favorite. Another thing that I want to mention is that a great way to show your support for this blog is by using my referral links down below, or through the referral links tab.
IHG REWARDS CLUB HOTEL LOYALTY PROGRAM
IHG: This is the parent company of hotel brands that you may know of, such as Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Intercontinental. While they have a large worldwide footprint and great properties, I’m not a big fan of their hotel loyalty program. To qualify for their top status, you need to stay 75 nights a year at their properties.
That’s a lot of stays to earn their best status. Yet is it worth it? You don’t really get any worthwhile perks for having elite status. While you do get priority check in, late check out and possible room upgrades, you don’t get free breakfast at their higher end properties, which is a very useful perk that can save you some money.
While you could earn Platinum Elite status just by having their IHG Rewards credit card, again it doesn’t offer any perks that get me excited. Plus on top of that, they require too many points for their aspirational properties and earning those required points requires a lot of spending on their credit card. IHG is a transfer partner with Chase and transfer at a 1:1 ratio, however Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth around $.02 per point while IHG points are only worth around $.005 per point.
MARRIOTT BONVOY HOTEL LOYALTY PROGRAM
Marriott: Marriott recently purchased the SPG hotel group and dramatically increased their presence around the world. Aside from the Marriott brand, they own brands such as Sheraton, St. Regis, Ritz Carlton and many others. Their loyalty program, Marriott Bonvoy, is very appealing because not only can you use their hotel points for free nights at their properties, BUT you can also transfer those points to over 40 airline partners. This was a feature that SPG had and that people loved about the program. Marriott did well to keep that in place.
There are things I don’t like about the loyalty program though. The first is that it’s difficult to earn elite status. It requires a lot of nights to earn elite status. Although award stays count towards status and having a Marriott credit card gives you a 15 night boost, it’s still out of reach for us. We don’t have a lot of paid stays per year, so this is out of the question for us. This is more suitable for business travelers, or full-time travelers that have the opportunity and means to earn elite status.
Although earning Platinum Elite status and above is more appealing. They offer lounge access, breakfast and confirmed suite upgrades. Also with the higher the status, the higher your point earning potential when spending at Marriott properties. Again, elite status with Marriott is rewarding, but tough to achieve for folks like me.
EARNING POINTS WITH MARRIOTT
Another thing that doesn’t appeal to me is that points are difficult to earn. Aside from big sign up bonuses, there are not a lot of options to earn a lot of points. With points transferring to airlines at a 3:1 ratio, you need a considerable amount of points to book award flights for you and your family.
Marriott is unique in that it has credit cards from two banks, Chase and American Express. There are a number of credit cards offered by both banks, from the basic, no annual fee option to the premium, high annual fee option. We currently have the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card from American Express. We used those points to transfer them to Alaska Airlines for our recent Asia trip. Another card that doesn’t have as high of an annual fee is the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card.
Marriott is also a transfer partner of Chase and transfers are at a 1:1 ratio. This isn’t a good deal since Chase Ultimate Rewards points are worth $.02 per point while Marriott Bonvoy points are worth $.008 per point.
WORLD OF HYATT HOTEL LOYALTY PROGRAM
Hyatt: The Hyatt loyalty program is a fan favorite for a few reasons. They offer very nice properties, a great customer experience and points needed for award nights are very reasonable. Hyatt has some of the swankiest properties around the world that you can stay at with just points. They don’t have as large a worldwide footprint as the other brands mentioned earlier, which is a drawback. There may not be a Hyatt property available at your chosen destination.
Achieving Hyatt elite status again requires a high number of paid stays. For their top tier status, you have to have stayed 60 nights at Hyatt properties. However, notice that I didn’t say they had to be paid stays.
Free night awards count towards earning status with Hyatt, which is awesome. With your paid stays and Hyatt card credit card spend, you can earn a bunch of points. Then when you use your points for award nights, those nights count towards your elite status.
EARNING POINTS WITH HYATT
I mentioned the Hyatt credit card to earn points. Chase offers a co-branded Hyatt credit card that is a good card to use as it offers 4x points for every dollar spent at Hyatt properties, 2x points for every dollar spent at restaurants, airlines, local transit/commuting as well as fitness club and gym memberships. I mainly use this card while at Hyatt properties and to pay for our monthly gym membership. Hyatt points have a pretty good value of about 1.5-1.7 cents per point and free nights start at 5,000 points per night for their lower end properties. Hyatt also has some all-inclusive properties that you can stay at for 20,000 points per night! You could also transfer your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt at a 1:1 ratio, which could be an excellent option if you get great value out of your award redemption.
HILTON HONORS HOTEL LOYALTY PROGRAM
Hilton: This is my favorite hotel loyalty program! Much like IHG and Marriott, they have a large footprint worldwide so you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a Hilton property to stay at.
Their properties range from your basic hotels such as the Hampton Inn to the fancy Conrad or Waldorf Astoria.
Again, like the other properties, it requires a considerable amount of nights or stays to earn their top status, HOWEVER there is another way to get Diamond status without having to pay for 60 nights a year. I’ll share that with you momentarily.
The Hilton loyalty program is very generous in my opinion because it doesn’t charge you resort fees on award stays while other programs do. They also offer your 5th night free on award stays. This allows you to save a considerable amount of points as well.
With elite status, you also earn bonus points on paid stays which will boost your points balance. Couple this with using the right card for your Hilton stays and you will be much closer to your next award stay in not time!
AUTOMATIC DIAMOND STATUS
Just by owning the Hilton Aspire card by American Express, you have AUTOMATIC Diamond status. This is amazing as it opens the door to free breakfast, lounge access, room upgrades and more! Aside from having Diamond status, the card gives you:
- $250 annual resort credit
- $250 annual airline incidental credit (used the same as the Amex Platinum discussed in this video above)
- Annual free weekend award night
- Priority Pass Membership
- $100 on-property credit with 2 night paid stays at Waldorf Astoria and Conrad
- 14x per dollar spent at Hilton properties
- 7x per dollar spent on flights booked directly with the airline or through amextravel.com
- 7x per dollar spent on car rentals booked directly with the car rental company
- 7x per dollar at US restaurants
- 3x per dollar on everything else
- $450 annual fee
Just by maxing out the $250 annual resort credit and the $250 airline incidental credit, you make a $50 profit vs the annual fee. This is why I absolutely love this card and prefer to stay at Hilton properties.
AUTOMATIC GOLD STATUS
If you’re still put off by the annual fee, there are other options that don’t require the hefty annual fee. You can get AUTOMATIC Hilton Gold Status by having the Hilton Honors Surpass Card by American Express. Gold status is just under Diamond status, yet it still gives you free breakfast and room upgrades. Hilton Gold is arguably better than elite status from other hotel chains because of these perks, and you get it just by holding this card. This card comes with a $95 annual fee, which is more more doable than $450.
With the Surpass card, you earn 12x points for every dollar that you spend at Hilton properties. You also earn 6x points for every dollar spent at US restaurants, US supermarkets and US gas stations. If you read in a previous article, you could rack up a considerable amount of points at supermarkets. You can earn 3x points for every other purchase.
CONCLUSION
As you can see, Hilton makes a strong case for why it can be YOUR preferred hotel loyalty program. By having elite status just for holding either the Hilton Aspire or Hilton Surpass cards, you can enjoy some amazing perks that could be out of reach with other hotel loyalty programs. What are your thoughts about the Hilton loyalty program? What is your preferred hotel brand? Comment down below! Thanks again for watching guys, I really appreciate it. If you haven’t already, please like, subscribe and hit that notification bell for more travel hacking related content. We’ll see you in the next one!
