I Bought Hotel Points

Tl;dr: Sometimes it makes sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I travel and need to book a hotel, I really like to maximize my points earning, and there’s quite a few options to do so, like hotel credit cards, shopping portals, credit card portals, and merchant offers. And if those don’t work, you can find a cheap place via something like HotelSlash or Airbnb. 

For my most recent stay, none of the above did the trick. I had to spend 6 nights in DC during what was apparently a pretty high-demand time in August (God knows why, with that humidity). Nothing reasonably close to transit seemed to be available under $750. Even with all the rewards I could get, that would be well over $600, and way more than I want to pay to sleep for a few nights. 

So I bit the bullet and bought Hyatt points. This is generally a bad idea: points aren’t usually sold at a good price, their value might drop before you can use them, and you lose out on all the points you could earn by spending your cash on the stay rather than the points.

In this case, though, there was a 25% off sale, and I was able to buy 30,000 points for $540. Those turned directly into a 6-night stay at a nice Hyatt Place just steps from the metro (a godsend in the aforementioned humidity) that was charging $120+ per night. 

So by buying points, I saved over $200 compared to the price of that particular hotel, and probably at least $100-150 compared to what I probably would have chosen if I absolutely had to pay cash somewhere. Sure, paying cash probably could have netted $25-75 in rewards, but sometimes it’s better to just keep as much cash in your bank account as possible, and I still came out ahead even with those rewards factored in (I did still get 2 Capital One miles per dollar spent on the points with my Venture X). 

So the next time you’re having trouble finding a decent price on a hotel, don’t forget about the points-buying route. It might be your best bet.