What are Best Western points worth?

Have you ever thought about what Best Western points are worth? My guess is that the answer for most readers is no. You can’t transfer points from bank programs to Best Western and so there’s been no thought about whether doing so would be a good or bad idea. Sometimes, though, Best Western runs promotions (like this one) where it’s possible to earn bonus points. When evaluation whether its worth doing the promo, it’s good to have an idea of what the points are worth.

Background

When collecting points and miles, it’s always a good idea to have a general idea of what points are worth. Let’s say, for example, that you have the opportunity to either earn 5,000 Hyatt points or 10,000 Best Western points. Which should you go for? If you don’t know what the points are worth, you might go for the Best Western points. But, in our analyses we’ve found Hyatt points to be worth almost three times as much as Best Western points. Therefore, on average, 5,000 Hyatt points are worth more than 10,000 Best Western points. In this post, you’ll find our best current estimate of the value of Best Western points.

Methodology

In order to determine the value of Best Western points, we collected real-world cash prices and point prices. As we’ve done previously, we examined a number of major hotel markets in the U.S.: Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando, Miami, New York City and Seattle. Within each market, we identified the first three search results with a rating of four or above and recorded both the cash and award prices for three stays: a weekday, a weekend, and a 3-day holiday weekend.

• Why U.S. only? U.S. consumers are known to spend most of their points and miles on domestic travel. Since the majority of this blog’s audience resides in the U.S. we opted for a U.S. centric view of point values.
• Why the first three hotels? The goal wasn’t to find the 3 best hotels in each market. Instead, the goal was to find the 3 properties that are most likely to be chosen. By using Best Western’s default sorting and filtering to 4 stars or higher, we think it’s reasonable to assume that many members would pick these hotels.
• Which paid rates were selected?  We always picked the best refundable paid rate shown on Best Western’s website, but without applying any discounts like AAA, military, government, etc. In most cases, that’s Best Western’s Member Rate.
• Which specific dates did we use?  
  • Weekday: Wednesday September 11, 2024
  • Weekend: Friday-Sunday September 13 – 15, 2024
  • Holiday Weekend: Friday-Mon August 30 – September 2, 2024 (Labor Day Weekend)

How we calculate cents per point (CPP)

When we calculate Cents Per Point (CPP), we want to account for taxes and fees, as well as points that would be earned on paid stays (and conversely wouldn’t be on award stays). The calculation is based on the following terms:

• Base Cash Rate: This is the hotel room rate before taxes and fees.
• Total Cash Rate: This is the total amount, including taxes and fees, that would be paid if booking a hotel’s cash rate.
• Resort Fee: This is a fee that is imposed by many hotels above and beyond any required taxes. This goes by different names at different hotels: Resort fee, Destination charge, Facilities fee, etc.
• Points Per Dollar Earned: The number of points per dollar earned by non-elite members on paid stays. For example, Sonesta members earn 10 points per dollar at most hotels.
• Points Earned on Cash Rate: This is the number of points you would earn if you paid the cash rate. The calculation for this is: (Base Cash Rate) x (Points Per Dollar Earned).  For this calculation, our default approach is to assume that the traveler does not have elite status (elite members earn more points per dollar).
• Point Price: The number of points required to book a night at the hotel
• Cents Per Point (CPP): This is the value you get per point when using your points instead of cash to pay for a stay.

Hotel Programs that Waive Resort Fees on Award Stays

Hilton, Hyatt, Sonesta and Wyndham waive resort fees when you book stays using points or free night certificates. For these chains, the resort fee does not have to be considered separately from the Total Cash Rate (which includes the resort fee). So, the CPP calculation is as follows:

CPP = Total Cash Rate ÷ [Point Price + Points Earned on Cash Rate]

Results

Best Western Point Value

The median observed point value was 0.61 cents per point. This means that half of the observed results offered equal or better point value and half offered equal or worse value. Another way to think about it is that without trying to cherry pick good awards, you have a 50/50 chance of getting 0.61 cents or better value from your Best Western points when booking free awards.

When we publish point RRVs, we conservatively pick the middle value, or the 50th percentile. The idea is that just by randomly picking hotels to use your points, you have a 50/50 chance of getting this value or better. But what if you cherry-pick awards? Many people prefer to hold onto their points until they find good value uses for them. If that’s you, then you may want to use the table above to pick your own RRV. For example, if you think that you’ll hold out for the best 10% value awards, then pick the 90th Percentile. If you cherry-pick a bit, but not that much, you might want to use the 70th Percentile (for example). We’re guessing that most cherry-pickers will land around the 80th percentile: 0.66 cents per point.

New Reasonable Redemption Value: 0.61 cents per point

Our Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) for Best Western points was previously set to 0.54 cents per point. RRV’s are intended to be the point at which it is reasonable to get that much value or better for your points. Therefore, I believe that the median observed value for is a good choice for our RRV…

• Reasonable Redemption Value for Best Western: 0.61 cents per point
• Reasonable Redemption Value for those who cherry pick awards: 0.66 cents per point

Overvaluing vs. Undervaluing Points

There is no perfect way to estimate the value of points. Decisions we made here in some ways overvalue points and in some ways undervalue points. The hope is that these things roughly offset each other…

Factors that cause us to undervalue points

• With hotel programs that offer 4th Night Free Awards (IHG, with some credit cards), or 5th Night Free Awards (Hilton & Marriott), or award discounts (Wyndham), we do not consider the point savings in our analyses.
• With hotel programs that offer free parking on award stays to top-tier elites (Hyatt), we do not factor this in.

Factors that cause us to overvalue points

• We do not use discount rates (other than member rates) in our analyses. In real-life, many people book hotels cheaper (and sometimes far cheaper) by using AAA rates, government & military rates, senior rates, etc.
• We do not use hotel promotional rates. Often, individual hotels have deals such as “Stay 2 Nights, Get 1 Night Free” which can greatly reduce the cost of a stay.
• We do not use prepaid rates in our analyses. Sometimes these rates are significantly lower than refundable rates.
• We do not factor in rebates which can be earned from booking hotels through shopping portals.
• We do not factor in extra points earned on paid stays for those with elite status.
• We do not factor in rewards earned from credit card spend at hotels.
• We do not factor in hotel loyalty program promotions: Most promotions, but not all, only offer incentives for paid stays. We often see promos offering bonus points, double or triple points, free night awards, etc.
• With hotel programs that waive resort fees for top tier elites on paid stays (e.g. Hyatt), we do not factor this in.

Conclusion

Based on the latest analysis, we’ve set our Best Western Reasonable Redemption Value (RRV) to 0.61 cents per point.

For a complete list of Reasonable Redemption Values (and links to posts like this one), see: Reasonable Redemption Values (RRVs).

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