Hotels in major cities tend to skew upscale, so every trip is a great chance to burn FN certificates and points. We’re planning a series of hotel recommendation posts for popular cities, and we hope these guides will help when you’re redeeming FN certificates and points. As always, feel free to share your own hotel experiences in the comments, and we’d especially love for readers to submit guest posts!

In this first installment, we’ll look at hotel redemptions in Beijing, China’s capital. I imagine many readers, like me, end up transiting through Beijing. Sometimes you may even stay an extra day or two—visit your alma mater, catch up with friends, and so on. On this trip back to China, I happened to book a few nights in Beijing, so I got a pretty good sense of the overall hotel redemption landscape and wanted to share it with everyone.

Hyatt

Hyatt has 8 hotels in the Beijing area, with 6 of them in the urban core, mainly concentrated in Chaoyang District and Dongcheng District.

Free Night Redemptions

Not many people can get Cat1-7 FN certificates. They can be earned after 60 nights per year, or previously through the two FN certificates from the Chase Hyatt welcome bonus. The highest category you can redeem in Beijing is the Cat5 Park Hyatt Beijing. I don’t particularly recommend using one here; ideally, you’d save it for a Cat7 property or a hotel with a higher cash value. Of course, if your FN is about to expire, this is still an option. Hyatt’s SLH portfolio also includes COURS ET PAVILLONS, which is a Cat6 property. It only has 7 rooms total and appears to be a traditional courtyard-style hotel. It shows as costing 25,000 points, but in practice points redemptions don’t seem to be available, so FN certificates can’t be used here either. I’m not sure whether that’s because standard rooms are extremely hard to find or because award redemptions simply aren’t open.

Cat1-4 FN certificates can be earned in several ways.

  • Chase Hyatt gives you one FN each year, effectively in exchange for the $95 annual fee ($75 on the old version). Spending $15,000 also earns another one.
  • Stay at 5 different Brands and you can earn one FN.
  • Stay 30 nights in a year and you can earn one FN.

Naturally, if you’re using an FN, try to use it at the highest Cat property possible.

  • Grand Hyatt Beijing Cat3. This used to be the only property you could redeem an FN for. The location is excellent in Wangfujing, but the hotel is showing its age, so I don’t particularly recommend redeeming here.
  • Hotel Éclat Beijing Cat4. This SLH property was only recently added as a redemption option. I just stayed there and had a great experience. It’s located in the Parkview Green shopping center, not far from Workers’ Stadium. I highly recommend using an FN or even points here. See this article for details.
  • BEI Zhaolong Hotel Cat3. This property belongs to Joie de Vivre and opened for booking after October 14. It’s in Tuanjiehu, very close to Sanlitun, but reviews aren’t especially strong, so it’s probably not your first-choice FN redemption.

Points

Since FN certificates can already be used for Cat1-4 hotels, I’m more inclined to use points for higher-category properties. That said, if you don’t have many points, lower-Cat hotels with good value can also make sense.

  • Park Hyatt Beijing Cat5. Hyatt’s flagship brand is still worth trying at least once. It’s in Guomao/CBD, which is very convenient. After-tax rates are around ￥2000, so you’re only getting about 1.4 cents per point, which is fairly average.
  • Hyatt Regency Beijing Wangjing Cat2. Located in Wangjing, it’s close to 798 and not too far from the airport, making it a good choice for an overnight airport transit stay. After-tax rates are around ￥1300, giving about 2.3 cents per point, which is very solid.
  • Hotel Éclat Beijing Cat4. Recommended again.

Hilton

Hilton has 8 hotels in the Beijing area, with 6 in the city proper. There’s also another property across from WA (Waldorf Astoria), but it overlaps on the map image.

Free Night Redemptions

Hilton FN certificates can only be used on weekends, for standard rooms on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights. For a usage guide, see this article. Since there’s no point cap restriction, we should aim for hotels that cost the most points.

  • Waldorf Astoria Beijing 80,000 points. The stay experience is excellent. It’s right in the heart of Wangfujing, the location is fantastic, and the hardware is top-notch. For more, see here. This is absolutely worth using an FN on.
  • Hilton Beijing Wangfujing 60,000 points. It’s directly across from WA Beijing, so the location speaks for itself, and it has a lounge. If you’re staying in Beijing for multiple days, one interesting play is to alternate between this hotel and the WA to rack up stays, since some quarterly promotions are tied to stay count.
  • Conrad Beijing 60,000 points. Service is said to be inconsistent, but the lounge is decent.

If you can redeem for the Waldorf Astoria Beijing, there’s really no need to overthink the other options.

Points

Using Hilton points for hotels in China generally offers pretty good value.

  • Hilton Beijing Capital Airport 50,000 points. After-tax rates run about ￥1,200-1,800, so you can get up to 0.5 cents per point, which is decent value. It’s near the airport and one of the better airport-area options. Reviews are good, and the hotel tends to treat elites fairly well, so it’s a solid overnight choice for a layover.
  • Hilton Beijing 40,000 points. After-tax rates are around ￥1,000-1,300, so you can get up to 0.46 cents per point, which is decent value. This was the earliest Hilton hotel to open in mainland China, with 25 years of history, though the rooms have been renovated.
  • DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Beijing 30,000 points. After-tax rates are around ￥800, so you’re getting roughly 0.4 cents per point, which is only average value.

Marriott

Marriott has a total of 22 hotels in the Beijing area, 18 of which are in the urban core. I haven’t studied Marriott enough personally, and I don’t have many points either, so I can only do my best to pull together some useful information for everyone.

Free Night redemptions

Marriott FN certificates come in three tiers: the 50k FN from AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant (formerly SPG Luxury) and Chase Ritz-Carlton (discontinued); the 35k FN from AMEX Marriott Bonvoy (formerly SPG, now discontinued) and Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless (formerly Marriott Premier Plus); and the 25k FN from the stay-two-get-one-new-member offer.

Looking at standard redemptions, the highest useful tier is 35,000 points, and there are quite a few options. But Marriott was about to introduce peak/off-peak pricing, so a standard 35,000-point hotel would become 40,000 points during peak season, making it ineligible for a 35,000 FN. I also wouldn’t particularly recommend using a 50,000 FN here.

Overall, all three are well reviewed, though the last one is a bit dated in terms of facilities.

There are more options with a 25,000 FN, with 8 hotels total.

Most of these hotels are in pretty good locations, but I honestly don’t know much more about them.

Points

Other than the ones listed above, there is only 1 hotel in the city proper that can be booked with points.

  • Four Points by Sheraton Beijing, Haidian Hotel & Serviced Apartments for 12,500 points, with after-tax rates around ￥1,000. That gives you roughly 1.1 cent per point in value, which is decent, though the location is relatively far out.
  • Aloft Beijing, Haidian for 12,500 points, with after-tax rates around ￥800. That gives roughly 0.9 cent per point in value. It’s across from the property above, and both are fairly far out.
  • Courtyard Beijing Northeast for 12,500 points, with after-tax rates around ￥800. That gives roughly 0.9 cent per point in value. It’s in Wangjing, very close to 798, and not too far from the airport, so it works well for an overnight during a layover.

FHR

If you don’t have extra FN certificates or points, high rollers can consider booking through FHR, which still offers very solid benefits. There are 11 FHR hotels total, concentrated in Chaoyang and Dongcheng.

  • The Opposite House $100 credit

  • The Bulgari Hotel Beijing $100 credit; it belongs to Marriott, but cannot be booked with points

  • The Peninsula Beijing includes one lunch or dinner

  • Four Seasons Beijing $100 credit

  • Rosewood Beijing $100 credit

  • Waldorf Astoria Beijing $100 credit; it belongs to Hilton and can be booked for 80,000 Hilton points.

  • Mandarin Oriental Wangfujing, Beijing $100 credit

  • The Ritz-Carlton, Beijing $100 credit; it belongs to Marriott and can be booked for 35,000 Marriott points.

  • Park Hyatt Beijing $100 credit; it belongs to Hyatt and can be booked for 20,000 Hyatt points.

  • The St. Regis Beijing $100 credit; it belongs to Marriott and can be booked for 35,000 Marriott points.

  • Aman Summer Palace Beijing $100 credit

Some of these hotels are priced between $200-$300. Considering the included $100 credit, 5xMR earn back, and the ability to rack up SNP, they can actually be a pretty good deal.

Chase Luxury Hotel & Resort

This is pretty similar to FHR, with a lot of overlap in hotel selection. There are 6 hotels total, and only 1 differs from FHR.

  • Aman Summer Palace Beijing $100 credit
  • China World Summit Wing, Beijing - A Shangri-La Hotel $100 credit
  • Park Hyatt Beijing ￥650 credit
  • Rosewood Beijing $100 credit
  • The Peninsula Beijing includes one lunch or dinner
  • The St. Regis Beijing $100 credit; it belongs to Marriott and can be booked for 35,000 Marriott points.

Summary

When booking hotels, I’d still follow the usual order of FN > points > cash: use up your expiring FN certificates first, ideally for the highest possible tier, then use points, and only pay cash last. If paying cash, you can consider FHR as well as the Hotel bookings KUKU mentioned earlier. To sum it up:

  • Hyatt: highly recommend Eclat, especially with an FN
  • Hilton: FN should definitely go to WA; with points, there are quite a few options
  • Marriott: for FN, both the Financial Street Ritz and the St. Regis are solid choices; with points, there are quite a few options
  • FHR: picking hotels in the $200-$300 range can offer very good overall value and earning opportunities; of course, high rollers can choose whatever they want