I’m in the process of needing to book a stay at London Heathrow airport next week and wanted to book a stay at one of the handful of properties attached to the airport so that I don’t have to fuss around with catching a bus.
I remembered yesterday that my wife and I each have a Sapphire Preferred card that comes with a $50 credit redeemable towards a hotel stay booked through the Chase travel portal, as well as a $300 credit on one of her Venture X cards redeemable through the Capital One travel portal.
As a result, I did a search to see how much the Holiday Inn Express at Terminal 4 would cost, figuring the $50 credit could partially offset much of the cost, or the $300 credit could fully offset it. When researching this though, I discovered something surprising – Premier Inn properties in the UK are bookable through these travel portals, as well as through the Citi travel portal.
The reason why I was surprised by this is that I thought Premier Inn only accepted direct bookings. Their hotels aren’t bookable via OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) such as Hotels.com, Expedia, etc., so I’d assumed they wouldn’t be bookable via the Chase, Citi or Capital One travel portals either seeing as they’re powered by cxLoyalty, Booking.com and Hopper respectively.
I was clearly mistaken.
This is notable for a couple of reasons. One is that Premier Inn is one of the largest hotel chains in the UK and their rooms are often bookable for much lower rates than you’ll find at IHG, Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotels in the same areas. I’ve stayed at many Premier Inn properties in the past such as the ones at London Heathrow Terminal 4 and County Hall in London and have always had a decent experience. Rooms are clean, quiet and comfortable, so they’re great value for the price.
The second reason is that the Premier Inn chain doesn’t have a loyalty program, so there aren’t any points to be earned, status benefits to be received, etc. That’s why I was so excited when I noticed that they’re bookable on the travel portals as that opened up some opportunities that are far more rewarding.
Chase Travel Portal
There are a few reasons why booking Premier Inn stays through the Chase Travel portal could be appealing. As I mentioned earlier, the Sapphire Preferred card comes with a $50 credit that can be applied towards hotel stays booked through the portal. You can often find Premier Inn hotels costing $50-$75, so the credit will cover much of the cost of your accommodation for the night.
For example, the Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4 would cost $72 (including tax) for the night I’m interested in – a fantastic price seeing as it’s connected to the terminal via a covered walkway.
Another reason why booking via the Chase Travel portal could be appealing is that you can redeem Ultimate Rewards for 1.25 cents per point or 1.5 cents per point if you have a Sapphire Preferred or Sapphire Reserve card respectively. You can get better value than that by transferring Ultimate Rewards to travel partners, but a 1.5 cent per point redemption rate for Sapphire Reserve cardholders is still a solid value.
Alternatively, the Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve cards earn 5x or 10x respectively when booking hotel stays through the travel portal. Seeing as Premier Inn isn’t on any shopping portals and you can’t earn points with them, earning 5x or 10x Ultimate Rewards on your stay is a great return.
Capital One Travel Portal
Booking Premier Inn stays via the Capital One Travel portal could be of interest for similar reasons. At the time of writing this post, the welcome offer on the Venture Rewards card includes a $250 credit redeemable through the travel portal, while the Venture X card comes with an annual $300 travel credit, also redeemable through the travel portal. If you’d otherwise have a hard time making use of that credit, booking a stay at a hotel chain where you won’t be forgoing status benefits or hotel points earnings can be a good option.
Also similar to the Sapphire cards, the Venture Rewards and Venture X cards earn 5x and 10x respectively on hotel stays booked through the Capital One Travel portal.
Citi Travel Portal
One of the benefits on the Citi Premier card is a $100 statement credit when booking a $500+ hotel stay through the Citi Travel portal. I imagine that’s a benefit that goes unused for many cardholders (we’ve certainly never used it) because it means forgoing shopping portal earnings where applicable, hotel points earnings, status benefits, elite night credits, etc. None of those are a concern for Premier Inn stays though, so if you’re booking a longer stay and/or a stay at a more expensive property, that $100 statement credit could come in handy.
Some Citi cards also offer 5x or 10x ThankYou points on hotel bookings made through its travel portal.
Check Direct Prices
Although you can book Premier Inn properties through these travel portals, that might not necessarily represent your best value option.
For example, an earlier screenshot shows that the hotel at Heathrow Terminal 4 would cost $72 on the Chase Travel portal for the night I want. The Citi and Capital One Travel portals meanwhile have somewhat similar pricing at $76.80 and $76.90 respectively.
However, booking directly with Premier Inn can get you prices as low as ÂŁ46 for the night which is ~$59.70. That’s a significant difference which the 5x or 10x earnings via the travel portals wouldn’t offset.
That doesn’t tell the full story though. That ÂŁ46 rate on the Premier Inn website is a non-refundable rate:
The rates I found on all three travel portals on the other hand all provided some degree of flexibility. Those Flex and Semi-Flex rates booked directly with Premier Inn come at a higher cost; booking directly with Premier Inn still worked out to be a little cheaper than via the portals, but the difference was much less. Getting a flexible or flexible-ish rate while also being able to redeem harder-to-use travel credits through one of the travel portals might therefore be worth the few extra bucks.
n.b. In case you’re wondering why I hadn’t mentioned the Amex Travel portal in this post, it’s because Premier Inn hotels aren’t bookable on that portal for some reason.
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Good tip, thanks Stephen 🙂
For people interested in actually being out in the city they’re visiting, these are great value. We stayed at the Inn 1 block outside Westminster and it was great. $70 a night to be in central London 1 block away from a tube station? Amazing!