Beginner’s Guide: Understand Hotel Programs and Points in One Article

About Hotels and Loyalty Programs

Just like airline miles, hotels reward guests with points, and you can also redeem a certain number of points for a free hotel stay. If you stay in hotels often, your points will eventually boost your membership status. These elite tiers can bring a better stay experience, such as free breakfast, room upgrades, late checkout, and more. Compared with airline programs, hotel elite status is easier to reach, and with a few good credit cards, you can even jump straight to the top tier. So if you live in the U.S. and like to travel from time to time and stay at quality hotels, you definitely should read this article carefully and take your stay experience to the next level.

To help everyone understand quickly, we’ll break this down into a few sections below to get you started fast:

• What is a hotel chain? How is it different from a regular hotel?
• What are hotel points? Are they the same as booking with cash?
• How to get lots of hotel benefits through credit cards
• Which hotel chains should we pay attention to in the U.S.?
• A roundup of hotel program introductions from each chain

What Is a Hotel Chain? How Is It Different from a Regular Hotel?

I remember when I first came to the U.S., my roommate recommended staying in hotels when traveling. The cheapest way was to use Priceline and, through some filtering tricks, find a hotel location in a blind booking with an 80% chance of identifying the hotel. It was indeed a bit cheaper than booking directly, but there was still a 20% chance of getting burned and ending up at a hotel with poor reviews. At the time, I wondered whether I could pay a little more to guarantee hotel quality. Hotel chains were exactly the answer to that need!

A hotel chain is similar to an airline alliance, made up of many hotels, all under one brand. But hotel chains strictly control and guide their properties, with regular ratings, service standards, training, and more. This ensures the service and facility level of chain hotels is reliable, so you can stay with confidence (the chance of getting burned is much lower than with non-chain hotels). Of course, there are still differences between hotels within the same chain. For example, Hilton has the Waldorf Astoria at $1,000+ per night, and it also has the budget-friendly Hampton brand for under $100. The difference is mainly in the facilities and service attitude, but the baseline is always there!

Also, with hotel chains, the more you stay, the more points you earn. You could stay a few days at Waldorf Astoria Beijing, spend a few days at a Hilton hotel in Chicago, U.S., and then apply for the Hilton co-branded credit card. The Hilton points you earn this way can be redeemed for the Conrad Tokyo and Conrad Osaka, so a $500 nightly room rate doesn’t have to be paid in cash—you can stay for free with points. Non-chain hotels can’t offer this kind of points system to better serve loyal guests. After all, you can’t stay in one place forever, but when you travel around, you can keep staying with the same hotel chain!

• Conrad Osaka guest room

In addition, hotel chains reward frequent guests with higher membership tiers, and you can enjoy elite benefits across all hotels in the chain. Examples include free breakfast for two, suite upgrades, 4 p.m. checkout, and other high-value perks. Even better, if you understand hotel co-branded credit cards, you may be able to get those elite benefits directly and enjoy them for free!

• Free breakfast at Hotel The MITSUI Kyoto!

Of course, staying with hotel chains does have one small downside: once you’ve experienced the standard of service and facilities, it’s hard to go back to regular hotels!

What Are Hotel Points? Are They the Same as Booking with Cash?

What makes chain hotels so appealing is that they have their own points programs. You earn points by staying at the hotel, and those points can then be used to redeem hotel nights. Sounds a bit like a perpetual motion machine, right? And points aren’t just earned from hotel stays—you can also accumulate them in large amounts through credit cards, which is one of the unique advantages of U.S. credit cards! We’ll go into detail below. First, let’s let you experience booking a hotel with points.

If you’re interested in going to Tokyo and have enough Hilton points, you can start searching. Go to the official website and search Tokyo to see all the hotels you can book with Hilton points (the screenshot here only shows part of the list). The lowest-end DoubleTree brand starts at just 40,000 Hilton points, while the more upscale Conrad Tokyo requires 100,000 points, and an SLH property like this can cost a jaw-dropping 1,294,000 points! Sharp readers will notice that these point prices are all round thousands, while cash bookings usually have odd numbers. That leads us to the characteristics of points bookings:

• Many hotel chain points bookings use a fixed award chart, where a hotel is assigned a fixed points price for a period of time, whether it’s a weekend or a weekday.
• Points bookings can only be made for the base room type. If the base room is sold out, you may see a crazy number like 1,294,000 points for an SLH property (in fact, what’s being booked is an executive suite).
• Another point is that pure points bookings do not require extra taxes or fees. For some resort hotels with very high fees or high-tax hotels, booking with points can be especially worthwhile.

The advantage of a fixed award chart is that when cash rates are high, you can book with points; when cash rates are low, you can pay cash. Points bookings are a little less flexible than cash bookings in one way: if there’s no base room available, you probably shouldn’t bother. But because your points belong to that hotel chain, if you can’t book one property, you can switch to another hotel within the same chain and usually find a good option!

Likewise, free night certificates work in a similar way to points: as long as there’s a base room available, you can use the certificate to book the hotel.

How to Get Lots of Hotel Benefits Through Credit Cards

Now we have to introduce the biggest advantage for people in the U.S.! Credit cards! You could say that travelers around the world who love chain hotels are all envious of people in the U.S. That’s because U.S. credit cards are incredibly generous. If you understand the basics, you can get elite status while spending very little. To get the same level of benefits elsewhere, you’d have to stay dozens of hotel nights. On top of that, hotel credit cards often come with generous welcome bonuses—apply for one card and you can get several free hotel nights. Some hotel cards even give you a free night certificate every year, so by paying the annual fee, you can enjoy a free hotel stay.

For the details, check out our hotel card roundup below:

• Hotel credit card comparison

Here are a few quick introductions:

AMEX Hilton Aspire is the most worthwhile premium hotel card to apply for. Holding this card gives you Hilton’s top-tier Diamond status, which includes free breakfast for two, and even Waldorf Astoria properties qualify! It also gives you one unrestricted free night certificate each year, which you can use at luxury hotels and get $500-$1,000+ in value.

There are quite a few mid-tier cards as well. The welcome bonuses are solid, and they also give out an annual free night certificate. But they don’t come with such high-tier status benefits.

Which Hotel Chains Should We Pay Attention To

We definitely want to pay attention to the major hotel groups in the U.S. Because they have broad coverage, it’s much easier to find a place to stay, and the elite benefits at the larger chains are also better. Of course, if you can apply for more than one related credit card, I recommend going all-in on all four major chains, so you can use whichever points you want for the hotel you want to book. Likewise, although these co-branded cards do have annual fees, they usually give a free night every year, and if you use it, you can basically recoup the annual fee, so you’re not really losing out.

Hyatt

Hyatt (the Hyatt Hotel Group) is one of the world’s top hotel chains. It is known for its upscale properties (such as Park Hyatt and Andaz), but it also has mid-range and lower-end brands. World of Hyatt (凯悦天地) is well known among hotel loyalty programs for its high value, with points worth up to 1.6 cents each. Among mainstream hotel points, there aren’t many that are more valuable than World of Hyatt, and points are relatively easy to earn as well. Hyatt has 17 different brands.

• Timeless Portfolio: Park Hyatt, Miraval, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, the slightly smaller Hyatt brand, all-inclusive resorts: adult-only Hyatt Zilara and all-ages Hyatt Ziva (mostly in the Caribbean), Hyatt Place, extended-stay apartment-style Hyatt House, plus Hyatt Residence Club (a timeshare resort brand).
• Boundless Portfolio: Andaz, Alila, Thompson, Hyatt Centric
• Independent Collections: The Unbound Collection, Destination, Joie de Vivre

In my personal experience, Hyatt is a chain with fewer properties, but very high quality. Combined with the Hyatt credit card and its high-value points, it’s a great fit for people who don’t stay in hotels very often but care about quality.

• World of Hyatt detailed introduction

IHG

InterContinental Hotels Group plc is headquartered in Denham, England. In January 2010, IHG was the world’s largest multinational hotel company by room count, and one of the world’s ten best-known brands. More than 4,500 hotels are owned, managed, leased, or franchised by IHG, with more than 650,000 guest rooms in about 100 countries and regions.

• High-end luxury: InterContinental (IC), Crowne Plaza, Hotel Indigo
• Upper-midscale: Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites
• Lower-midscale: Candlewood Suites, Even Hotels

In my personal experience, IHG hotels have very broad coverage, and they also have a lot of lower- and mid-range brands. Their cash rates and award rates are pretty affordable, making them a good option for people on a tighter budget. In addition, if you hold the IHG credit card, award stays come with a stay-three-get-one-free benefit, meaning four nights only cost the points of three nights. If several hotels meet your needs, then for a four-night stay, you can prioritize IHG.

• IHG hotel membership and points introduction

Marriott

Marriott Bonvoy’s 30 brands have more than 8,000 hotels in 139 countries. One reason many travelers like Marriott is that no matter where you go, there’s usually a Marriott hotel nearby. Its coverage is extremely broad: the high-end Ritz-Carlton is a landmark in many places, St. Regis is known for its service, and the younger trendy brand W can fit plenty of tastes. After merging with SPG, Marriott became a true giant with a presence almost everywhere. Its loyalty program also inherited SPG’s relatively good features, and its points retained SPG’s flexibility: you can use them for hotel stays and also transfer them to airline miles.

My feeling is that Marriott is the most well-rounded of the big chains, with options from top to bottom and a very large footprint. Because there are so many co-branded cards, it also has a lot of annual free nights. So if you absolutely want to focus on just one chain, I’d say learning Marriott is enough—it can definitely meet all kinds of needs. Marriott points bookings also have a stay-four-get-one-free promotion, meaning five nights only cost the points of four nights. If you’re staying five nights, Marriott may be the better choice.

• Marriott hotel membership program and points guide

Hilton

Hilton Hotels Group was founded in Texas in 1919. It now has roughly 5,000 hotels and resorts worldwide and 13 hotel and resort brands. Hilton, as a global hotel chain, offers hotel and resort brands for all levels and ages: from the ultra-luxury Waldorf Astoria to the lower-end Garden Inn, and even Homewood Suites, which is suitable for larger families.

If you plan to hold the premium Hilton Aspire card, I recommend staying loyal to Hilton. First, its footprint is fairly broad. Second, the complimentary Hilton Diamond status is the top tier, which guarantees breakfast and lounge access. Room upgrades are usually at least one category, and if you’re lucky, you may even get upgraded to a suite. Hilton free night certificates are also not restricted by category, so they can be used for very high value. Hilton award stays also have a stay-four-get-one-free promotion, meaning five nights only require the points of four nights. If you’re staying five nights, Hilton may be the better choice.

• Complete Hilton hotel guide

Summary of hotel program introductions by chain

We’ve already written quite a few introductions to hotel chain programs. If you’ve learned the basics from this article and mastered most of the strategies, you can dig deeper into the details of each hotel program. The four hotel chains below are the most important in North America, so it’s worth getting to know them.

• World of Hyatt detailed introduction
• IHG hotel membership program and points introduction
• Marriott hotel membership program and points guide
• Complete Hilton hotel guide

There are fewer introductions to other hotel programs for now (we’re gradually improving them), but if you’re interested, you may want to take a look.

• Preferred Hotels & Resorts introduction
• Choice Hotels program and points introduction
• Wyndham hotel program introduction

Beginner series

After reading these articles, you’ll be more knowledgeable than 90% of Chinese Americans in the U.S.

• "Beginner guide" How do you use U.S. credit cards? Save money and earn money at the same time
• "Beginner guide" How do you get checking account and savings account bonuses?
• "Beginner guide" Airline alliances, miles, and loyalty programs

"Beginner's Guide" Introduction to hotel programs and points

"Beginner's Guide" How to build credit history in the U.S. without an SSN