Buying points for hotels is not usually recommended for hotel stays but there are times that it can save you hundreds and even thousands of dollars on your stay. I recommend that before you pay cash for a room look to see if points will save you money.
Does Buying Points Always Make Sense?
The short answer is no. The reason that buying points is usually not recommended for hotel stays is that the numbers don’t make good financial sense. It is usually cheaper to pay cash than buying points for a stay.
There are other ways to earn points that usually make more sense. For example, the IHG Rewards Premier credit card has a 175,000 point offer right now. The card comes with a free night certificate every year and only has a $99 annual fee.
When Does it Make Sense to Buy Points?
It makes the most sense to buy points when there is a bonus offer when you purchase points. You can still save money sometimes when there is not a bonus but not usually. For example at the time of this writing, IHG has an 80% bonus when you purchase points.
As you can see if I purchase 150,000 points I would get 120,000 extra points for a total of 270,000 points for $1,500.
Hyatt is also having a sale right now. You get a 25% bonus when purchasing Hyatt Hotel points. As you can see, if I purchase 48,000 points I get 12,000 bonus points for a total of 60,000 points for $1,152.
What type of hotels give you the biggest savings?
When buying points the biggest savings that you can get is when you purchase points for high end hotels. For example, if you wanted to stay at the Intercontinental San Francisco it would cost you $5,486.16 for a 4 night stay in March in a standard room. Can you say ouch?
To stay in the same room, it would cost you 56,250 points a night. When booking rooms with points with IHG hotels, you get the 4th night free. So, a 4 night stay would cost you a total of 168,750 points. You could purchase 169,200 points for a cost of $940.00.
So, it would be a $4,546 savings if we bought points. $5,486 cost paying cash – $940 cost buying points= $4,546 savings. That is my kind of savings.
Does buying points save you money with cheaper hotels?
Again, the short answer is yes but the savings will be smaller than with a luxury hotel. For example, if you wanted to stay at the Hyatt House Cypress/Anaheim for 5 nights in March it would cost you $1,210.05.
The same 5 night stay would cost you 40,000 points.
It will cost you $768 to purchase 40,000 points with the 25% bonus.
The total savings would be $442. $1,210 cost paying cash – $768 cost buying points= $442. That is not thousands of dollars like the IHG example but I would like to save that amount on a hotel stay.
Are there bigger bonuses when buying points?
Yes, there are bigger promotions when buying points. IHG sometimes has a 100% bonus offer, Hyatt’s biggest bonus offer has been 40%, Hilton’s largest bonus points offer has been 100% and Marriott’s biggest bonus offer has been 60%.
Are there any limitations when buying hotel points?
Each hotel chain has certain rules and limitations when buying points. I am not going to go through every hotel chain but I will choose some of the top chains.
IHG lets you purchase 150,000 points for a given year. So, if they are having a 100% bonus offer, you would get a total of 300,000 points.
Hyatt allows you to purchase up to 55,000 points in a given year. So, if they were offering a 40% bonus you could get as many as 77,000 points.
Hilton lets you buy 80,000 points per year. If there is a 100% bonus, you would be able to get 160,000 points. Hilton also allows you to pool your points that you purchase with family members. So, you can go way above the 160,000 points if you want to.
Marriott caps the points in a year at 100,000. If there is a 60% bonus, the maximum you could get in a year is 160,000 points.
Final Thoughts
I think that the more options that someone has when it comes to travel the more money that you can save. The key thing is to know what the options are so you can decide what you want to do.
As you can see, this is an option that can save you hundreds and even thousands of dollars when booking a hotel room. You just need to do the math when looking at buying points.
If you want to learn more about how to save on hotel stays you can read my post “14 Easy Ways to Save on Hotel Rooms.”
