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Using points for a hotel stay can be a great way to save some money on your next trip, but cash isn’t all that you can save. Given the right circumstances and the right hotel chain, you can also save some points on your next award booking if you book a four- or five-night stay.
Three of the major miles & points hotel programs give their members a fourth or fifth night free when they book a points stay of four or five nights, but the way these free nights work and the way you can access these free nights differs from program to program, and this can be confusing.
What follows should, hopefully, clear things up.
Hilton 5th night free award
Who can access the Hilton 5th night free award?
Hilton’s 5th night free award is only open to elite members of the Hilton Honors program (i.e. Silver, Gold, and Diamond members), but as Silver elite status can be earned with just four 1-night stays and as a variety of credit cards offer Hilton elite status as one of their benefits, a lot of people should still be able to make the most of this option.
How does the Hilton 5th night free award work?
- Hilton’s 5th night free awards only work with standard room bookings. Premium room bookings are excluded.
- The award only works for bookings where the stay is paid for with Hilton Honors points and nothing else. A booking which includes a cash element (i.e. a points + cash booking) or a free night certificate will not trigger the Hilton 5th night free award.
- Only bookings of 5 consecutive nights or more (at the same property) will trigger the 5th night free award.
- You can extend your stay by making a second booking that follows on from your 5th night free booking using cash, points + cash, or a free night award, but none of these payment options can be used as part of a 5th night free booking.
- For eligible bookings, the cost of the 5th night of a stay will show as zero (you will only pay the combined cost of the four nights of a five-night stay) even if the fifth night would otherwise have cost the most points*.
- There is no limit on the number of times a 5th night stay booking can be made in a year, but there’s a cap of 4 free nights per booking (i.e. the award will only trigger on stays of up to 20 nights).
*The importance of this distinction will become clearer when we discuss how Marriott’s equivalent award works.
IHG 4th night free award
Who can access the IHG 4th night free award?
IHG, the group which includes brands such as InterContinental, Kimpton, Crowne Plaza and, amongst others, Holiday Inn and Hotel Indigo, restricts its “4th night free” award to holders of three of its co-branded credit cards:
- The IHG® Rewards Traveler credit card (which comes with a $0 annual fee)
- The IHG® Rewards Premier credit card (which comes with a $99 annual fee)
- The IHG® Rewards Premier Business credit card (which comes with a $99 annual fee)
The legacy IHG® Rewards Select Credit Card (which is no longer open to new applicants) does not offer the 4th night free benefit which is a shame as this is probably the best benefit any of the IHG co-branded cards offers.
How does the IHG 4th night free award work?
As long as you’re eligible (i.e. as long as you have a qualifying co-branded credit card), a four-night booking that’s made entirely with points will automatically trigger this benefit when you go to make a reservation.
- A booking which includes a cash element (excluding resort/destination fees) or a free night certificate will not trigger the 4th night free award. Only bookings made entirely with IHG One Rewards points will trigger a 4th night free award.
- Only bookings of 4 consecutive nights or more (at the same property) will trigger the 4th night free award.
- You can extend your stay by making a second booking that follows on from your 4th night free booking using cash, points + cash, or a free night award, but none of these payment options can be used in a 4th night free booking.
- For eligible bookings, the cost of the 4th night of your selected stay will show as zero (you will only pay the combined cost of the first three nights of a four-night stay) even if the fourth night would otherwise have cost the most points*.
- When searching for a booking that has triggered the 4th night free award, IHG.com will show you the discounted cost per night.
Here, for example, is what you would see if you searched for a 4-night stay at a hotel that ordinarily would cost 120,000 points per night:
Under normal circumstances, 4 nights costs 480,000 points (120,000 points/night) but costs just 360,000 points (90,000 points/night) when the 4th night free award is triggered.
- The free night applies to every 4th night of a stay so, for example, on a stay of 8 nights that is being paid for entirely with points, the 4th night and the 8th night will be free (irrespective of how many points the 4th night and the 8th night would have cost).
- There is no limit to the number of times a IHG 4th night free award can be used on a single stay or in a year.
*The importance of this distinction will become clearer when we discuss how Marriott’s equivalent award works.
Marriott Bonvoy stay 5 nights, pay for 4 award
Who can access Marriott’s stay 5 nights, pay for 4 award?
Anyone who is a member of the Marriott Bonvoy program (join for free here) can enjoy a free night on a stay of 5 nights (or more) with Marriott Bonvoy.
How does Marriott’s stay 5 nights, pay for 4 award work?
- Only standard room bookings of 5 consecutive nights or more (at the same property) will trigger the “stay 5 nights, pay for 4” award.
There are couple of key distinction between how Marriott’s award works and how the Hilton 5th night free award and the IHG 4th night free award work.
- The first distinction is that with IHG and Hilton, the free night is always the 4th or 5th night of the 4- or 5-night booking. With Marriott, it’s always the night with the lowest point redemption rate within the booking.
- The second distinction is that with Marriott, as long as a reservation includes at least 5 nights booked with points, the 5th night free award will trigger even if the reservation includes nights paid for using Free Night Certificates and/or nights paid for with cash.
As an example, a valid booking could look something like this:
- Night 1 – booked with points
- Night 2 – booked with points
- Night 3 – booked with cash
- Night 4 – booked with a Free Night Certificate
- Night 5 – booked with points
- Night 6 – booked with points
- Night 7 – Free night (the cheapest of nights booked with points)
The key thing to remember here is that any nights paid for using Free Night Certificates or using cash will not count towards the 5-nights required to trigger the 5th night free award.
- For reservations of over 5 nights, it will always be the cheapest night that Marriott will rebate.
- There is no limit to the number of times a Marriott “stay 5, pay 4” award can be used on a single stay or in a year, but if a stay triggers 2, 3, 4, or more free nights, it will always be the nights with the lowest point redemption rates within the booking that are rebated.
Note: Be aware that if you want to apply Marriott’s Nightly Upgrade Awards (NUAs) to a 5th night free booking, you will need enough NUAs to cover the entire stay (including any free nights).
Bottom line
Hilton Honors, IHG One Rewards, and Marriott Bonvoy all give travelers the opportunity to enjoy one or more free nights on award bookings of at least 4- or 5-nights, but each program has different rules.
IHG’s 4th night free award is probably the most generous but, at the same time, it’s also the hardest to qualify for given that you have to be a holder of one or more select IHG co-branded credit cards to qualify and given that IHG doesn’t offer a credit card options in most countries.
Marriott’s “stay 5, pay 4” award is the easiest to qualify for (given that all Bonvoy members qualify), but it’s also the least generous of the three awards given that it only rebates the night(s) with the lowest point redemption rate(s) within a booking.
I see Hilton’s offering as a happy medium between the two. It’s not too hard to qualify, there aren’t any particularly onerous restrictions, and if you pick up some “cheap” Hilton Honors points in one of Hilton’s many sales (where points can cost just 0.5 cents each), it’s possible to use the 5th night free award to save a significant amount of money on what would otherwise be some very expensive stays.
What the best use you’ve found for a 4th or 5th night free stay?
