{"id":10121,"date":"2024-08-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=10121"},"modified":"2024-08-13T16:24:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T22:24:40","slug":"tuesday-deep-dive-the-value-of-a-hotel-award-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/13\/tuesday-deep-dive-the-value-of-a-hotel-award-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday Deep Dive: Comparing The Value of a Hotel Award Night"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>EDITOR&#8217;S NOTE: If you&#8217;re viewing this on a platform that doesn&#8217;t properly render the math formulas, <a data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/13\/tuesday-deep-dive-the-value-of-a-hotel-award-night\/\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/13\/tuesday-deep-dive-the-value-of-a-hotel-award-night\/\">pivot to the website for this article<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>When calculating the cash value of points redeemed for a free night at a hotel, a surprising number of blogs ignore the parking fees and resort fees charged by most programs. That disingenuously inflates the value of a hotel point, unless <a href=\"https:\/\/www.frommers.com\/tips\/hotel-news\/how-to-get-out-of-paying-a-hotels-resort-feeit-can-be-done\">you&#8217;re able to talk your way out of a resort fee<\/a> and you can get to the hotel without a vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Fees on Award Stays in Major Programs<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s interlude with a quick refresher on major programs&#8217; rules about fees on award stays:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Hilton: <em>no<\/em> resort fees on points redemptions, but parking charged<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hyatt: <em>no<\/em> resort fees on points redemptions, parking may be charged depending on elite status<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Marriott: resort fees and parking charged<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Choice: resort fees and parking charged<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Best Western: resort fees and parking charged<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>IHG: resort fees and parking charged<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Calculating Cents per Point<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Taken at face value, you&#8217;ve effectively got a cash co-payment on award redemptions in the form of fees with most major loyalty programs, which reduces the value of your points. The naive formula that you&#8217;ll typically see for <em>cpp <\/em>(cents-per-point) is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-katex-display-block katex-eq\" data-katex-display=\"true\"><pre>cpp = \\frac{rate*100}{points}<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>But, the total cash value of your stay is the nightly rate plus fees, not just the nightly rate. And as a result, we ought to include resort fees and parking in that valuation. Let&#8217;s introduce a MEAB reduced comparative value <em>cv<\/em>, which is a reduced overall cents per point that takes fees into account for redemptions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-katex-display-block katex-eq\" data-katex-display=\"true\"><pre>cv_{meab} = \\frac{(rate-fees)*100}{points}<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marriott.com\/en-us\/hotels\/ausjw-jw-marriott-austin\/overview\/?scid=f2ae0541-1279-4f24-b197-a979c79310b0\">JW Marriott <\/a><font color=\"#2271b1\"><span style=\"caret-color: rgb(34, 113, 177);\"><u>Austin<\/u><\/span><\/font> for a concrete example: For a Saturday night, one-night stay in the cheapest room, the cash price next weekend is $235, plus a $25 destination fee, plus a $54 self-park fee. An award night for the same room on the same weekend is 43,000 Bonvoy points. That means we&#8217;re getting a reduced MEAB comparative value (<em>cv)<\/em> of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-katex-display-block katex-eq\" data-katex-display=\"true\"><pre>cv_{meab} = \\frac{(\\$235-\\$25-\\$54)*100}{43,000} = 0.36<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>That works out to a whopping reduced comparative value of 0.36 cents per point, which is bad even by Marriott standards. <em>Side note:<\/em> <em>If you instead booked this Marriott stay via the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal with a Sapphire Reserve, the $25 resort fee would be included in the cash rate and you&#8217;d end up paying 17,333 points and $54 for parking, instead of 40,000 Bonvoy points and $79 in fees. Remember this example when you&#8217;re looking the <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/02\/weekend-news-2\/\">Ultimate Rewards 70% transfer bonus to Bonvoy<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">So What?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking at reduced value comparative calculations lets you compare currencies across different programs in a more genuine and equitable way. The results aren&#8217;t always pretty, but they do make Hyatt and Hilton look better than other programs <em>ceteris paribus<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Happy Tuesday friends!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"317\" height=\"159\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/image-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10126\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/image-5.png 317w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/image-5-300x150.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 317px) 100vw, 317px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Don&#8217;t worry friends, there&#8217;s always something more at MEAB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDITOR&#8217;S NOTE: If you&#8217;re viewing this on a platform that doesn&#8217;t properly render the math formulas, pivot to the website for this article. Introduction When<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-points","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10121"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10135,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10121\/revisions\/10135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}