Choice Hotels Choice Privileges Hilton Honors loyalty program Hilton Hotels Worldwide Hyatt Gold Passport Hyatt Hotels IHG One Rewards InterContinental Hotels Group Loyalty Traveler Marriott Hotels Marriott Rewards (replaced by Marriott Bonvoy) Radisson Rewards Starwood Hotels Starwood Preferred Guest

Part 1: Buying and transferring hotel points for hotel stays

Most major hotel loyalty programs sell hotel points to frequent guest members. Occasionally you will find hotels where it is simply cheaper to buy the points and redeem a points reward for a hotel stay than pay the published rate.

Loyalty Traveler researched the major hotel programs for points purchase rules. There are eight hotel loyalty programs allowing the purchase of hotel points and I will compare and contrast the features of six different programs with some tables. (Choice Privileges sells up to 20,000 points per year. Best Western Rewards allows members to buy points at $10 per 1,000 points. I left these two programs out of this analysis).

Hotel Programs selling hotel points

  • Best Western Rewards
  • Club Carlson
  • Choice Privileges
  • Hilton HHonors
  • Hyatt Gold Passport
  • InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) Priority Club Rewards
  • Marriott Rewards
  • Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG)

Accor A|Club and Wyndham Rewards do not sell hotel loyalty points to members through their websites.

There are limitations to buying points explained in this post and there are some disadvantages like reward stays do not count for promotions in most cases and reward stays do not qualify for elite status credit with most programs. Hilton, Choice and Starwood do count reward stays for calendar year elite qualifying stays and nights.

Background

Last week Club Carlson announced it launched the option for members to buy Club Carlson hotel points. Looking over the cost of hotel points in Club Carlson revealed a good purchase rate for consumers in my opinion. As I created a table for Club Carlson hotel reward categories I thought about the relationship between the cost of points and hotel categories across different programs.

There are several factors that come into play when evaluating the value of buying hotel points.

Hotel rates are dynamic. A hotel that may have room rates at $150 one night might charge $400 the next night. Rates fluctuate and change depending on day of week, holidays, conferences and many other factors. Hotel programs factor the cost of points and price points high enough that it is typically not cost efficient or even allowed by program rules to buy points for repeatedly redeeming hotel rewards stays using purchased points.

Hotel Reward Rates are mostly a fixed standard reward cost. Major hotel loyalty programs group hotels into categories for redemption purposes.

Hilton HHonors Premium Room Rewards are a major move into dynamic reward price for hotel rewards. The cost for these new HHonors rewards are tied to the published room rate for the stay. Unfortunately the exchange rate for points-to-cash-savings is not that good for many HHonors Premium Rewards. Redemption value tends to be $3 to $6 per 1,000 points. The 30% rebate on Premium rewards booked by January 31, 2012 is a major promotion offer for better redemption rate for Premium Room rewards for Points & Money and Premium Room reward hotel stays.

Discount Hotel Rewards – Fewer Points

Most hotel loyalty programs offer some discount reward rates for selected hotels.

The fact that hotel published room rates are dynamic pricing and reward redemption rates are fixed pricing means there are nights with opportunities to get better value by redeeming hotel points than paying the published rate. Hotel room rates change rate nightly, yet the cost for a free night using points remains the same. You may be able to book the hotel for less money buying points and redeeming an award night at a hotel when hotel rates are high.

 

Cost to Buy Points for Reward Nights Tables

The tables below show the cost of buying points for a hotel night at the different category levels in each hotel loyalty program selling points (except Choice Privileges).

a table with numbers and text

a blue and white table with text

a table with points and numbers

a table with points and numbers

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a table with numbers and points

 

Loyalty Traveler’s Summary of Hotel Loyalty Program Rules to Buy, Receive and Transfer Points

 

Buy Points

Each program shows the Calendar Year Maximum Purchase Limit and Cost to Buy Points

Club Carlson = 40,000 points ($7 per 1,000 points).

Hilton HHonors = 40,000 points ($10 per 1,000 points) NOTE: member may buy unlimited points for immediate reward stay redemption at time of booking.

Hyatt Gold Passport = 40,000 points ($24 per 1,000 points).

IHG Priority Club Rewards = 50,000 points ($11.50 per 1,000 points).

Marriott Rewards = 50,000 points is maximum one member may earn with purchased and gifted points. ($12.50 per 1,000 points).

Starwood Preferred Guest = 20,000 points is maximum one member may earn with purchased and gifted points. ($35 per 1,000 points. Current sale is 20% discount through Dec 31, 2011 $28 per 1,000 points).

 

Receive Points (gifted)

Club Carlson = 40,000 points (buy and receive combined in one account for calendar year limit)

Hilton HHonors = member may receive unlimited points transferred from any other member at rate of $25 per 10,000 points.

Hyatt Gold Passport = 40,000 points, member may receive maximum 40,000 points as gift and buy 40,000 points for self.)

IHG Priority Club Rewards = 50,000 points, member may receive maximum 50,000 points as gift and buy 50,000 points for self.)

Marriott Rewards = 50,000 points (Buy and receive combined in one account for calendar year limit)

Starwood Preferred Guest = 20,000 points (Buy and receive combined in one account for calendar year limit)

Hyatt and IHG Priority Club are only two hotel programs allowing a member to buy maximum annual limit of points for own account and also receive maximum annual limit as a gift from another member.

 

Transfer Points

Club Carlson =  unlimited and free through Member Services.

Hilton HHonors = any member is allowed to transfer points to another member for a fee, $25 per 10,000 points, except any single member is allowed free transfers for additional points gifted and transferred after 200,000 points ($500 in fees) in a calendar year. Point transfers must be in 10,000 point blocks.

Hyatt Gold Passport = may transfer between any two members the minimum points needed for a reward
redemption. Two members must sign transfer request.

IHG Priority Club Rewards = 50,000 points in a calendar year at $5.00 per 1,000 points.

Marriott Rewards = may transfer between two spouses/domestic partners the minimum points needed for a reward redemption, rounded to nearest 1,000 points.

Starwood Preferred Guest = free transfer between members with same residential address for at least 30 days. SVO Vacation members may transfer points between accounts regardless of address.

There is more variability in rules for the “point transfer between members” aspect of hotel programs. Club Carlson has liberal policy of free transfers between any two members. SPG has a less restrictive policy than most programs if you share the same address. Hyatt is a fair policy allowing any two members to transfer the minimum points needed for a reward stay. Marriott Rewards terms state transfers are limited to spouses/domestic partners and only the minimum level for a reward redemption. Priority Club has the most restrictive policy with a relatively high fee and an annual transfer limit any member may give or receive.

Hilton HHonors appears to have a restrictive policy in charging a $25 fee for transferring 10,000 points. The advantage to HHonors is the rule allowing a member to receive unlimited points and for a member to gift/transfer unlimited points. Basically a person with 1,000,000 HHonors points can transfer them all to someone else for $500. That would be a lucky recipient.

A more commonly useful strategy is crowdsourcing a network of friends to score a nice HHonors getaway. Set up a gift registry with HHonors for something like a college graduation present or wedding honeymoon and gifts of 10,000 HHonors points can be transferred for $25. Get a response from 20 to 50 HHonors members and that HHonors account can be filled with 200,000 to 500,000 points for $500 to $1,250 distributed among a large group of people. Your friends and family don’t have to think too hard about a gift and a week of free hotel rooms is a nice gift to receive.

This kind of opportunity is only matched by Club Carlson and they currently allow you to do it for free.

Part Two of this study into buying and transferring hotel points will look at real examples of how to apply these points purchase and transfer rules to hotel stay rewards.

 

24 Comments

  • M December 5, 2011

    I was just starting to look into this exact topic so thank you for doing the work!

  • Rachel December 5, 2011

    Thanks Ric this is really interesting. Definitely makes the case for Starwood’s cash and points awards, especially since they count for elite status now.

  • Andy December 5, 2011

    Thanks Ric! This post is really helpful. Just wondering is there a limit for SPG points transfer between two persons with same address?

  • Angelina December 5, 2011

    Great post & very helpful! I book marked it

  • Andre December 5, 2011

    Very useful table. However your Hyatt Cat. 6 is off by $48 in the unfavorable direction.

    22,000 points straight up are $528. Would have been nicer if I realized that 10 minutes ago. I just bought some for a PH that doesn’t accept Stay Certs. It’s only 36EUR/night, but it’s something.

  • Ric Garrido December 5, 2011

    @Andre – You are right about the cost of 22,000 points. I wonder if I thought I was clever enough to calculate the number in my head or a mispunched key?

    I’ll correct the table and repost Hyatt.

  • speedy December 5, 2011

    Wow, very detailed but almost unintelligble. I try to follow a number of travel blogs but this just too dense to easily take in. I think you could really increase your following with easier to read posts.

  • Jeffrey C. December 5, 2011

    Disagree with the previous post. I wholeheartedly appreciate your thorough explanations. I admire you for what you do and read your blog everyday and have for some time. This is my first post on your blog. Thanks so much for what you do.

  • Tom December 6, 2011

    I agreee with previous poster. This is very complex task and you do a good effort in explaining it. It is in the hotels interest to keep program comparison complex, in order to limit arbitrage opportunity. There is generally legwork involved in finding the best deals. Thanks for the work you do here.

  • Andre December 6, 2011

    I think it’s easy to understand if one has ever done points to night conversion/bookings. It’s a great post! I learned which chains allow to buy + receive for double the amount per year.

    I made a silly mistake since I knew 40000 Hyatt points were $960, therefore 22000 couldn’t be half that ($480).

    I’m not going to memorize everything about the chains I haven’t used, but I’d rather have this as reference than having to go back and forth between individual posts about each chain.

    Thank you again for this resource!

  • Kalboz December 6, 2011

    Ric, you can also buy 10K IHG PC points at a cost of US$60 ( or $6.00 per 1,000 points) by making a cash+point reservation.

  • Ric Garrido December 6, 2011

    @speedy – some Loyalty Traveler posts are dense and packed with information. They are not designed for speedy reading.

    This post is a reference post with useful tables and links. I labeled it Part 1 since it is the base post for information that will follow on how to apply these rules.

    Loyalty Traveler provides consumer analysis for hotel loyalty program members. You probably could not find this information on the web before now.

    I’d like to increase my blog following, but it is actually doing pretty good this year. There are currently very few independently written travel blogs on the web with more readers than Loyalty Traveler. I believe I am in the top 5% in terms of readers.

  • Ric Garrido December 6, 2011

    @Kalboz – I wanted to keep the tables consistent with normal purchase points channels.

    Points + Cash does provide the option for 10,000 points for $60 by booking a reservation and then cancelling it and keeping the points.

  • Kalboz December 6, 2011

    Excellent work as always, Ric … thanks for posting!

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  • Ric Garrido December 14, 2011

    Added Best Western to programs for buying points. Missed this option to buy points for $10 per 1,000, up to 10,000 points per transaction in my original post.

    Recent posts on FlyerTalk state this option is restricted to Best Western elite members.

    https://goldcrownclub.bestwestern.com/custserv/faq.asp#q24

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