AwardWallet receives compensation from advertising partners for links on the blog. The opinions expressed here are our own and have not been reviewed, provided, or approved by any bank advertiser. Here's our complete list of Advertisers.
For the past few years, Thrifty Traveler has steadily grown its reputation in the travel world as an excellent resource for scoring low-cost flight deals. Additionally, points and miles award collectors can find great value in the Thrifty Traveler Premium membership, which sends out award flight deals from over 200 airports. As a Premium member, I've received customizable alerts for both cash and points deals and found some fantastic, bookable flight options.
Now, Thrifty Traveler Premium is expanding its alert service with a new add-on feature that provides premium hotel alerts for existing Premium subscribers.
I've spent countless hours browsing online hotel booking calendars, hoping to book a stay at highly sought-after properties. It can be both time-consuming and frustrating. That's why I was excited to try the new Thrifty Traveler Premium Hotel Alerts service.
If you're like me, seeking rare award availability at bucket-list hotels, this service might be just what you need. Here's how it works and how you can start getting hotel alerts as well.
How To Sign Up for Thrifty Traveler Hotel Alerts
Thrifty Traveler does not offer the new hotel alert feature as a stand-alone feature. This means you can only get it by adding on to your current premium membership or signing up for a premium membership and adding on Hotel Alerts.
Currently, Thrifty Traveler Hotel Alerts is priced at $24.99 per year. Thrifty Traveler advertises that those customers who sign up now will lock in this price for as long as they have a subscription — even if the price later goes up for new members.
To add hotel alerts as an existing premium member, I logged into my account and clicked the Hotel Deals tab at the top. New subscribers will be given the option to add hotels when signing up.
After signing up, you will be prompted to set your brand preferences for the alerts. For my settings, I selected all four options: IHG, Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott.
How Thrifty Traveler Hotel Alerts Work
Immediately after signing up for the service, the hotel deals tab revealed previous hotel alerts. I could scroll through these and see what deals had already been sent out. This is a nice feature since it means you can check deals you might have missed in your inbox.
The service aims to find aspirational properties and hard-to-find award space at hotels worldwide. Thrifty Traveler will send alerts when award space opens up and give you all the details you need to book it. At the moment, the Thrifty Traveler Hotel Alerts are only for award bookings, not cash.
As with the flight deals, Thrifty Traveler will email members 1-2 times per week depending on how many and which hotel brands they have chosen. The day after I signed up I received my first alert for the brand new Park Hyatt London — which is opening in October 2024.
What Thrifty Traveler Hotel Alerts Include
In my first hotel alert email from Thrifty Traveler Premium, I found lots of potentially helpful information about booking the award stay. Each alert provides the following information:
- A deal summary: This gives information about the property and the type of rooms available, as well as how many points are needed to book the hotel.
- Dates available: This provides a range of dates with availability. These are not one-off dates, and sometimes wide-open availability.
- Booking tips: This section has information about transferring points and potential status benefits. It even provided useful tips about maximizing credit card benefits such as resort credits or 5th night free benefits.
- Booking instructions: These give detailed instructions about how to book the property.
- Change and cancellation policies
- Sample booking: Here you'll find a screenshot of an actual booking page, with the deal displayed.
Who Might Benefit From Hotel Alerts
Last year, I booked a room on Hyatt points for our family at the Andaz Papagayo in Costa Rica. We enjoyed a fabulous stay that would have cost us nearly $5,000 to book with cash. But the Andaz Papagayo — like many Hyatt sweet spots — is in high demand, so it is often difficult to find award availability. Readers who have a few aspirational properties in mind might want hotel alerts to notify them when this kind of property becomes available so they can snatch up the rare award space.
Want to book one of these amazing properties but don't have enough points with that program? I know many of us are a little hesitant to transfer flexible points to hotel programs. However, these alerts can help you find the deals that might make it worth it. With the information provided by the Thrifty Traveler alert — including how you can transfer points and when you can use from 4th or 5th night free benefits — there are opportunities to get great value from booking one of these coveted properties.
That said, as of now, the service does not allow you to set alerts for any specific property or any specific location. So it may work best for those with flexible travel schedules and those who don't mind letting the deal determine your destination. For those travelers who are less flexible or set on specific destinations or properties, it may not provide as much value.
Bottom Line
Thrifty Traveler Premium recently launched a new Hotel Alerts feature. As it gains traction, more options may be added or expanded. But they've already found several pretty great booking opportunities. For those with some trip planning flexibility, it could be a very useful tool for finding rare availability that otherwise would take a lot of work and luck to find. Personally, I'm excited to see what future deals pop up in my inbox.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.