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While only three of the major airlines are offering mileage sales worth considering this Black Friday, the hotel chains appear to be making more of an effort. With the exception of Hilton, all the major hotel loyalty programs are running points sales right now and most are well worth a closer look.
Here’s what’s on offer right now:
Choice Privileges
The offer:
- Buy 1,000 – 4,000 points, get no bonus
- Buy 5,000 – 250,000 miles, get a 40% bonus
Headline terms:
- 40% bonus offer applies to purchases of 5,000 points or more.
- Transactions must be completed by 11:59 p.m. EST December 05, 2019 to be eligible for this bonus on points.
- Offer may not be valid for all members.
- Members may normally buy or receive up to a total of 120,000 points in a calendar year; during the term of this promotion, that limit is raised to 250,000 points.
Full terms are available on the sale page.
Cost of points:
- The minimum number of points needed to ensure purchases are made at the cheapest price is 10,000.
- The cheapest cost per point is ~0.707 cents.
Quick thoughts:
- The best deal we usually see Choice Privileges offer is a 50% bonus but that’s both a rare bonus to see and it’s usually targeted. That makes this 40% a pretty good deal if you’re in need of Choice points.
- There are just 7 days left of this sale (including today) so don’t take too long to decide if this deal will work for you or you may just miss out.
- Choice has extended the number of points you can buy in a year to a massive 250,000 points (excluding bonuses) so it’s easy to buy enough points in this sale for a pretty nice trip.
- The best uses of Choice points is usually for stays in Europe and parts of Asia where quite a few of the chain’s properties are of a higher standard than the ones we see here in the US…so do your research before buying points.
The World of Hyatt
The offer:
- Buy 1,000 – 4,000 points, get no bonus
- Buy 5,000 – 55,000 miles, get a 40% bonus
Headline terms:
- Offer available with purchases made by 11:59 pm December 31, 2019.
- In order to participate in a purchase transaction, you must be a member for at least 60 days to purchase or receive Bonus Points.
- Bonus Points can be purchased in increments of 1,000, up to 55,000 points per calendar year. Members can receive points in increments of 1,000, up to 55,000 points per calendar year.
- Additional Bonus Points awarded under this offer do not count towards these maximums.
Full terms are available on the sale page.
Cost of points:
- The minimum number of points needed to ensure purchases are made at the cheapest price is 5,000.
- The cheapest cost per point is ~1.71 cents.
Quick thoughts:
- This is Hyatt’s best points sale as this is the cheapest rate at which Hyatt generally sells its currency – if you need/want Hyatt points then this is the time to buy them.
- A big positive aspect of this sale is that you’ll be buying points at the cheapest available rate whether you buy 5,000 points or 55,000 points so you’re not penalized if you only buy a small number of points to top up an account or to prevent points from expiring.
- At 1.71 cents per point the best use for points purchased in this sale will probably be for award bookings at mid-tier properties (e.g Andaz Wall St) during busier times or possibly to add on another night to an existing reservation at one of the expensive top-tier properties (e.g Park Hyatt New York).
IHG Rewards
The offer:
- Buy 1,000 – 24,000 points, get no bonus
- Buy 25,000 – 250,000 miles, get a 100% bonus
Headline terms:
- Offer available for purchases made by 11:59 PM Dec 30, 2019.
- Members may purchase a maximum of 250,000 points per calendar year and receive as a gift a maximum of 250,000 points per calendar year.
- Bonus points do not count towards the annual limit.
Full terms are available on the sale page.
Cost of points:
- The minimum number of points needed to ensure purchases are made at the cheapest price is 26,000 (not 25,000).
- The cheapest cost per point is 0.5 cents.
Quick thoughts:
- 0.5 cents/point is the lowest official rate at which we see IHG Rewards points being offered.
- With IHG increasing the annual purchasing limit to 250,000 points it’s now possible to buy an incredible 500,000 points in this sale – that enough for a week at just about every top-tier IHG property in the world.
- Be aware that IHG Rewards enjoys a good devaluation and I fully expect the cost of an award night to increase at a lot of popular properties in January 2020 – keep this in mind when making plans and when deciding whether or not to buy points in this sale.
- Don’t forget that if you hold the card_name (annual_fees/year) or the card_name (annual_fees/year) you get the 4th night free on all award bookings.
Click To Buy IHG One Rewards Points
Marriott Bonvoy
The offer:
- Buy 1,000 points, get no discount
- Buy 2,000 – 50,000 points, get a 30% discount
Headline terms:
- Transactions must be completed by 11:59 PM ET December 22, 2019 to be eligible for the discount of 30% with a minimum purchase of 2,000 points.
- A member may purchase or receive as a gift from another member a combined maximum of 100,000 points during the promotional period only.
- Points that have been already purchased or received as a gift in 2019 are included in the 100,000 points limit.
- Promotional discount purchase rate is 30% off the regular purchase rate of 12.50 (USD) per 1,000 points.
- A new member may purchase points thirty (30) days after enrollment if their Marriott Bonvoy account reflects qualifying activity as described in the Marriott Bonvoy Program Rules. After ninety (90) days from enrollment, a new member is eligible to purchase points regardless of their account activity.
Full terms are available on the sale page.
Cost of points:
- The minimum number of points needed to ensure purchases are made at the cheapest price is 2,000.
- The cheapest cost per point is 0.875 cents.
Quick thoughts:
- With a maximum of 50,000 points available for purchase, this sale is mostly only going to be good for topping up accounts or for booking a 1-night award at a mid-tier property during busier times.
- At a cost of 0.875 cents per point, it’s unlikely that buying points in this sale to book a regular award night will be economical – at most properties the cash rates will probably be cheaper than the cost of the points.
- One piece of good news here is that anyone whose Marriott Bonvoy points are dangerously close to expiring can purchase 2,000 more points for just $17.50 and extend the expiration date of their whole balance for another 2 years.
- Marriott points can be transferred to numerous airline loyalty programs at a rate of 3:1 (with a 5,000 miles bonus being added when transferring over 60,000 points) so if you need to top up an airline loyalty account buying points in this sale and then transferring them across may be a good idea (do the math to check if it works for you).
Radisson Rewards
The offer:
- Buy 1,000 – 4,000 points, get no bonus
- Buy 5,000 – 80,000 points, get a 100% bonus
Headline terms:
- This offer applies to points purchased by December 3, 2019 only.
- Radisson Rewards members will receive a point bonus equal to 100% for purchases from 5,000 to 80,000 points.
- Bonus points will not be applied to the yearly 80,000-point purchase maximum.
Full terms are available on the sale page.
Cost of points:
- The minimum number of points needed to ensure purchases are made at the cheapest price is 5,000.
- The cheapest cost per point is 0.35 cents.
Quick thoughts:
- With a 100% bonus on offer, this is the best deal that we generally see Radisson Rewards offering… and it’s not a bad deal at all.
- A top-tier Radisson property costs 70,000 points and buying enough points in this sale to book such a property will cost $245 – when considering how much some of Radisson’s top-tier properties cost (especially in Europe) this can be an excellent deal.
- Be aware that it has been a few years since we saw Radisson significantly increase the cost of an award night at its more aspirational properties so with a new year just around the corner, it’s entirely possible that a devaluation will hit in January – if you’re going to buy points in this sale I suggest making any bookings you plan on making sooner rather than later.
Bottom line
The Hyatt and Radisson sales are the ones that tempt me the most as it’s relatively easy to get very good value out of both.
The IHG Rewards sale isn’t selling points any cheaper than we’re used to seeing them sold on a pretty frequent basis, but the fact that you can currently buy up to half a million points is definitely notable. If you can stack any points you buy with one or more free nights from the IHG credit cards and book your trip before the near-inevitable devaluation in January, you’ll probably get a very nice deal.
Choice Privileges is the more niche off all the programs I’ve mentioned here so it will probably appeal to the smallest number of readers but it can still offer quite a bit of value. If you’re planning a trip to Europe or Asia it may be worth your while checking out what properties Choice is offering at your chosen destination and seeing if a points purchase can save you some cash.
Lastly, we come to Marriott. This Bonvoy points sale isn’t really very tempting at all so it will probably only be of use to those looking to keep their existing balances alive – it’s another disappointing offering from a hotelier which increasingly looks like it doesn’t feel the need to engage its loyalty program members at all.
Click To Buy Choice Points Click to Buy Hyatt Points
Click To Buy IHG One Rewards Points
Click To Buy Marriott Points Click To Buy Radisson Points
