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Earning airline miles for hotel stays isn’t exactly a new concept but, in most cases, earning airline miles at hotels comes with some degree of sacrifice.
If you book your hotel stay through the likes of PointsHound, Kaligo or Rocketmiles you’ll earn airline miles but, because you’re not booking through the hotel chain directly, you won’t be eligible for any status benefits that may be due to you.
Not only will you not earn status benefits but you’ll also not earn credit towards elite status or earn points in the hotel chain’s rewards program – two things that are often quite important to TFM readers.
Recently, however, I stumbled across a way of earning AAdvantage miles for stays at IHG properties (Holiday Inn, InterContinental, Crowne Plaza etc…), Hilton properties, Choice Hotels and Best Western properties without having to give up any of the perks that come with having status.
The key is the AAdvantage Shopping portal.
All the major US airlines have shopping portals but, for some reason, only American Airlines’ portal offers customers the opportunity to earn miles for clicking through to the hotel sites.
I’ve checked Delta, United, Southwest and even BA but only on American’s portal will you see an option for “hotels & accommodations”:
A few minor players are also included in the list of hoteliers where you’ll earn AAdvantage miles but the main ones are….
- IHG Properties – 3 miles per dollar spent
- Hilton Properties – 2 miles per dollar spent
- Choice Hotels – 3 miles per dollar spent
- Best Western – 1 mile per dollar spent
Don’t make the mistake of trying to use the search function to find IHG properties as you’ll get no results….
…but all the IHG Group hotels are definitely there to be booked:
The reason why this works for travelers like me is because, when you click through the AAdvantage portal, you’re taken to the hotel chain’s home page where you make your booking.
The AAdvantage shopping portal isn’t acting as a third party agent and so you’ll still earn status credit and hotel points on top of the miles that the AAdvantage portal will give you and you’ll get to have all the benefits of any status you may have with the chain.
It’s a win-win!
One Downside
It’s worth noting that there is one thing you’re giving up by clicking thorough the AAdvantage portal before making your hotel reservations – cashback.
Sites like TopCashback.com will offer cashback on hotel bookings and, when their offers are boosted, they can provide better value than what you’ll get by clicking through the AAdvantage portal.
For example…
At the time of writing Topcashback.com is offering 8.5% cashback for bookings made through IHG…
…and 8.5% in cash is worth more than the 3 AAdvantage Miles/dollar you would earn through the AAdvantage portal.
The TopCashback portal works just like the AAdvantage portal so you’d still earn hotel points, status credits etc… so it’s a true like-for-like comparison.
Basically it’s a trade off. Do you want cash or miles?
In this instance I would take the cash as 3 AAdvantage miles are worth around 3.6% cashback to me but, when the cashback bonus drops, that’s when miles become attractive again.
Note: If you haven’t got a TopCashback account you can use my referral link to sign up (you get $5 and I get $5 once you earn at least $5 in cashback…which isn’t hard to do)
Maximize Your Points
Don’t forget to make the most of any credit cards you may have that would earn you even more points when you book.
In the example of an IHG booking I would earn points 3 times over:
- My IHG Mastercard would earn me 5 IHG Rewards Points/dollar spend on the reservation
- I would earn cashback or AAdvantage miles depending on which portal I clicked through
- The hotel would award me IHG Rewards points for my stay
If I didn’t have an appropriate hotel-branded credit card I’d be sure to use a credit card that offers bonus points for spend on travel/hotels (like the Chase Sapphire cards or the Citi ThankYou cards) to male sure that I wasn’t leaving points on the table.
Bottom Line
Credit card sign-ups may be how you get sudden boosts to your points balances but it’s by using portals that you can keep your points balances ticking over. Best of all you should be earning points or cashback for spend you were going to make anyway so everything you earn is a 100% bonus.
