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Save/ShareHere's yet one more reason why you should join a hotel's loyalty club whenever you reserve a hotel room, even if you're not a frequent traveler.
On January 15, Marriott will improve its Marriott Rewards program, making it easier to redeem points for hotel rooms. It is cutting in half the number of points you need to earn before you can reserve a room without blackout dates.
You can stay at any hotel that's owned by Marriott to earn the points, including Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn, TownePlace Suites, and SpringHill Suites—as well as Marriott and JW Marriott. For example, you only have to spend about $750 at the chains to earn enough points (7,500 points) for a free night's stay at a Fairfield Inn or TownePlace Suites. It would have taken $1,500 before.
But what does that really mean for leisure travelers?
You’ll still want to book early for the best dates. Each property can still limit the number of rooms available for reward redemption on certain days, such as New Year’s Eve at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.
However, some of the most popular properties will continue to have blackout dates, such as Hawaii’s Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa. (Here's the fine print for Marriott loyalty program geeks: After January 15, Stay Anytime Rewards will be eliminated and replaced by the No Blackout Dates category. Here are the FAQs on the program changes
So how does Marriott's competition measure up?
Hyatt Gold Passport members haven’t had to deal with blackout dates at its 370 hotels since 2002. But like Marriott, Hyatt also sets aside a small number of rooms for members, so you’ll want to book up to a year in advance to make sure you nab the room at the time and hotel you want. In Hyatt’s Faster Free Nights promotion, members can earn a free night after every two eligible stays between now and Dec. 30—as long you redeem the free night by February 28, 2009. One free night at a Hyatt Place or Summerfield Suites property usually requires at least 5,000 points ($1,000).
Since February 2008, Hilton has claimed that its rewards program has no blackout dates and no “capacity controls”—unlike Marriott, anytime a standard room is available for purchase at any of Hilton’s 3,000-plus hotels, a Hilton HHonors member can redeem points for that room. One free night at a Hampton Inn requires 7,500 points, or from $500.
The Starwood Preferred Guest program also has no blackout dates for free night redemptions at more than 860 hotels. The Starwood Preferred Guest program launched in 1999 with no blackout dates and no capacity controls. (So Hilton followed Starwood's model.)
We often tout the merits of joining loyalty programs, but it’s a good idea to check if your points expire. Hyatt points don’t expire, but Starwood’s Starpoints expire after 18 months of inactivity. Hilton points expire after 15 months of inactivity; Marriott can close your account after 24 months of inactivity.
Remember: you can earn points and keep your account active by renting a car, shopping at online retail partners (Gap, Barnes & Noble, Target), or using a credit card linked to a rewards program.
One more bit of hotel-points news: In September, Starwood became the first hotel loyalty program to allow point redemption for airline tickets with no blackout dates. In one example, a ticket that costs $345 equals 25,000 Starpoints. Search for flights at SPGflights.com. But, as Upgrade: Travel Better has pointed out, you'll usually get a better bang for your SPG Starpoints if you redeem them for a hotel stay.
Are you a point hoarder? What are some ways that you earn points? And have you been able to redeem your points when and where you want?
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You should really evaluate HOW you want to stay before you join a hotel loyalty program. As a premium member of several programs, I can tell you that Marriott has the flat out best rewards program if you want to take trips where you'll be staying in one hotel for 5 or more days. If you want to do one or two days, you might fare ok with Hilton or Starwood.
There are no breaks for using cumulative nights with Hilton points.
Posted By Seattlite on October 28, 2008, 12:37 AM
Article states: "For example, you only have to spend about $750 at the chains to earn enough points (7,500 points) for a free night's stay at a Fairfield Inn or TownePlace Suites. It would have taken $1,500 before."
Marriott uses hotel categories from Category 1 to Category 8 for hotel redemption. 7,500 points is the Category 1 redemption level. Free nights using points is not based on hotel brand. Some Fairfield Inns and TownePlace Suites will cost much more than 7,500 points. For example, Fairfield Inn JFK is a category 4 hotel costing 20,000 points per night.
Article states: "One free night at a Hampton Inn requires 7,500 points, or from $500."
Spending $750 to earn 7,500 points is still the norm to earn a free night. $1,500 to earn 15,000 points was only needed if using a "Stay Anytime" award.
Again, free nights using points with Hilton HHonors is based on the program's redemption category for the hotel, not the hotel brand. Most Hampton Inn hotels are significantly higher than 7,500 points per night. California has nearly 80 Hampton Inns and none are in the 7,500 points Opportunity redemption category. The nearest Hampton Inn to me is in Santa Cruz, CA and at HHonors Category 3, costs 25,000 points per night.
InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club is the only major hotel loyalty program to base redemption level on the hotel brand and even that program differentiates a range of hotel points redemption levels within some of its hotel brands like Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, and InterContinental Hotels.
And in response to the first comment. Hilton offers 6-night VIP awards for hotels which can reduce the cost of a stay using points from 240,000 points to 175,000 points for an HHonors Category 6 hotel.
Starwood Preferred Guest gives 5th night free when redeeming points for a 5-night stay.
I also tout the benefits of hotel loyalty programs as the central topic of my Loyalty traveler blog.
http://www.boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler
Posted By Ric Garrido on October 28, 2008, 10:49 AM
Hi Ric,
Love your blog, where you do a terrific job of covering loyalty programs. And we’re flattered that you’d take the time to comment on this post.
But--to be clear--we stand behind our reporting. And since you posted your comment, we double checked our notes on our interviews with the various spokespeople for the various hotel chains, and everything we said was correct (and the spokespeople have had no problem with what we wrote).
It's inherently difficult, as you know, to quickly show an example of how these programs will work, because what is true at a starting level for some travelers won't apply for other travelers booking different categories of rooms on different dates.
It's true that the rewards chart is by category -- we asked all the hotel chains for examples of the actual hotel brands because any given redemption chart doesn't always clearly state what is a Category 1 hotel. The language used in the blog was meant to convey that -- we wrote "a Fairfield Inn or TownePlace Suites" -- not “all Fairfield Inn or TownePlace Suites.”
And yes, the $1,500 was from the Stay Anytime Rewards (which has no blackout dates) which will be discontinued after Jan. 15. So to compare apples to apples, you'd have to compare $750 to $1,500 (see chart).
As for the Hampton Inn, 7,500 points is from a $500 purchase, as written in the blog post above.
To quote our source at Hilton, there’s not a precise formula for equating points with dollars. Rather, points are awarded according to a member’s spend while they are staying at a Hilton Family hotel. For instance, if a base tier (blue) member in the program chooses to earn Points & Miles with the HHonors program, they will earn 10 points for every dollar spent during their stay. If a base tier member chooses to earn Points & Points instead, they will earn 15 points for every dollar spent during their stay. The total minimum spend for a base tier member to earn a free night at an opportunity category hotel (7500 points) is $750 if they are earning Points & Miles and $500 if they are earning Points & Points. Meanwhile, HHonors VIPs earn points and free nights even faster (with less of a minimum spend) because they also receive bonuses on their point earnings.
The point redemptions above are starting values in order to get one free night at each brand. It's not a comprehensive list, and we didn't say it was.
Thanks for your commentary, though, and let us know if we missed any nuance.
--Sean
Blog editor
Posted By Blog Editor on October 29, 2008, 12:36 PM
I'm glad to see that you actively researched and compared reward programs after Marriott's "enhancement" announcement - this is a valuable service to travelers. Where I am disappointed is that this blog (and really the media in general) completely missed the fine print behind Marriott's press release. While they were busy speaking publicly about enhancements, they were devaluing points behind the scenes. This is where the true story about Marriott's recent changes exists. Please find full details about the changes, member outrage, as well as links to forums at: http://sites.google.com/site/makemarriottlisten
If you happen to be an elite member of Marriott's program, it's particularly interesting to follow through to the Marriott owned forum - where hundreds of members are extremely vocal about Marriott's cover-up operation. Hope that this is interesting to your readers.
Posted By makemarriottrewardslisten on November 4, 2008, 4:39 PM
I'm a VERY DISAPPOINTED mom, unfortunately I'm not very eloquent or good at writing things of this nature. I do hope every one will see that Marriott's so called up grades are a total FRAUD!! I called the morning the upgrades were implemented 1/15/09 to find each and every choice for hotels (which granted were nicer hotels) had NO availability, not just when I wanted to go but ANYTIME throughout most of the year (10 months I had them search for over 9 hotels). It's such a scam. We prior to 1/15/09 had enough points (
Posted By kathi on March 5, 2009, 11:37 PM
I tried to book 2 nights with the inflated point structure at a Rome Marriott Hotel. I could get one night on points, but not both. They wouldn't provide me the blackout dates, only ask that I call again in a few days to see if more rooms are available. It's sad because I even own a Marriott timeshare and tried to trade my week for a hotel, but to no rooms are available on the week I want to travel. Marriott is a fine hotel franchise, but the perks for being a member are really in the toilet (no full-disclosure and often misleading information on each hotel through the marriott hotel website, many hidden costs, limited availability, premiere members aren't recognized for a room upgrade, and so much more). I'm switching to Intercontinental (IHG)!
Posted By Kathy K on May 2, 2009, 5:19 AM