Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is almost done! The last two weeks Greg, Nick, and Stephen competed to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines. But who completed the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
I’m pretty excited about IHG’s revamped Premier card and its new business card twin. Each comes with an annual 40K free night certificate upon renewal. A single person could sign up for both cards and enjoy a free cheap weekend getaway each year. A couple can stretch this out into an annual four night vacation. With the new ability to add points to these free night certificates, it will be easier than ever before to use them to stay in great hotels year after year. I was already pretty happy that IHG offers Kimpton hotels in their portfolio, but I’m even more enthused about the ability to book many Mr & Mrs Smith hotels with IHG points and certificates.
Before we get too carried away with trumpeting IHG Premier free nights, its worth stepping back to look at other options. Free nights from Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott each have their own merits and one can argue that any one of them is the best. Let’s compare them side by side:
| Hilton | Hyatt | IHG | Marriott 35K | Marriott 50K | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credit card options | Aspire $450 Surpass $95 Business $95 |
World of Hyatt $95 | Premier $99 Business $99 |
Boundless $95 Amex $95 Prem. Plus Biz $99 Biz Amex $125 |
Brilliant $450 Ritz $450 |
| Spend required for annual free night upon renewal | $0 Aspire $15K Surpass $15K Business |
$0 | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Spend required for 2nd annual free night | $60K Aspire $60K Business |
$15K ✅ |
$60K Business | $60K Biz Amex | N/A |
| Certificate max point value | No Cap (Limited to weekend nights1) |
18K (Category 4 Peak) |
40K | 35K | 50K |
| Ability to add points to exceed cap? | Not needed ✅✅✅ |
No | Yes ✅✅ |
Up to 15K ✅ |
Up to 15K ✅ |
| Equally usable when hotel is peak priced? | Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
No (Requires topping off with more points) |
No (Requires topping off with more points) |
No (Requires topping off with more points) |
| Waives resort or destination fees on free night stays? | Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
No | No | No |
| Book multiple nights on single reservation? | Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ (Via Pay My Way) |
No | Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
| Allows gifting free night to others? | Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
No | No | No |
| Works with 4th or 5th night free awards? | No | Not Applicable | No | No | No |
| Can use upgrade certificates with free night certificates? | Not Applicable | No | Not Applicable | Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
| Bookable online? | No (Must Call) |
Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
Yes ✅ |
✅ = Notably good feature
1) Hilton free night certificates issued before the end of 2022 can be used any day of the week.
Hilton Free Nights
One could easily argue that Hilton free night certificates are the best. They have no cap. As a result, they can be used at the most expensive Hilton properties worldwide. That’s awesome.
On the other hand, certs issued after this year will go back to being useable only on weekends. Plus, there seem to be relatively few ultra-luxe properties compared to those available through the other programs listed here. And the few that do exist seem to rarely have standard room award availability (which is required to use a free night certificate), especially on weekends. When these factors are all taken together, Hilton’s advantage over the other programs (uncapped free nights) becomes much less important. Typical travelers may find fantastic uses for these certs occasionally, but I bet the certs are most often used for high end but not ultra-luxe properties.
Summary: Getting great value from Hilton free nights can be a challenge.
Hyatt Free Nights
The free category 1-4 free night certificates that come with the World of Hyatt card are remarkable in that they can be used even when a hotel is peak priced. You may find that a category 3 or 4 hotel is usually priced under $300 per night, but soars to at least twice that amount during some peak dates. With Hyatt, as long as standard rooms are available during those peak dates, you should be able to use your certificate.
On the other hand, many desirable Hyatt and SLH hotels are category 5 or higher. Hyatt doesn’t provide any way to use your category 1-4 certificates at these hotels. In fact, even though there are plenty of Hyatts in Manhattan, not a single one is category 4 or lower (Incidentally, I happen to be writing this post from the now category 8 Park Hyatt in Manhattan — luckily I booked it while it was category 7).
Summary: Hyatt category 1-4 free nights are great, but only if there’s a great category 1-4 Hyatt where you want to go. In expensive destinations you’re unlikely to find anything worthwhile.
IHG Free Nights
I think that the free nights that come with the IHG Premier and Premier Business cards are the most versatile of all the options listed here. They can be used for truly free nights when your target hotel is priced at 40,000 points or less. Or, you can add any number of points to the free night certificate to book the room.
There is a limit to how “great” these certificates are: The fact that IHG often sells points for as low as half a cent each indirectly limits the top value of these certificates to $200 each (since you can sometimes buy 40,000 points for $200). On the other hand, if you want to use your free night certificates for nights that cost more than 40,000 points, the occasional ability to buy points for half a cent each during point sales can be a great way to get the points to top-off your free night awards.
Summary: While these certificates don’t have the highest theoretical value, they are probably the easiest to use at places where you really want to go.
Marriott Free Nights
Marriott has one huge edge over the competition: footprint. In my experience, there are almost always highly rated Marriott hotels in places I want to go (at least when chain hotels are available at all). Plus, they have the advantage of allowing Platinum elite members to use their Suite Night Awards on stays booked with free night certificates (Hyatt does not allow the same).
While its too early to know how Marriott will price desirable hotels now that they’ve eliminated award charts, prior award pricing has made me optimistic about both the 35K and 50K free night certificates once Marriott adds the ability to top-off certificates with up to 15K points per night (expected “late April 2022”). Previously I’ve often found that hotels that I wanted to stay at were priced at 40,000 points or 60,000 points: out of range of 35K and 50K certificates. If pricing increases at most of these hotels by no more than 5,000 points per night, then we’ll be able to book those hotels with a mix of free night certificates and points. For 2022 Marriott is capping the award price of most of their hotels to the previous peak award pricing (when categories still existed) and so we won’t know until 2023 whether or not the 35K and 50K free night certificates will still be as broadly usable.
One annoying quirk of Marriott’s program is that when hotels list award prices for upgraded rooms, you can’t use a free night certificate. You can’t even use a 50K free night certificate for an upgraded room that costs 40K per night. The other programs don’t allow this either, but the way Marriott displays award prices for upgraded rooms makes it look like you should be able to do so.
The biggest disappointment to me with the latest Marriott changes is that the ability to top off free nights is limited to 15,000 points per night. This means that it will continue to be impossible to use those certificates at ultra-luxe properties.
Summary: We won’t know how bad dynamic pricing is until 2023, but for now the Marriott free night certificates are arguably the best options for staying in desirable hotels in places you want to go, as long as you’re willing to forgo top of the line luxury.
Bottom Line
All of the free night certificates described above have pluses and minuses. If you want to stay at top of the line luxury hotels, only Hilton and IHG certs offer options. With Hilton, you have to find standard room award availability and only on weekends (beginning with certs issued next year). And with IHG, you may have to top off your certs with a huge number of points. Since IHG dynamically prices most of their hotels, the top-off amount can easily dwarf the 40K cert contribution. All of the certificates can be effectively used at mid to high tier hotels.
Ultimately, the best free night certs are whichever ones you would dependably use every year. For each person and each circumstance, the chain that meets that requirement will vary… a lot.
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Sometimes the best free night certificate isn’t a certificate at all. It’s the 15,000 points annual bonus on the Wyndham cards! Use them on a hotel or Vacasa rental this year or combine them with the annual points given in subsequent years for a multi-night stay or a fancier one. Ok …..Wyndham and fancy. ……. lol. Maybe fewer uses for the points but a much longer time to use them. Instead of a FNC expiring in 12 months you have points good for 4 years.
From personal stays, I can place Hilton & IHG Free Certs on-par for the following reasons:
Saw some comments on Radisson program which gives 40K points annually with CC. I used that for many years, and it does have some uses, especially at low-priced properties overseas (majority hotels in US are 30-45K/nt.), where you can get rooms for 15K, effectively having 2 “free” nights per year.
Thank you Greg for comprehensive rundown, it helps to keep things in perspective.
Marriott is the easiest to redeem. The room plus all room expenses is free if the hotel is equal or less than the points on the certificate. If not you’ll have to add points. IHG, many hotels do not participate. However, for Marriott it is almost equal to the amount of points.
While Hilton does not have that many interesting properties at the high end, if you think what you can get from IHG and Marriott for 40-50K and from Hyatt at 1-4, there’s a whole lot of Hiltons of comparable level. And then if you’re lucky and plan well, you can get Hilton’s gems.
I just used 2 Hilton certs at Grand Wailea. No, it is not worth $1000/night but it’s a great property and after walking over and visiting Andaz Maui, I’d take GW over it any time. If you’re into Maldives, WA Maldives is the best points/certs bet there. And so on. It’s really hard to argue anything but Cat 1-7 Hyatt cert against Hilton’s FN.
Hyatt suite upgrade awards not able to be used with free night awards is really a big detriment. If you have a trip using the suite upgrade award (booking with points or cash), and you want to use a free night award, you end up having to book two separate reservations, with no idea if you’d have to move rooms when the free night comes along. Why not just make the free night award equivalent to points booking?
Hilton all the way – though that could change in 2023/24. Just booked a couple of nights this fall at a very nice hotel that were otherwise $800/nt. (Though I prefer Hyatt’s loyalty program.)
Interesting that you only calculated maximum value of IHG certs when all the loyalty programs sell points. This would be one way to compare max value. Sorry if I don’t recall the sale prices, but Hyatt: 18kx1.8c?=$324 , IHG: 40kx0.5c?=$200, Hilton: 90/120kx0.5c?=$450/$600, Marriott? never paid attention, but 25/50kx0.8c?=$200/$400
Would be a good line for the table with numbers that aren’t my random guesses. 🙂
That’s a good idea. I only listed it for IHG because IHG is the only program that routinely sells their points for less than the RRV. In other words, when points are on sale for half a cent each, it’s very easy to redeem them for more value than you paid.
I have used enough of these free nights to be able to give myself a pretty good idea of which free nights are objectively best. I have used 41 Hilton certs for an average value of $615 each, 25 Marriott nights for $295 each, 17 IHG nights for $475 each (although many of these were before they were capped, capped nights have been $233), and 10 Hyatt nights, for $737 each (although heavily influenced by 4 nights at PH Paris when they were uncapped, so current certs averaged more like $333). From my actual use of certs that are currently available, Hilton is the winner by far, with a value more than double any of the others
great compilation…”as usual.” About IHG – I haven’t found any reasonable priced Mr and Mrs Smith hotel, let alone available with points. Ok, maybe once I saw one..but it was ridiculous amount of points. Does one have to call in for these?
Also, the link you provide is a great directory of those Smith hotels…makes looking for them much easier. Didn’t know that existed. I’d just see them randomly.
I’ve seen them available online to book with points through IHG, but it seems buggy. If they show up at all, they’re at the bottom and sometimes they seem to disappear if I re-run the same search. Not sure what’s going on there. But, you’re right: the value is usually poor (around 0.55 cents per point in the few examples I looked at). That said, I don’t mind getting only $220 in value for a free night cert if I can use it at a place I wanted to stay at anyway.
I booked a number of the certificates and points prior to the changes. Looking at those bookings now, I consider this a horrendous devaluation despite the widespread understanding that Marriott is easing to full full devaluation next year. For instance, my hotels in two Alaska cities doubled in points. A hotel that I typically used in DC also doubled in points. True, my SYD and MEL hotels for May did not double, in fact I was able to save a whole 5,000 points total by rebooking 10 nights, a very small victory. Otherwise, travelers have been Bonvoyed!
At one time I had about 3.5MM Marriott points, and now that pile is down to about 350K. I was lucky to use them for some pretty good places like Al Maha and Le Meridien Maldives before the bottom has fallen out. And while I am Lifetime Titanium I see Marriott now in a race with Hilton to the bottom. It looks like IHG and Hyatt see this too and are looking to pick up customers. I have found Globalist is far better than Diamond or Titanium and think my wagon is going to be hooked to Hyatt.
Currently, the Amex Hilton Honors and Surpass cards have offers that include free night certificates. The offers end tomorrow (3/31/2022). It’s interesting that the no annual fee Hilton card is offering this, even if you can’t spend your way to another free night certificate in the future. The no annual fee card with outsized return on spend for the bonus is tempting.
We love the Hilton FN certs and use them mostly in Europe where you get great Hilton status cares. We both signed for the No AF cards even though it put us both at 5/24 just to get the FN’s 🙂 For instance . . . used at the Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam, two FN is equal to about $1400 – $1600 or more.
Good analysis (I especially like the summary chart), and I agree that the “best” certificate is subjective based on individual preferences and travel patterns. But, one element that is not considered here is that Marriott and IHG charge “resort” or “destination” or “amenity” fees on award (points, certificates) stays at many mid-range or above properties in the US/Caribbean (and possibly other regions). Between paying a fee and using additional points, it is really more like offering a discount than a true “free” night.
That’s a great point. I’m going to add resort fees to the chart
1.) Hilton
Distant 2nd.) Hyatt or IHG
Last.) Marriott
My conclusion is, to borrow from Milenomics, be your own elite!
Just to throw my experience in, since I’ve had 28 of these to burn since the pandemic (8 Marriott, 12 Hyatt and 8 Hilton). I’ve managed to either use or make reservations for all of them.
To me, Marriott is getting harder and harder to use for anything aspirational. Even the 50,000 point certificates are quite limiting if I am trying to stay someplace nice. Plus, my biggest concern with Marriott is they are now making these not really free at all. I’m finding many Marriotts that used to have free parking are now forcing guests into valet–at $35-$50 per night. Some Marriotts are closing off their garages that used to be free and now indicating you can’t park there because stays are all valet. Add to that the resort fee that is still paid by elites (Lifetime Titanium here), so now you can be closer to $80-$100 per night. Then add the cost of the 15,0000 top up points due to the numerous devaluations in order to stay that the same place you used to be able to stay at earlier, and you are in effect paying $200 per night for your free room.
Hyatt is getting tougher too, especially with this last devaluation pushing the hotels I liked into Category 5 (Globalist here). I’m sure they exist somewhere, but I wonder if there is any aspirational category 1-4 hotel in the Northeast that is not a Hyatt Place or Hyatt House, and I have read similar comments about California.
Personally, I think the Hilton certificates are by far the best (Diamond thanks to Aspire). I .have not had an issue using free night certificates or points (since they both pull from the same pool). I have stayed at both Conrad Maldives and Conrad Bora Bora on standard night points, and I think they are pretty aspirational. Hilton Paris Opera was nice on certificates. I used a certificate for the Waldorf Beverly Hills, which would have otherwise cost me $1450 on the night I stayed there. I was booked into two Hiltons in the Seychelles on certificates and points before Covid forced that trip to be cancelled, and am now using four certificates to go to Zemi Beach House this winter. Hilton is the only program where I can use my certificates to stay at virtually any Hilton hotel no matter what the cost or category, and with advanced planning, I have not had an issue finding standard room availability, and even when the weekend limitation comes back (which restricts you to three nights out of seven each week), I don’t see that as a problem.
I absolutely don’t fall into the “my program is better than your program” mindset at all since I play all three (but not IHG), but as far as the certificates, I would vote Hilton. I don’t understand “Getting great value from Hilton free night certificates can be a challenge” since I can get over $1000 per night value out of those certificates, and other than a Hyatt category 7 certificate, that just isn’t happening with Marriott or Hyatt.
the article does note Hilton has less aspirational properties. Or rather – Hilton has high-end, but fewer ultra-luxe. And I do agree. Yes, Hilton has some, but relatively speaking – no when compared to Marriott (or Hyatt?).
You’ve certainly been using them well. I’ve stayed at a ultra-luxe LXR and Conrad of late. Again, they exist, just not in same qty as Marriott or IHG (now).