Hotels via transferable points: it’s a new game

Not long ago, if you wanted to use your transferable points for hotel stays the advice was simple: transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards or Bilt points to Hyatt. Transferring to most other hotel programs was usually a bad deal, especially considering the great value that is possible by transferring to airline programs for outsized awards. Now, things have changed. Hyatt still offers great value, but there are now other decent options as well…

Amex Membership Rewards -> Hilton

Hilton has its own selection of luxury hotels with their Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and LXR brands. Additionally, this year, Hilton exceeded expectations when they rolled out their partnership with SLH (Small Luxury Hotels of the World). Just as with their own hotels, it was suddenly possible to book SLH nights with points at rates that were capped at a maximum of 150,000 points per night (but most have lower caps) when standard rooms are available. Additionally, we found we were able to use Hilton 5th Night Free awards or apply Hilton Free Night Certificates for these stays. Better yet, we’re finding that we often get great value for our Hilton points with SLH bookings. And now Hilton has added over 100 more SLH hotels to the partnership!

Now consider that Amex Membership rewards points are super easy to get. We’re seeing incredible welcome bonuses hit us left and right. And, as Nick described in a recent post, sometimes we can get the same cards again and again: The Points Parade marches on thanks to a new round of targeted 250K offers.

The standard transfer ratio of Membership Rewards points to Hilton is 1 to 2. 1,000 Membership Rewards points become 2,000 Hilton points. That’s not good when you consider that Hilton often sells their points at only half a cent each. That said, Amex transfer bonuses to Hilton are common (see the Expired Transfer Bonuses section here). Usually the bonus is 30% (like the one in place now through September 30), but sometimes higher. If you wait for a 30% transfer bonus, then each Membership Rewards point nets 2.6 Hilton points. That’s not great value when you consider the acquisition cost of Hilton points on sale: half a cent times 2.6 = 1.3 cents per point value from your Membership Rewards points. But at least the value is over 1 cent per point. And, what really matters is whether you’ll get good value redeeming the points for stays. We’ve seen that SLH hotels often offer over 1 cent per Hilton point value, so that translates to over 2.6 cents per point value for your Membership Rewards points. That’s excellent!

The assumption of a 30% transfer bonus makes Hilton point earnings on Membership Rewards card spend pretty good. Here are a few examples:

• Green Card: 3x on dining, travel, and transit
  • 3 x 2.6 = 7.8 Hilton points per dollar
• Gold Card: 4x at US Supermarkets up to $25K per year, plus 4x at restaurants worldwide
  • 4 x 2.6 = 10.4 Hilton points per dollar
• Business Gold Card: 4X in 2 categories where you spend the most each month, up to $150K per year (Electronic goods retailers or software and cloud system providers in the U.S. ✦ U.S. purchases at restaurants ✦ Monthly wireless telephone service charges made directly from a wireless telephone service provider in the U.S. ✦ U.S. purchases for advertising in select media ✦ U.S. purchases at gas stations ✦ Transit purchases including trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses, and subways)
  • 4 x 2.6 = 10.4 Hilton points per dollar

Comparing to Hyatt…

Hilton awards tend to cost approximately 3 times as many points as Hyatt awards. A Hilton that costs 120,000 points is comparable to a Hyatt that costs 40,000 points. So, a 30% Amex to Hilton transfer bonus (which offers 2.6 Hilton points per Membership Rewards point) comes close to putting Amex points and Chase points on equal footing. 120,000 Hilton points / 2.6 = 46,154 Membership Rewards points. That’s slightly higher than a comparable Hyatt property that would cost 40K points standard, 35K off-peak, or 45K peak. That said, Amex points are so much easier to earn that Chase points that I see this as only a minor difference. The point is that using Amex points to generate Hilton points during transfer bonuses is a completely reasonable approach.

Citi ThankYou Rewards -> Leading Hotels of the World

Leaders Club is the rewards program for Leading Hotels of the World (LHW). Many, but not all, LHW hotels can be booked with Leaders Club points. Those who have the Citi Strata Premier card (or the no-longer-available Prestige or AT&T Access More cards) can transfer points to Leaders Club at rate of 5 to 1 (5 Citi points become 1 Leaders Club point).

In my recent post, The Best Points-Bookable Hotels in the World (2024), LHW hotels dominated the list. 10 of the 28 hotels in that post are bookable through LHW Leaders Club. The next best showing was Hyatt with only 5 hotels.

We have found that Leaders Club points are usually worth about 8 cents each and so this transfer results in around 1.6 cents per point value with your Citi points. That’s pretty good by itself, but when a transfer bonus is available you can do even better. At the time of this writing and through October 19th, there’s a 25% transfer bonus from Citi to LHW. That brings the value of Citi points applied to LHW hotels up to around 2 cents per point, that’s excellent.

I don’t love that LHW point prices are tied to cash rates because it means that extremely expensive hotels are still extremely expensive with points, but at least we’ll still get good value for our Citi points. Additionally, I do love that they usually have most or all room types available to book with points. So, if a water view or maybe a suite is very important to you, you can pick the room type you want.

I also love that by simply joining Leaders Club (which is a requirement to transfer points from Citi), you get perks for your stays! These perks include: upgrade priority upon arrival; daily continental breakfast for two; and early check-in and late check-out considerations. Read about my experience with a Leaders Club booking here: Sampling Leading Hotels of the World (LHW) thanks to Citi ThankYou Rewards.

Citi or Wells Fargo -> Choice Privileges

Whether you have the right Citi card (Citi Strata Premier, Prestige, or AT&T Access More), or any Wells Fargo Autograph card, you have the ability to double your Citi or Wells Fargo points when transferring to Choice Privileges. While value varies a lot, I’ve often found it possible to get over 1 cent per point value from Choice. For example, for a random date in October, I found that the Amerikalinjen Hotel Oslo cost either $327 or 20,000 points. That’s 1.6 cents per point value. And then if you consider that points transfer 1 to 2 from Citi or Wells Fargo, you can see that you could get 3.2 cents per transferable point value!

Closer to home, on a Saturday night in October, I found that the Peacock Inn Princeton NJ cost $476 after taxes vs 45,000 points. Even better, the 45K points rate let’s you select a higher end room ($525 after taxes). In either case, you get slightly over 1 cent per Choice point value and slightly over 2 cents per transferable point value. See my review of the Peacock Inn, here.

If you can’t find Choice Hotels that interest you, another option is to look at Preferred Hotels & Resorts bookable through Choice. For details about how to do that, see this guide: Book Preferred Hotels online with Choice points. Due to recent devaluations, you won’t always get good value from this approach, but some great opportunities still exist, such as The One Palácio da Anunciada in Lisbon which costs only 28,000 Choice points (or 14,000 Citi or Wells Fargo points!) vs a starting price of $522 per night. For more great value examples, see: Great value Preferred Hotels bookable with Choice points.

Citi or Capital One -> Wyndham

Whether you have the right Citi card (Citi Strata Premier, Prestige, or AT&T Access More), or any Capital One Miles card (Venture, Venture X, Spark Miles, etc.), you can transfer points one to one to Wyndham. That’s not always a great bet, but it can be.

Wyndham charges 7.5K, 15K, or 30K points per night for their hotels. Often I find really poor value for Wyndham points such as a $150 per night hotel that costs 30,000 points. That’s a value of only half a cent per point. However, thanks to the fixed points buckets, it’s possible to find outsized value. For example, I found that the Sandpiper Bay All-Inclusive Trademark Collection in Port St. Lucie, Florida often costs over $500 per night but it’s also available for 30,000 points per night. That’s a value of 1.7 cents per point or more.

Similarly, Wyndham’s Registry Collection luxury brand has hotels with prices starting well over $300 and so they offer better than 1 cent per point value compared to paying 30,000 points per night. For example, the Ajul Luxury Hotel & Spa Resort in Agia Paraskevi Chalikidi Greece starts at $594.96. That results in a minimum value of 1.98 cents per point.

Finally you can also use Wyndham points to book vacation rentals through Vacasa in the Americas or through Cottages.com in the UK. With Vacasa, the pricing is based on the vacation rental price:

• Up to $250 per bedroom per night: Pay 15,000 points per bedroom per night
• $250.01 to $500 per bedroom per night: Pay 30,000 points per bedroom per night
• Over $500 per bedroom per night: You cannot book these with Wyndham points.
• In most cases, there are no other taxes or fees to pay (but in certain situations you may be charged a pet fee or resort fee).

With the above pricing, it’s possible to get up to 1.67 cents per point value. For details, see: How to book Vacasa Vacation Rentals with Wyndham points.

Better value with a Wyndham Earner card:

By simply being a cardholder of any of the three available Wyndham Earner cards, you automatically get 10% off all awards (including off Vacasa and Cottages.com). This bumps up the value of your points automatically even if the points didn’t come from the credit card. For example, a 30,000 point stay would now cost 10% less: 27,000 points.

The Citi Rewards+ advantage

The Citi Rewards+ Card offers an automatic 10% points rebate on all awards (including point transfers to loyalty programs), up to 10,000 points rebated per year. If you combine your points together with other Citi ThankYou Rewards cards, this works even when your points come from other cards. So, for example, if you combine your Strata Premier card’s points with your Rewards+ card, you’ll earn the Rewards+ rebate when you use your Strata Premier points. This makes your Citi points even more valuable, up to the rebate limit each year.

Here’s an example: suppose you want to book 4 nights at the Amerikalinjen Hotel Oslo and that the point cost is 80,000 Choice points (20K per night) and the cash rate is $1,200 ($300 per night). You could convert 40,000 Citi points into 80,000 Choice points in order to get $1,200.00 / 40,000 = 3 cents per Citi point value. But if you also have the Rewards+ card in the mix, you’d get back 4,000 of your Citi points and so your total cost would be 36,000 Citi points. This leads to a value of $1,200 / 36,000 = 3.33 cents per Citi point.

Conclusion

This is a great time for hotel enthusiasts to collect transferable points! Citi, surprisingly, may have the most comprehensive offering with their ability to transfer to Leading Hotels of the World, Wyndham, and Choice (the latter at a favorable 1 to 2 ratio). Throw in the Rewards+ card and Citi’s offering is even better.

On the other hand, Amex points are much easier to earn in great quantities and so their transfers to Hilton during transfer bonuses are, to me, extremely compelling — especially now that Hilton has created an awesome partnership with SLH.

Capital One and Wells Fargo are also minor players here. Wells Fargo’s 1 to 2 transfer to Choice is very good, but that’s all they have so far with respect to hotel point transfers. I wouldn’t transfer Capital One (or Amex) to Choice, though, since their transfer ratio is only 1 to 1. Also, I wouldn’t do Capital One’s 2 to 1 transfer to Accor since Accor points are worth only 2 Euro cents each. So, while you’ll get a tiny uplift in value thanks to the Euro to US Dollar exchange rate, it’s hardly enough to make it worth spending the points and to give up earning points by paying for your stay with a rewarding credit card. The one Capital One Miles option to consider is the ability to transfer to Wyndham when you find outsized value awards.

Finally, of course, transferring Chase or Bilt points to Hyatt often leads to fantastic value. This remains my number one use of transferable points for hotel stays, but Amex to Hilton and Citi to LHW during transfer bonuses are now equally compelling!

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