If you want to maximize your travel rewards, I recommend using cards earning transferable points currencies, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (review), Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (review), and Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card (review). Not only do these cards give you the most flexibility, but they also often have valuable bonus categories on spending.
A reader asked me about the overall value proposition of hotel credit cards for those who are “free agents,” who don’t have elite status with a hotel loyalty program, and aren’t otherwise usually loyal to a hotel group. Is it still worth picking up a hotel credit card, and if so, under what circumstances?
In this post:
Mid-range hotel credit cards largely pay for themselves
Great welcome bonuses aside, in general I think airline credit cards are primarily worth it if you’re at least somewhat loyal to an airline. That’s because these cards often have benefits when flying with a particular airline, but the cards don’t really “pay” for themselves.
What makes hotel credit cards unique is that they can often be worth holding onto even if you don’t spend money on the cards, thanks to the free night certificates and elite status they potentially offer. For example, take the below sub-$100 annual fee hotel credit cards, each of which offers an anniversary free night certificate:
- The $99 IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card (review) and IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card (review) offer a free night certificate on your account anniversary every year, valid at a property costing up to 40,000 points; you can use points to top-off those awards
- The $95 annual fee World of Hyatt Credit Card (review) offers a free night certificate on your account anniversary every year, valid at a Category 1-4 property
- The $95 annual fee Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card (review) offers a free night certificate on your account anniversary every year, valid at a property costing up to 35,000 points; you can use up to 15,000 points to top-off those awards
Obviously hotel free night certificates are most valuable if you have top-tier elite status with a hotel group, since you can get perks like free breakfast and suite upgrades. However, even without that, odds are that if you travel with any frequency, you’ll easily be able to get outsized value on your credit card annual fee with just one free night certificate stay.
With how expensive hotel stays are nowadays, it’s rare to find a hotel in the United States retailing for less than $100 per night. For example, I’m not in any way loyal to IHG, but I’ve used an IHG free night certificate at the Kimpton EPIC Miami, where a cash stay would have cost $270+.
And that’s only the tip of the iceberg with these cards, as they often have plenty of other perks, ranging from elite status, to discounts on award redemptions, and more. Just to give an example of how robust card benefits can be, the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card (review) offers IHG One Rewards Platinum status for as long as you’re a cardmember, a fourth night free on award redemptions, up to $50 in United TravelBank credit each year, and much more.
Premium hotel credit cards can offer next-level perks
As you can see above, I tend to think the sub-$100 annual fee hotel credit cards are sort of the sweet spot, given how little effort is needed to extract outsized value. However, I tend to think the ultra-premium hotel credit cards potentially offer even more value, though also require more effort.
For example, the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (review) has a $550 annual fee, but offers huge perks, including:
- Hilton Honors Diamond status for as long as you have the card
- A Hilton Honors free night award valid for a standard room at a vast majority of Hilton Honors properties in the world
- Up to $400 in annual Hilton resort credits, in the form of a $200 Hilton resort credit every six months
- Up to $200 in annual flight credits, in the form of a $50 flight credit every quarter
Similarly, the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (review) has a $650 annual fee (Rates & Fees), and offers several benefits, including:
- Marriott Bonvoy Platinum status for as long as you have the card
- A Marriott Bonvoy free night award valid for a property costing up to 85,000 points per night; you can top-off these awards with up to 15,000 points
- Up to $300 in annual restaurant credits, in the form of a $25 monthly restaurant credit
While it takes a bit more effort to recoup the annual fees on these cards, it’s also much easier to come out way ahead, especially with the higher tier status, the more valuable free night awards, and more.
The information and associated card details on this page for the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card has been collected independently by OMAAT and has not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Two other reasons to get hotel credit cards
Beyond the actual ongoing perks of having hotel credit cards in the long-run, there are two others reasons that these cards should be no-brainers for most consumers.
First of all, these cards often have huge welcome bonuses, that are are worth close to $1,000, by my valuation of points. That’s a huge upfront reward for picking up a card.
Beyond that, a big part of maximizing credit card rewards is making sure you have a great credit score. Keeping credit cards open in the long-run helps your credit score, by increasing your average age of accounts, lowering your credit utilization, increasing your good payment history, and more.
Obviously most people want to minimize the cost of holding onto credit cards, which means you’ll either want to consider no annual fee cards, or hotel credit cards that offer outsized value just for being a cardmember. I think hotel credit cards are pretty unbeatable for this purpose, given the value they offer.
Bottom line
Even if you’re not loyal to a specific hotel group, I tend to think that hotel credit cards are worth picking up. Assuming you travel with any frequency, you’ll almost certainly end up at a destination where a hotel credit card free night certificate will get you outsized value.
The free night certificate alone should more than justify the annual fee on many mid-range cards, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Hotel credit cards offer plenty of other perks, including elite status.
To those who aren’t loyal to a specific hotel group, do you still see value in hotel credit cards?
The following links will direct you to the rates and fees for mentioned American Express Cards. These include: Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (Rates & Fees).
Between us, P2 and I hold 2x Hyatt, 4x IHG, 2x Marriott, 2x Choice, and one Hilton Surpass. Takes a spreadsheet to track the various points and FNCs, but I also can't remember the last time I paid a hotel for a personal stay.
And no, those FNCs won't get you into luxury properties (well, except the Hilton one), but we travel with small kids, so the typical Hyatt Regency is a-ok with us.
Wish Hyatt would allow a top off like the others. We enjoyed a category 4 on Maryland's Eastern Shore that in the annual changes a couple of years ago changed to category 5. Now most of Hyatt's category 1-4 are unwhelming given the distance we would need to travel to stay in one.
You forgot to mention that free night awards sometimes come with minimum spend requirements. For example the Hilton Surpass requires a $15k minimum spend to unlock it. Not a huge deal for everyone but there is an opportunity cost, it’s not like you get the award just for holding the card.
Of the midrange cards, the Surpass is probably the one that's least interesting for someone who doesn't or isn't going to stay a lot at the respective group. The FNC requiring spend and the main other benefit being a quarterly hotel credit make it a slam dunk for someone who stays at Hilton 3+ quarters a year and questionable for anyone else (which I suspect is why Ben didn't mention it with the others).
If...
Of the midrange cards, the Surpass is probably the one that's least interesting for someone who doesn't or isn't going to stay a lot at the respective group. The FNC requiring spend and the main other benefit being a quarterly hotel credit make it a slam dunk for someone who stays at Hilton 3+ quarters a year and questionable for anyone else (which I suspect is why Ben didn't mention it with the others).
If you can hit the $15k of spend, it's probably best to model the FNC as an extra 60k Honors points, which makes it equivalent to a 7x (3.5%) reward on everyday spend or a 10x (5%) on restaurants/grocery/gas on that first $15k.
Surpass also has $200 in Hilton credits ($50 a quarter) which cover the card AF. Personally I put $15,000 in in bonused category spend on it in January (3x points at .5 cent equals 1.5% which isn’t much less than my Amex Plat/Gold or CSR in those categories). Also I typically put $40,000 a year on it to keep Diamond (close to lifetime but not there yet). Again in unbonused categories. However I spend $200,000-$225,000...
Surpass also has $200 in Hilton credits ($50 a quarter) which cover the card AF. Personally I put $15,000 in in bonused category spend on it in January (3x points at .5 cent equals 1.5% which isn’t much less than my Amex Plat/Gold or CSR in those categories). Also I typically put $40,000 a year on it to keep Diamond (close to lifetime but not there yet). Again in unbonused categories. However I spend $200,000-$225,000 a year on my cards so likely not the average person
PS - I forgot the 400 ENC requirement for Lifetime Gold Elite. So, add in your stays and hold those cards as necessary.
Good article for non-loyalists. Here's a thought. Hold both the Chase Boundless and the Amex Bonvoy Business. As you note, each card's free night certificate covers its annual fee. Holding both (without more) gives a person 15+15=30 Elite Night Credits for Gold Elite, which affords standard-room upgrades and 2pm late check-out. Do that for seven years and a person has Lifetime Gold Elite . . . in a manner that pays for itself. Hope this helps someone.
Do personal cards stack? I thought you had to carry 1 personal and 1 biz for the nights to stack?
no it does not. hence the biz card and personal.
if you have multiple personal marriots, only the highest one with nights should work