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Episode 2: A new Avios option, Hilton enhancements & stacking Hilton against Hyatt
466 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we talk about a new credit card option from a lesser-known bank, a Virgin Atlantic transfer bonus, issues with a popular gift card website, and updates to the Hilton Honors program. We then have a face off between Hilton Diamond elite status and Hyatt Globalist elite status to help you decide where you'll get the best return on your status investment. We then wrap up with woes of hunting for premium cabin T-PAC and T-ATL award space over the summer months.
Show references:
https://waitlist.cardless.com/qatar-airways
https://loyaltylobby.com/2024/04/18/conrad-new-york-midtown-exits-hilton-system-on-june-4-2024/
https://frequentmiler.com/fantastic-updates-about-hiltons-integration-of-slh/
Intro / Outro Music Credits:
"Vibing Over Venus"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Points Project
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Points Project with your hosts Christoph and Raymond.
00:00:16
Speaker
Good morning, Raymond. How are you doing? Hey, Christophe. I'm doing well, man. It's a Saturday morning and just excited to record about some of the topics we have. And yeah, so how are you doing, man? Anything going on with you lately?
Travel Experiences and Strategies
00:00:29
Speaker
Oh, yes, I'm pretty good. Family travels and family obligations. But yes, lots of miles and points involved nevertheless. Well, we have a full roster here on topics today. So let's dive right in, shall we?
00:00:40
Speaker
There's a new Qatar Airways credit card by a maybe unknown bank by the name of Cardless. So another card to help supplement your AVIOS addiction. So Cardless, if you're not super familiar with Cardless as a bank, they're kind of like a, I don't know if you would call them a mid tier bank or a third tier bank or just a random bank from the middle of nowhere. But they're introducing a Qatar Airways AVIOS credit card. And so there's a new waitlist page where you can put your name on the waitlist.
00:01:10
Speaker
And apparently there will be a sign on bonus if you open a credit card, but also in addition, they're going to offer an additional 10,000 Qatar Avios bonus miles in addition to whatever that sign up bonus will be.
Cardless Credit Cards Discussion
00:01:23
Speaker
For me, I like that, that you can go ahead and put your name on this wait list and let's see what the actual bonus will be. There's no real harm in signing up and figuring out if you want to apply later.
00:01:34
Speaker
But yeah, Cardless is this weird bank where they had random credit cards with funny or interesting bonus spending categories. I remember that maybe two or three years ago, they offered a Manchester United credit card. And then they also had this weird Boston Celtics credit card. So you might be wondering, okay, I've never heard of this bank. And then they have these random like European soccer team and random co-branded partnership with the Boston Celtics.
00:02:00
Speaker
Um, yeah, I, I, I just remember that they had interesting bonus spending categories and I'm wondering if, you know, if that past practice is going to be a predictor of future behavior on how they, uh, encourage spending on this new Qatar Airways credit garden.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, one thing that always comes to mind when I think of, well, second or maybe third tier credit card issuers is that usually these credit card programs change around quite a bit. On the other hand, well, they may not have that much experience. So sometimes when the cards come out initially, they have pretty good spending categories. I remember some of these cards, even like the Boston card had something like seven X on certain categories. And why initially the points were worth
00:02:44
Speaker
You know, different amounts across different issues, they unified them. And so I know that some people were very excited about having that card for a while until, of course, the whole program was kind of shut down and devalued. But for a short period of time, this card was pretty well-liked in the mouse and point space.
00:03:03
Speaker
That said, a short time usually means something like three to six months. So it's certainly not the same as getting, say, a new aeroplane card. But I'm pretty sure that this AVOS card has potential. We'll find out when it comes out, putting the name on the waitlist, that doesn't really hurt. Worst case, you can also use a throwaway email, so it's not really gonna clog your inbox sooner or later.
Speculations on New Credit Card Features
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah. Knowing cardless, they're probably going to offer five X on, I don't know, like when the guitar national soccer team plays, they're going to offer five X on those game days. And then for, you know, this is a card that's probably going to be offered to the U S market. So we're going to have to do some, you know, some time zone calculations on when we need to make sure we're spending money on, I don't know, ride share or restaurant spend.
00:03:49
Speaker
It's going to be a fun card to see what happens. I'm going to put this into my future category of cards. Let's see what happens when it comes out and if I can do something.
00:04:04
Speaker
you know, an Apparama, as we call it in this hobby. Maybe I'll throw this card in. Just depending on, you know, all of the different characteristics of the card, you know, it'll be more or less interesting in the future. But yeah, go ahead and check the link in the show notes and get on that wait list because there's absolutely no downside to seeing
00:04:24
Speaker
what this card might help out.
Qatar Airways Avios Program Insights
00:04:27
Speaker
I recently flew Q-suites in February on our honeymoon and we were able to pay for that entire honeymoon round trip with Guitar Airways Avios. Do you like the Avios program at all?
00:04:56
Speaker
Magnificent, right? It's 75,000 miles, even with a connection from the U.S. to essentially the other side of the world. So that worked really, really well. We had the other part of the connection around the world, so to say, with Singapore.
00:05:02
Speaker
What are your thoughts on using those miles?
00:05:12
Speaker
And certainly while Singapore is a great program and has great metal and great service, I think Qsuites steps it up a notch. So it's definitely worth it. And I'm actually very happy that there is now multiple options to book Qsuites. And of course Qatar has a tendency to offer more award availability to their own elites.
00:05:33
Speaker
So that makes it even more desirable because the space they watch space from say the US west coast to Qatar or that whole region is very, very hard to get. And so now if you have the Avios and you have them with Qatar, then that of course adds more capacity and just more potential to make a great trip happen. And Qsuites is always a nice anchor to have very great service and very good product as well.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, I would support that notion that Qatar Airways gives, it seems to give more award space to their own members. When I was planning our honeymoon to also the Maldives, we just went last February. We were looking with a lot of different currencies. I was looking with Asia miles. I don't any longer have an American Airlines account for a reason we can get into another time. What turned out to save the day was the program's own airline miles, the Avios program.
00:06:29
Speaker
And so I'm really glad that Qatar, I don't know how that all worked out. Was Qatar bought by British Airways or did they just decide to partner up? But they luckily said, we're going to use a similar currency. And so I was able to transfer a bunch of Iberia avios that I had lying around plus my British Airways avios.
00:06:46
Speaker
flying around into my guitar account. And we were able to find really kind of the perfect itinerary to do a five day Maldives trip. And that ended up being our honeymoon and we were able to fly Q-suites for 85,000 points per person. So it's not that 75,000 rate that American Airlines offers, but I also was able to book space that wasn't available to American, or at least I wasn't seeing it when I was looking. So I think anytime another credit card comes out where it increases your capacity to earn a specific type of airline mile,
00:07:16
Speaker
that's always something that is appreciated.
00:07:20
Speaker
I mean, there's also just the sheer flexibility of the AVIUS program. One is while you can move the AVIUS around between British and Iberia, thin air is now part of it as well. And of course, then Qatar. And then the next part is that there are often transfer bonuses. So even if you say this is 85K, which is a little bit more than the 75K from American Airlines, American Airlines doesn't really do transfer bonuses.
00:07:46
Speaker
but the AVS programs too, right? So we've seen like 30, 40% of the times and this can definitely make a dent. Also, it's very easy to earn transferable currency. Like virtually any program out there that gives you transferable miles transfers to one or more AVO space programs as well.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, I did notice that actually very recently where American Express was offering a transfer bonus. I forgot if it was Iberia or British Airways, but it was one of those two programs. And, you know, if your goal is to go ahead and try to book queue suites, and you can potentially book via the guitar avios program, you know, you could take advantage of the transfer bonus.
00:08:25
Speaker
with one of the programs and just make sure that all of those other accounts on the frequent flyer side, on the Avios program side, make sure that those are all linked together so you can kind of seamlessly transfer points between programs and take advantage of the transfer bonus in one program and then use the points in another program.
00:08:41
Speaker
Any other thoughts on that? Yeah, aviation is nice. The one thing that is a caveat that actually came back to bite me a few months ago is that apparently, depending on the airline, there is a hard cutoff on when you'll get your points back if you cancel the flight. And that seems to be within 24 hours on British Airways. So that way I got to say goodbye to about 50,000 AVUs somewhat recently.
00:09:07
Speaker
Lesson learned. So as with every program, as there is upsides, there is also downsides. So keep that in mind. But overall, I know that Avios is a well-liked program, and I would say with good reason. Yes. Yeah, I am a fan of Avios. It's kind of nice to have another kind of joint currency.
00:09:25
Speaker
So speaking of transfer bonuses, a new exciting transfer bonus has popped up in the Membership Rewards program and we're talking about none other than Virgin Atlantic. So your Amex points, if you transfer them to Virgin Atlantic, they're offering a 30% uplift on transfer points.
00:09:44
Speaker
I actually noticed this when I logged into my Player 2's Amex account, and Virgin Atlantic has always been a program that I haven't been able to use a lot, but when I have used them, I've used them for high leverage redemptions. And one of those redemptions I actually recently had last December, and I think this is one of the holy grills of the Virgin Atlantic program, which is
00:10:06
Speaker
booking first class on ANA from San Francisco to Tokyo. And I think everyone kind of salivates over that specific redemption. So that was also on a 777-300ER with the newly configured the suite.
00:10:21
Speaker
I was very excited to fly this flight and yeah great redemption 72 000 points 200 and you get you know your one-way trip to Japan. Other good uses of this transfer bonus well Virgin Atlantic is partnered with Delta and so often if you can find saver level availability for Delta flights you know that is kind of hard to find and doesn't always show up on the Delta website you may be able to search on the Virgin Atlantic website for
00:10:51
Speaker
a 50,000 Delta flight in their business class to Europe. I think saying that it's hard to find is sugarcoating it. I know there's some services out there that actually help you find Delta 1 availability and that means any availability from anywhere to anywhere else and you can barely feel maybe a page worth of content with this.
00:11:13
Speaker
So yes, you can book some of these unicorn flights with Virgin Atlantic points. And I remember I once booked it, but I would have had position in both directions, both on the leg there and then going from where I arrived, just to have this booking workout. In the end I didn't actually fly, so I'm still, I guess, a virgin when it comes to Delta I in that sense.
00:11:36
Speaker
Still, of course, the ANA Redemptions and some other partners with Virgin Atlantic are very nice. But yeah, it's certainly a program that is a very niche use. When it works out, it's great in terms of redemption. But man, is it hard to find availability on Virgin Atlantic that actually works out.
00:11:54
Speaker
That is very true. You know, being San Francisco based, at least for international flights, you know, I've actually had to sort of open my eyes to the idea of, you know, let's say I did want to go to Japan and San Francisco to Narita or Haneda is not really working out in terms of award availability. One of my friends in this hobby has suggested the idea of flying to Japan via Hawaii. And so you can kind of build in a stop in Hawaii if you wanted.
00:12:21
Speaker
But the real point I'm bringing that up is because Virgin also has really good rates between Hawaii and Tokyo on ANA metal. And the nice thing about that specific routing is that you can fly the A380 with the Honu. I'm not sure if you're an avgeek like me, Kristoff.
00:12:38
Speaker
I love the turtle designs that they have on ANA's A380s. They have, I think, a blue one, an orange one, and a green one. And they're really cute planes, and I'm all about. As you know, I'm a huge fan of the Star Wars ANA livery, and I'm also a huge fan of the Hello Kitty liveries from EVA Airlines.
00:13:00
Speaker
And so, you know, one of my bucket list items is to get on one of the whole new planes, these huge whales of double decker A380 planes. And Virgin Atlantic is actually a very reasonable way to book that. Their rates are pretty competitive. I can't remember off the top of my head what they are, but you're talking maybe in the neighborhood of like 40, 45,000 per person per way in business, and I think maybe 52,000 in first class for an eight hour flight.
00:13:26
Speaker
You know, that would be a really nice redemption. And in addition, Hawaii to Tokyo is somewhat of a less competitive redemption than obviously anywhere in California to Tokyo. So you might get a little bit more lucky in finding availability. So I bring that up just to say that that is a kind of a sweet spot. And then maybe, you know, you're building in a 10 day trip, you know, spend a day in Honolulu, you know, see if you can get some good food while you're there, hit the beach and then continue on your trip to Tokyo.
00:13:55
Speaker
This is the true work redemption mindset. Make it work. Find some really nice niche redemption that you can then talk about and feel good about for the rest of your life. But in order to make it happen, you'll need to stop over and wait for three days. But yeah, I agree. I mean, if I want to just hang around somewhere for two or three days, then definitely Honolulu is a very nice place for this.
Leveraging Gift Cards for Credit Card Bonuses
00:14:18
Speaker
And now that you talk about this, it almost makes me want to transfer more points to Virgin Atlantic again.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, I am seriously thinking about proactively transferring points to Virgin Atlantic just because I mean, ANA is an option. And also, you know, we're looking at the possibility of flying Delta to Europe. I'm not sure as a whole about SkyTeam award availability with Delta and some of their partners, but Delta could be a pretty good option maybe out of Atlanta or maybe out of JFK. We'll see.
00:14:46
Speaker
So next let's get into some spending updates. And I don't know, this is not really a win on spending updates, but I just wanted to go over my experience with trying to get orders through at vanilla gift.com. And I call this nightmares of trying to get past the cancel bot.
00:15:03
Speaker
So, Vanilla Gift's online website. It can be a useful place to generate credit card spend if you're, for example, working on a new credit card sign-on bonus, or if you're trying to hit a high spend target. And the nice thing about vanillagift.com is that they often will put out these fee-free promotional codes, and what that does is it negates a lot of the cost that you usually have with gift card acquisition.
00:15:25
Speaker
It used to be a really good website in the past, but I have just had nothing but nightmares trying to order gift cards from this online website. I think, at least theoretically, the key to getting these orders through will be to try out smaller orders. And then maybe once you have
00:15:42
Speaker
this sort of cadence and or conditioning built up with the cards that you're using on the website. Maybe you'll have some luck, but it does seem to be a black box for me. Just, I can't figure out what is the right key to turn to get these orders through. In case you're interested, these are 411810 bin cards, which might be useful depending on your avenues for liquidation.
00:16:05
Speaker
Christoph, I know you've dabbled a little bit with vanillagift.com. How have you been with getting orders through on this website? For me, it seems to work. I guess I won the lottery, you could say. It's nice to use it for sometimes augmenting larger spent bonuses. There are some cards that give you certain perks if you spend, say, $10,000, $20,000 in a year. Of course, it helps if you're able to get a few thousand through with prepaid cards.
00:16:32
Speaker
Now, the other side is that while vanilla gift is interesting in that way, especially when you have fee free promos, these only really work with some card issues. For example, MX really doesn't like the page, meaning that there's no points or even cash advance fees. Other issues are more lenient, but it really depends.
00:16:54
Speaker
And so getting these prepaid cards can help, sometimes hitting a sign up bonus or again, maybe adding some loyalty points to your AA stash and so on. But yeah, it really depends on whether you have a way of getting rid of these cards in a cheap way. And while they used to be very easy to use, they're not anymore. I guess this is almost reminiscent of Simon and the story there.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like it feels mysteriously like the downtrend of Simon in recent memory. I'm still going to keep trying with this VanillaGift.com. I'm not sure if it's like a specific bank card that I'm using. For me, you know, my play is use these fee free promotional codes and decrease the amount of money I'm spending on gift card acquisition.
00:17:41
Speaker
And I do have a couple clever ways to get rid of these cards at low cost. So it does work for me. It's just a matter of trying to acquire the cards in hand. Usually the only fee that I end up paying on these is just a shipping fee. So it's really, really nice place to check out. I would recommend get on their subscription list if you go on vanillagift.com.
00:18:04
Speaker
At the bottom of the page, you can get on their newsletter. They will send these promotional codes, especially with Mother's Day coming up. They might run another promotion there, probably again for Father's Day and maybe Memorial Day. See, I really thought when I visited the page last time, they mentioned, hey, it's Mother's Day. You should get some prepaid cards for your P2. I thought this was a great idea. I was so excited I sent a screenshot to her and she rolled her eyes. But yes, definitely. So I guess I'm getting some prepaid cards for my P2 here.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, while you're at it, get some for Father's Day. Yeah, might as well, right?
Maximizing Cashback with Synchrony Paypal Mastercard
00:18:39
Speaker
Maybe there's a new fee-free promo code for that. There will be, yes. There's a promo code for everything these days. Speaking of Vanilla Gift, there is another random thing that I recently did. I actually got myself on P2, the Synchrony Paypal Mastercard.
00:18:56
Speaker
So apparently on vanillagift.com you can also buy carts using PayPal. And so that PayPal cart is, you know, buying in itself, not very exciting in the sense that it's like a 2% everywhere cart. But if you spend money via PayPal, then they'll give you 3% back and that's uncapped.
00:19:13
Speaker
meaning if you have any cards that give you more than maybe 3% you use those first, but usually they have limited capacity. And if at that point you still want to keep spending because you have, well, you can get rid of these vanilla gift card prepaid cards still, then yeah, well, 3% is still a very nice margin to get.
00:19:33
Speaker
Of course the downside is that these synchrony cars came with pretty low limits so it sounded like a great idea but yes a few thousand dollars per month is maybe not really gonna make a difference. Maybe after a few months of dedicated use they'll allow me to increase the credit limits there but yes so this was an interesting plan but not sure if it really worked out.
00:19:54
Speaker
but we'll see. It's a long-term game, isn't it? That is definitely a long game. Play right there. Synchrony and PayPal? Oh, man. It sounds like two troubling entities wrapped into one. Actually, three when you throw in. It is absolutely terrible. Yes, exactly. It's like the holy trifecta of a misfortune. Synchrony, bank, PayPal, and vanillagivecard.com.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, that oh man, that's funny All
Changes in Hilton's Hotel Portfolio
00:20:19
Speaker
right. Um, I do have some Hilton news I recently saw on loyalty Lobby that the Conrad New York Midtown is going to be exiting the Hilton system on June 4th of this year Yeah, I know what so I used this place for three very nice redemptions. Anyways, please you've been there three times Kristoff Yes, and I even had my parents and in-laws there as well. Oh, man, you brought the whole family
00:20:46
Speaker
Unfortunately, not while I was staying, but you know, I sent them there. We had some nice redemptions. You know, free night certificates work really well for it. But yes, it's about to be over. The end of an era. Oh, man. That's such a sad day. It almost makes me want to throw a New York City trip in the next six weeks and just to like revenge, redeem some free night certificates at the Midtown Conrad.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, this is such a sad day. I mean, that was literally going to be my next property that I would visit in New York City. Last time I went to New York City, April 2023, we stayed at the Conrad downtown, primarily because of the availability or the lack of availability at the Midtown property. You know, that one is in a much more desirable location right by Times Square.
00:21:30
Speaker
and the downtown property, which we stayed at last time. That one is right by, I guess you could say, you know, the World Trade Center or the New World Trade Center. So it is good if you want to be close to that. But I think if you want to be next to the action, Conrad Midtown is the right one to go to. You can still book Conrad Midtown through the end of the current schedule. And that actually goes past June 4th. Third end of schedule is actually way after that.
00:21:52
Speaker
And so if you'd like to gamble that the hotel will still honor these reservations, you know, go ahead and book those and see what happens. You know, if they do end up canceling them. Okay. Well, you didn't really lose anything. You just get back your points or your free night certificates. It is unknown what elite benefits will still be honored after June 4th. So let's say that they don't cancel your reservation. You're not really sure what you're going to get. And everybody is a diamond elite with Hilton these days. So I don't know. You might have to pay for breakfast at the Conrad bid town.
00:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really jealous though, Christophe. You've been there three times, man. That was my go-to option. Whenever I'm in Big Apple, then of course I have to stay somewhere. And usually the counter-admittance has good availability. And yeah, it's a great place to use up some of the free night certificates.
00:22:39
Speaker
I know they used to be very plentiful. Now this has changed too with the, well, the coming changes in the Hilton business card, which loses the ability to generate free night certificates. Yeah, I mean, plenty of business spent and so I had plenty of these free night certificates to use. And so sometimes when you just go for like a day or two or whatever it takes, then yeah, you burn a free night certificate and you know you have a great place right in the middle of the action, as you say.
00:23:05
Speaker
Kind of missing New York City right about now. So speaking of Hilton, there has been a new development into the Hilton program. And it is. And, you know, me being the Hilton fanboy and Kristoff, you're somewhat of a Hyatt fanboy yourself. We're talking about none other than the small luxury hotels. I guess you could call it a transfer. Is it a transfer out and a transfer in? What do we call this? I don't know. This is like swapping brides or something like this.
00:23:35
Speaker
Yeah, so small luxury hotels is, I guess being merged into the Hilton program and also out of the Hyatt program. And so that is slowly starting to roll into the Hilton program, according to the frequent Mahler article that we're going to include in the show notes.
00:23:53
Speaker
These properties are slowly coming online this year. According to the frequent miler post, you can book small luxury hotels properties using Hilton points and free night certificates. So I'm expecting that a lot of these SLH properties are going to be very expensive. And so the possibility of booking standard rooms with free night certificates is something that I'm really looking into. Are you excited about that? You know, I don't think that there was that option.
00:24:19
Speaker
in the Hyatt program, right? They were just more expensive Hyatt options to book.
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, so I took quite a bit of advantage of small luxury hotels of the world, especially for Euro trips. And so I have some very nice days, some in Rome, some in Paris, some even like in Germany with small luxury hotels. And they were bookable at very reasonable rates, right, with the higher program. Sometimes even got upgrades, a little bit of breakfast, you know, these kinds of things were very, very nice. Over time, then these SLH properties just got
00:24:52
Speaker
more and more expensive to book from the Hyatt site. So at some point it was not that much in terms of savings over just sometimes paying cash. And now that Hyatt integrated with Mr. and Mrs. Smith and apparently the lego of small luxury owners of the world and
00:25:12
Speaker
Hilton, not to be outdone, immediately snatched them up because they know this is a great option. Especially now that they have standard room availability, then they will be bookable with free net certificates. This might actually increase the value of these free net certificates. Again, because any standard room, regardless of what it costs in terms of points, should be bookable with free net certificates.
00:25:36
Speaker
So while maybe there's not as many free night certificates floating around anymore because of the business card changes, those free night certificates that you get from say the Aspire card or the Surpass card, they might actually get quite an increase in value simply because you can now book SLH properties and some of which are like a few thousand dollars per night just with one of these free night sorts. So who knows, maybe the highest fanboy here is gonna
00:26:03
Speaker
switch over more and more to the Hilton site because SLH was a very very nice option especially in Europe.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, come to the dark side. One of us, one of us. Yeah. Do you have cookies? You know, the tin foil hat that I'm wearing right now, something tells me that maybe there was this, you know, term and condition of joining Hilton on the SLH side. And they said, you know, you guys are giving out these free night certificates. If you keep doing that, we're not joining. And so Hilton had caved in and said, okay, Amex, we need to change our earning structure on the business card.
00:26:40
Speaker
The thing is that both Hyatt and Hilton, they still have their independent programs, so Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and then you have SLH now on the Hilton side. But what is IHG going to do? They're going to continue to market their ambassador status, and maybe you'll get free breakfast at a Kimpton. I don't know.
00:27:00
Speaker
Hey, the ambassador status was actually really nice because you could extend your spire or what it was just like diamond status. Diamond status is what it's called now. Yeah, you could just extend that. It was pretty good. Actually, I, well, I didn't extend it this year. Like last year I got the $200 purchased ambassador status. And again, like the IHG ambassador status is not like the Bonvoy or like Marriott ambassador status, which is of course, like again, a different story.
00:27:25
Speaker
But yeah, they give you a few small perks for like $200. Why do you get platinum status? If you have diamond status, they unofficially will extend it if you spend these $200. But more interestingly, you get a, I think a weekend free night certificate or something like this. It's not really as good as the Hilton option. But it means that if you book a cash rate, hotel room, even a suite sometimes,
00:27:50
Speaker
then the second night can be paid for with this certificate. So essentially, well, yes, you spend $200 on getting that status. If you have the right setup, then hey, this can really pay off because sometimes the cash rates on especially hotel suites in intercounties are kind of high. And if you apply it outright and then this free night can be worth, you know, easily more than $200.
Comparing Hotel Loyalty Programs: IHG, Hilton, and Hyatt
00:28:15
Speaker
I guess this whole thing is a little bit like the Virgin Atlantic niche use, but yes, I really wanted to mention it because guess what? If you have the right setup and you have a great redemption, then you'll forever be able to brag about it, what you did back in the days. Once, when all the stars aligned.
00:28:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's great that you're able to do that. I actually forgot that they were still selling that status. I did remember it maybe in like 2017, looking at that and like saying, Hmm, does it make sense to pay 200? And then that was 2017 me thinking, no, it's probably not. And then today I'm like thinking like, 200 doesn't sound like a lot to pay for, you know, status like benefits. And, you know, if that does apply in multiple stays and you do
00:29:00
Speaker
have a quote-unquote demand schedule for staying at multiple IHD properties, then it could make sense.
00:29:06
Speaker
Are there any other benefits other than, I forgot, like what else does Spire or Ambassador, I forget which one it's called now because they have so many different types of elite status. Yeah, I mean, I'm confused too. I think the only other real interesting thing that Ambassador status gives you is that they'll say welcome at an ISG hotel instead of just checking you in. And then you get something like a $20 credit for food. And that's it. You don't get launch access or anything like this, you know, don't,
00:29:35
Speaker
Don't you think you'll get that much for $200? So they say welcome instead of hello. Oh, man. That's funny. All right, we went off on the tangent there. That's OK. So continuing on with the Hilton discussion, I kind of wanted to do a mini deep dive, you could call it, on Hilton versus Hyatt, Hyatt versus Hilton.
00:30:00
Speaker
What are the differences in terms of status requirements and benefits and certificate policies? And so I wanted to go into that because I think, you know, I think we've hit a point in our hobby where you kind of have these two camps of, of a travel hackers, right? You have people who are very into Hyatt and love the overall program and what you can earn with top tier status. And then you have also Hilton.
00:30:25
Speaker
And I think there's also, you know, another cult following there in terms of what the Hilton program is able to offer and for, you know, kind of what cost to get into the program. I think there's like little plays for each. So I wanted to get into that a little bit. So I don't think we're going to go into like, what are the individual statuses within each program? But I kind of wanted to just go into, you know, let's say you have globalist with Hyatt and let's say you have diamond with Hilton.
00:30:51
Speaker
Let's talk about what is the ease or what is the shortcut way of earning that status. So I'll start off with Hilton. So earning Hilton's highest status, which is diamond, it takes 60 knights, but let's face it, who actually stays 60 knights in a Hilton and earns diamond the good old fashioned way when you can earn it outright with the Hilton Aspire card from Amex?
00:31:12
Speaker
So Hilton's highest level status is just one credit card away and the same cannot be said about Hyatt. Hyatt Globalist, Christoph, do you want to explain a little bit about what it takes to earn Hyatt Globalist? Yes, so for Hyatt Globalist you have a similar requirement to Hilton.
00:31:30
Speaker
at least on his face, okay, you need 60 knights and then on the way there, you know, you get some increasing perks, but really the whole Hyatt program is laid out to cater to the highest tier elites. So all the perks that you get on the way to Globalist are, let's say, not really worth it. I know they changed the guest of honor certificate recently, but overall there's no real point in having any status below Globalist on Hyatt.
00:31:55
Speaker
Whereas with Hilton, for example, the gold status alone is already kind of nice because you already get the breakfast benefits. Now, for Hyatt, if you want to earn these nights, there's credit card options. But again, you have to earn them. For Hilton, you just sign up and you get the diamond status.
00:32:11
Speaker
For Hyatt, you have to have high spend either on a personal card or on a business card. Both of them are with Chase. That would mean putting six figures on these cards to add up enough nights. Maybe in combination with organic stays you'll make it to 60 nights. However, in my personal experience,
00:32:31
Speaker
Most people that have had globalists over the past years usually got it through some kind of promotion. There were a number of options, I think, built sometimes in collaboration with specific employers. There was some status match from American Airlines and so on, where you were able to get hired globalists, but without some of these milestone rewards, and we can ignore them for now.
00:32:56
Speaker
But the bottom line is that there were promotions that allow you to shortcut this and essentially get to the global status without going the full 60 nights instead. You get it with like 20 or maybe 30, which is of course much more doable already. And then there's also bonus journeys, right? So maybe it's not just bonus journeys, but I do know that they have the bonus journeys promo where if you stay three nights, right? You get, what is it? 3,000 points back.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, it really changes around. So at least once a year, they'll have a promotion where they say, hey, you get double Elite Knights for first days. So their mattress learning might be an option if you have a cheap hire at the round, especially like a category one. So there's numerous options to game it, but to be honest, the effort is much, much higher, of course, than signing up for just the Aspire card and getting Hilton Diamond status.
00:33:46
Speaker
or for that matter you know playing the same game with bonfire which also offers the platinum status now with just an mx credit card so hi-hat yes more effort i guess you have to play more games to get it as the program is probably still nicer if you're traveling domestically right because you're still guaranteed free breakfast and you know there's various perks in terms of
00:34:07
Speaker
not having to pay any resort fees, even if you have crash stays. But all of this is really mostly a domestic difference. Like if you travel internationally, my personal experience has been that mostly Hilton's and Hyatt's are very similar when you go on international trips with status.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I think my favorite part about having diamond status is not staying at any Hilton in the US. It's primarily because you're treated pretty well overseas and I'm particularly referring to places like the Philippines or in Japan or in Bangkok. I've been treated very well as a Hilton diamond elite. That includes, you know,
00:34:47
Speaker
High up one of the highest rooms in the entire building that includes looking into a standard room But being upgraded not only to that higher room, but also, you know a nice suite And so I'm I primarily enjoy being loyal to Hilton for those overseas stays It is one of my favorite things about you know Just being able to sign up for one credit card have that high status and then being able to really leverage it when you when you go overseas and
00:35:12
Speaker
I think another really important point here is that the coverage in terms of places where you can stay internationally is much higher for Hilton than for Hyatt. If you're traveling domestically, like, yeah, sure. I mean, there's probably a Hyatt or Hilton in most places that you go to, but yeah, internationally, it might be that there is just not.
00:35:32
Speaker
I hired where you want to go and then you will have to pivot to one of the other programs like probably like Mary Bonnoy or Hilton Honors to book award stays. And so I think while it's interesting to contemplate whether Globalist is better or maybe Hilton Diamond is better,
00:35:51
Speaker
It makes maybe a small difference for domestic travel, but if you're traveling internationally, you'll probably need Bonvoy or Hilton Honors anyways if you are planning on award stays. Yeah, I've noticed the Hilton footprint is pretty good overseas, but I think actually maybe it's not part of this specific deep dive, but Marriott seems to always have a hotel somewhere where I need to be. Oftentimes multiple hotels somewhere I'm looking into staying.
00:36:21
Speaker
gets into you know some pretty interesting hotel selecting options and sometimes I find myself with analysis paralysis on where to actually stay for a particular hotel stay. Going back to some of the benefits of the Hilton program there is free night certificates and so you know these are kind of dying their own life support no they're still around it's just I don't have the right cards for them but free night certificate you know
00:36:45
Speaker
I love the free night certificates so much and so I'm really bummed about the Hilton business news recently but that doesn't mean that I haven't been stashing away a bunch of free night certificates to use in the next 12 months. I love that because you know as long as there's standard availability any Hilton doesn't matter if it's 150,000 points per night or 60,000 points per night you know you're still able to use those
00:37:08
Speaker
for something that is going to be basically a flat-out free stay for when you stay. So I'm looking at using these hopefully at the Conrad Tokyo, like I've mentioned probably six or seven times already on this show, and my love for they're by Rito Mojave Ghost, the official fragrance of choice at Conrad Hilton.
00:37:29
Speaker
What are the options for Hyatt as far as free night certificates? I know that they have a category seven, a category one through four. I've even heard of like another type coming. Yes. So technically there are multiple different types of free night certificates. They are usually capped by category. And so that's category one to four, which is almost useless in the US now, might still be kind of interesting internationally.
00:37:55
Speaker
There's a category 1 to 7, which used to be essentially the all-encompassing free night certificate for Hyatt. Of course, in the meantime, this has changed because there's a category 8 and like many, many nice properties that used to be category 7 and now category 8 and out of reach.
00:38:12
Speaker
Recently, with some changes, they introduced the so-called ultimate free night certificate, but that thing requires something like 150 status nights per year. So even the most dedicated gamers, you might be able to get there, but it's probably not worth it. I mean, just book the hotel with regular points and call it a day.
00:38:34
Speaker
There's also, you know, some quasi devaluations where they integrated several all-inclusive hotels or properties in their portfolio. And while they're bookable with points, sometimes these free night certificates don't apply or they only apply to like some of the lower categories. So yes, free night certificates are available with Hyatt, but I wouldn't say they're as big as say the Hilton Free Night certificates, which are very, very easy to use.
00:39:04
Speaker
I'm actually really close to hitting Brand Explorer with my really second highest tier high status of Explorer. I don't know. I haven't had Chase for maybe four years, but somehow I still have Explorer status. But I just need one more stay to hit my Brand Explorer and then I'll have a category one through four. I just don't know when that's actually going to happen. It seems really easy to get at least that with the high program.
00:39:29
Speaker
I mean, Hyatt is really nice to use if you have short stays, right? So like maybe one or two nights, then really say some of the globalist benefits or the way that the points booking system works shine. But when it comes to longer stays like family trips, then suddenly also these things such as fifth night free in Hilton come in, where suddenly the points of other programs become more valuable. So I noticed that when I book trips for, you know, like family stays where you're somewhere for like four or five, six days,
00:39:58
Speaker
then suddenly Hyatt seems relatively expensive sometimes compared to booking with Hilton. And then also, of course, the availability and sometimes the locations are just more limited. But nevertheless, I'm contemplating this very deeply here, but I still have global status and I'm still trying to retain it.
00:40:21
Speaker
Clearly, I appreciate the program. So it's not like that. But I think there's a little bit more nuance to this than just saying, oh, Globalist is so much better than other programs. Yeah, I do agree with you on the nuance comment. I think that if you were to chase status with Hyatt, I think it needs to be a very calculated decision. And that's one of my, I'm not going to say complaints about a lot of travel hackers, but I think there's nothing wrong with chasing status as long as you've done the math.
00:40:50
Speaker
and calculated that it is something for you and that something that, you know, it is not only, you know, breaking even on the cost of chasing status, but also, you know, five fold, at least in my opinion, you know, you're getting your, your, your value back on, on that status, because it does take a lot of work, to be honest.
00:41:08
Speaker
I wonder if actually I'm doing the math here. I guess I just love the game and I love playing and chasing the status there. I think for a higher globalist, I had it for a while. And of course, I got a couple of very nice credentials out of it. Also, these confirmed suite upgrades are definitely a real perk, especially when you're traveling with kids, because you know you need more space. On the other hand, do you really need them? Well, you could have just booked straight into a suite as well. So yeah, the suite upgrade is
00:41:37
Speaker
So to say a perk that you get where you get some uplift on your redemption if you want But I think Hyatt has many many ways to actually get a lot out of the program even if you do not have Globalist and so it's maybe not that calculated. Maybe I'm way more emotional here than I'm likely to admit But yeah, it's certainly a fun game to play and I guess this is why I'm chasing it
00:42:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think one thing about the Hilton program that I really wish that they would implement that Hyatt has is sweet night award upgrades. You know, they don't even play this game with their elites. I really wish that Hilton, you know, if I could say one thing that I would change about the Hilton honors program is
00:42:21
Speaker
I wish they would do something, maybe a higher status for Hilton, higher than diamond. I don't know, maybe you want to call it diamond reserve, diamond preferred, something with a higher loyalty indicator for that customer. And then, you know, provide some benefits that really mean something. And I think, you know, one of the things as a diamond member that I've experienced is
00:42:44
Speaker
Yeah, let's say if I go to a major city, but it's maybe like, let's say the Bangkok or the Manila, you know, large cities, but they're not very expensive or they might be in a third world overall country. You know, I've gotten upgraded there, but I really would like there to be some sort of like formalized policy for sweet night award at, you know, the Conrad Hilton, uh, in Tokyo or Osaka, right? Like I've checked in multiple times at Conrad's and I've never been able to confirm into a suite.
00:43:13
Speaker
You know, usually they're able to pay into, you know, kind of discounted into a suite, but I've never had the ability to just confirm one, even with like emailing the concierge ahead of time before my stay explaining, you know, this is a really important trip for me and I really want it to kick off our trip. Right. You know, it's never worked and I've always had to pay for my upgrades. So I would probably buy into that.
00:43:37
Speaker
talk about being, um, captured by status and held captive, but I would probably buy into, you know, a higher level status than current diamond in its current form. Um, I would, you know, I would like the ability to chase something higher and, um, you know, maybe that'll make me actually, you know, maybe that's the whole point, right? Making you more loyal to a specific program. I think Hilton has some higher ceiling that they could reach to, to get people a little bit more engaged in their program, rather than just, you know, straight up giving their highest elite status just with one credit card.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure that when I think back, I probably engaged in way more horse trading at Hilton properties than I did at Hyatt properties. But yes, I mean, these paid upgrades is just something that's very deeply ingrained in the Hilton program. I know that even menu, randomly book stays, right? Sometimes they'll send you an offer and say, hey,
00:44:26
Speaker
Do you want the presidential suite because nobody else wants it? Here, $15 per night. So this is of course something very specific to Hilton and I guess that's why they will not really give you any guaranteed upgrades from this data site.
00:44:41
Speaker
Yeah, it would have to be something where I'm willing to spend more on their credit card, for example. The benefits that they could potentially include in the future would have to be pretty substantial. They would need to, for sure, sweet night award upgrades. And it can't be one night sweet night award upgrade. It needs to be for the entire stay. I don't like that about the Marriott program.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, one thing. Yeah, exactly. Marry it. Oh, god, the sweetnights. I don't know how many sweetnights I had expire on me. I don't think I ever really used it successfully on an actual suite. I got the premium room or something, but yeah.
00:45:18
Speaker
Let's not dive into Bonvoy here, you know, we're trying to be in a happy place. So yeah, I think if you look at the programs overall, like the higher globalists or like just the higher points program compared to Hilton, I mean, maybe I'm getting philosophical here, but I think the points program seems to be working pretty well for Hilton. So over the last years, you essentially saw
00:45:41
Speaker
Let's say, yes, okay, with COVID we had the devaluation of the breakfast benefit, but other than that, it seems like the program has mostly gained in value if you want. So the weekend free nights just became general free night certificates and now SLH is definitely a win. Overall, while Hilton did away with the actual award chart, many of their properties, they are essentially still available at prices from before going dynamic, right, where you go
00:46:11
Speaker
Say, hey, this is a Waldorf Astoria. It's going to be 120,000 points. Hey, this is a Conrad. It's going to be 95,000 points. So this is still working pretty well, right? And especially with like prices going up everywhere, this has stayed pretty constant with Hilton. And also I've gotten a couple of very, very nice redemptions with Hilton. On the other hand, Hyatt has been really expanding the program, right? So they really try to work on the footprint issue, right? Where now they have like more
00:46:41
Speaker
more properties, all inclusives, you know, acquire, essentially, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But you can see that the award chart that they have is something that they're trying to cling onto, but you see it slipping away. Meaning, yeah, many, many hotels just moved up in categories, sometimes not just like one, but like new two categories. There were some hotels that were category threes, you know, just two years ago that are now category six.
00:47:09
Speaker
So you can tell that the Hyatt points program doesn't really seem to be working out for them. They're trying to cling on to something and you can see it slipping away and they can probably let go of the award chart eventually.
00:47:25
Speaker
But it's interesting to nevertheless observe this and see like Hilton of what program seems to be fine. They're adding value for higher that seems to be going the other way. Well, of course, I still in all fairness want to say that because highness had tries their best to maintain some of the the cornerstones of the program still with, you know, fix the work categories. But you already see the writing on the wall that they're gonna go dynamic eventually.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, I 100% agree with that too, because Hilton, they say they don't have an award chart, but they kind of have a framework of an award chart with their pricing. Hyatt definitely has their award chart, but it's kind of slipping more variable in high season, low season pricing.
00:48:09
Speaker
it has that trend right but they still want to sort of say we have an award chart this is what we publish and maybe Hilton's just like the next they're already at the next step and Hyatt's kind of on that trend and eventually Hyatt might meet Hilton and say okay no more award chart but you can kind of have a pretty good understanding of what value you'll get at these different tiers of hotels and obviously if I could I would also join in on the Hyatt fun but as we know you can't have everything you want
00:48:37
Speaker
All right, let's get into some award travel.
Challenges in Award Travel Planning
00:48:40
Speaker
So I wish I could come on the show today and say, oh man, I've booked the best thing possible, but I really can't. I'm trying to, I guess you could say garden, a really bare bones trip that we're planning for late July this year. And I've been doing a lot of gardening basically from 10 to 11 PM at night as I'm in bed. And I had my laptop right on my lap, laying down. I'm basically looking for flights to get home from Asia.
00:49:06
Speaker
This is a severe case of the points of mouth syndrome. Yeah, I'm sick in bed with a thermometer. So I'm trying to piece together a trip for July. This is supposed to be a trip to Tokyo, followed by a trip from Tokyo down to Saigon and then stay in Saigon for a little bit and then basically get home from Saigon. And so we're flying premium economy on Japan Airlines to Tokyo. So that's one thing to garden. We're flying business class on Vietnam Airlines from Tokyo to Saigon.
00:49:36
Speaker
That one, pretty happy with the booking, but, you know, also looking at other options on where we could potentially go. And then here's the hard one, flying from Saigon back to San Francisco in any premium cabin. And so right now we're booked into Vietnam Airlines economy, which, you know, 14 hours in economy is going to be very rough. That's the big one, right? Is I'm happy with the trip. I'm happy with premium economy to Tokyo. You know, we'll suffer, but really the one I'm trying to figure out is how do we get back from Saigon not sitting down?
00:50:05
Speaker
You know, I want to have at least six hours of horizontal time while we're flying in the air. So yeah, it's so hard right now. Award inventory on, you know, three days of dates in August is almost non-existent. Even using like award search tools like points me, seats arrow, some of these websites, you know,
00:50:27
Speaker
There's not even economy award availability, even if the economy price was like the non-saver price. It's basically non-existent. The best I've actually found to get home from anywhere in Asia is actually via Aeroplan on Air Canada Metal.
00:50:44
Speaker
for 155,000 Air Canada miles, and that's a one-stop from Narita to Vancouver to San Francisco. So that is sort of like an option right now. It's still there. I can book it if I want to, but that also means staying in Tokyo for an entire trip. So 155,000 points for business class for us, that's per person. That actually looks really good when you compare it to a minimum of 200,000 points for business using United Miles.
00:51:13
Speaker
I did actually see, and this requires Japan Airlines mileage bank miles, but 80,000 Japan Airlines miles for Narita to San Francisco. I just don't know how to get those miles. I've contemplated, do I need a Japan Airlines credit card, which I'll slowly build up some points over time. What am I going to do there? Or do I actually transfer Marriott Bonvoy and pretty much use up my entire stash of Marriott Bonvoy points just for two of my flights. There you go. We're back to hotel programs again.
00:51:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think there was a didn't Barclays have a card that transferred to Japan Airlines like for six months or something like that Did they? Oh, maybe I would have to go looking into my archives and look
00:51:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Oh man, summer travel, I mean, especially booking travel over the summer months with awards is terrible, especially when you try to book even in your forehead. Usually then maybe a week or two before suddenly stuff opens up. But yeah, I mean, I looked at some word redemptions as well. And it's just very, very rough. As you say, like sometimes you can't even find the economy flights with points.
00:52:19
Speaker
That's tricky. You have to put down an anchor flight and be willing to, worst case, sit in economy for 14 hours. That's right. And then maybe during the trip, right, a few days ahead, suddenly something opens up and then you change it up. But yeah, that's not for the faint of heart.
00:52:35
Speaker
What flights are you looking for? Do you already have all of your summer plans kind of, quote unquote, anchored and your gardening on top of that? Or what are you doing for summer? Yeah, so actually for me, it's very interesting. We have offspring, so we have to take care of them. We actually don't have too many travel plans ourselves internationally. However, we have a family and just parents and in-laws flying around.
00:53:02
Speaker
And so there is some flights across the Pacific and some flights across the Atlantic. And we want to make sure that they work out. And so sometimes, yeah, I find myself booking things in economy, sometimes even refundable cash fares, just to make sure that, you know, it works out. I try not to tell them about the fact that this is booked in economy right now and then hopefully a few days before the party can finish a business class flight in there.
00:53:28
Speaker
But yes, across the Pacific is very, very rough right now. Maybe a week ahead of time, usually you'll find some availability, say on ANA, if you're going to Japan or other places like Korea or even Mainland China, if you want to go there. Stuff opens up, but it's very hard to find anything, maybe more than a week ahead of time right now.
00:53:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's absolutely correct. For those mainland China flights, I do know, for example, United, out of SFO, they would fly direct to Shanghai, Beijing. I have not seen any award tickets, not even with United Miles on their own metal. And if there was a point during the pandemic where it was like 700,000 United Miles,
00:54:12
Speaker
And I'm not sure what's going on with that entire market, but it's just interesting to see, like, number one, how those flights are being priced. And then two, like, if you look at the seat maps, these are empty. Well, at least when I was looking far out, these were pretty empty seat maps on these flights. And so, you know, the pricing being so high with the planes being empty, it just didn't make sense. And I don't know, I think that there's probably more to it.
00:54:36
Speaker
than meets the eye as far as what's going on with mainline China, you know, flights. It's probably something that, you know, I just thought of this, but like maybe I should go check some of the Chinese carriers and see what those seat maps look like. If you can get past the online interfaces for some of the Chinese carriers' websites, they're very hard to navigate.
00:54:56
Speaker
Yeah, one thing that I found that works pretty well for me is, well, again, put down an anchor flight, even with its economy. It's very nice if you find some that you can book with US-based points programs, you know, say United or maybe American Airlines, or even Delta, if you must.
00:55:13
Speaker
where you can usually refund these tickets for free even on very short notice. So once you have those, they're very nice to just hold the flight and then keep continually searching or, you know, set up alerts with say something like points of me or seats of arrow and hope that something shows up. So yes, be willing to take the economy flight in the worst case, but usually short term something shows up and then you can switch over.
00:55:41
Speaker
Yeah, and that's exactly what we did for our Saigon to San Francisco flight on Vietnam Airlines medal as we booked through Delta Airlines. And I believe the cost was maybe 48,000 points. You know, it's too bad that they don't include that 15% American Express Delta gold, you know, discount with your, with your partner booking. That would have been nice, but.
00:56:04
Speaker
We still do have that flexibility to cancel, but if we have to fly that, at least it's direct on economy and it wasn't really that expensive and cash prices were around 900 one way. So I think two cents per point, I'll still take that as a redemption either way. All right, well, that wraps up our updates on booking a non-existent premium cabin space across the Pacific and the Atlantic. Anything else for you, Christophe?
00:56:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is pretty good. I mean, we had a lot of topics today. So I think this makes a good show. All right. Yep. That sounds good to me too. Thanks everybody for listening to the points project with your hosts, Kristan and Raymond. So long everybody. See you next time.