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At AwardWallet, we preach the importance of diversifying your points and miles. If you're loyal to just one loyalty program, you're vulnerable if that program devalues its points or doesn't have availability for a particular trip.
However, having a diversified portfolio can be a headache when it comes to booking a trip. It's a hassle to have to search a half-dozen airline or hotel sites and compare rates with average redemption values to figure out the best deal.
A slew of flight award price aggregators — from Point.Me to Roame.Travel — have popped up in the past few years. But, award travelers don't have as many options for hotel searches, especially with the shutdown of tools like AwardMapper.
Enter AwardWallet's hotel research tool. This tool shows which hotels AwardWallet users have received the most (and least) value from their hotel points. Here's how this tool works.
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Page Contents
How the AwardWallet Hotel Research Tool Works
The AwardWallet hotel research tool is based on award bookings made by AwardWallet users. On the landing page, you'll see the five properties where AwardWallet users have gotten the best value for each supported program.
The average points price is the average of all stays tracked through AwardWallet for that property. And the average cash price is the comparable cash rate for that booking at the time the booking was added to AwardWallet.
Using the AwardWallet Hotel Research Tool for your travels
While the best properties for each program may be interesting, the real value in this tool is in finding what properties are bookable using points for a particular destination.
Just enter a destination into the field at the top of the hotel research tool. By doing so, you can see where AwardWallet users have gotten the most value when redeeming their points across all supported programs.
You can also enter a country if you want to search a broader region.
If a listing is colored green, it indicates that the property has provided better-than-average redemption rates. Meanwhile, hotels listed in blue have historically lagged the loyalty program's average.
Supported programs
The AwardWallet Hotel Research Tool currently supports bookings for the following loyalty programs, and the above/below average values are based on the following average redemption rates:
- Hilton Honors: 0.59¢
- IHG One Rewards: 0.68¢
- Marriott Bonvoy: 0.93¢
- World of Hyatt: 2.19¢
- Choice Privileges: 1.26¢
- Wyndham Rewards: 1.35¢
Related: How Much Do AwardWallet Members Actually Save When Redeeming Points?
Caveats
The AwardWallet Hotel Research Tool is best used as a starting point for your hotel booking search.
Note that the award and cash rates listed may differ significantly from what you might find when searching the same property. AwardWallet users are savvy about when they use their points, and it only takes a couple of excellent redemptions to skew the results for a particular property.
Plus, most hotel loyalty programs now utilize dynamic award pricing. So, properties that may have offered excellent redemption rates in the past may no longer be as good a deal now.
Also, keep in mind that the AwardWallet hotel research tool doesn't include every points hotel. Instead, it only includes properties for which AwardWallet users have redeemed points and tracked the trip in AwardWallet.
Related: How To Track Your Rewards Using AwardWallet
Finally, the tool may include properties that are no longer bookable through the associated hotel loyalty programs. For example, QO Amsterdam is listed as a top result using IHG One Rewards points in Amsterdam. However, this property is no longer bookable using IHG points.
How I've Used the AwardWallet Hotel Research Tool
I've found the AwardWallet Hotel Research Tool is handy for uncovering some high-value redemptions. For example, I'm planning a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina, this December. So, I plugged Buenos Aires into the search bar and found the following:
While the Howard Johnson Plaza Buenos Aires isn't available for my travel dates, this search led me to find the Howard Johnson Plaza by Wyndham Buenos Aires Florida Street — which has a central location and costs just 7,500 points per night. And checking the property photos, the rooms also look much nicer than what I'd expect from a Howard Johnson.
I ended up booking another hotel for my Buenos Aires stay since I needed to burn the Amex hotel credits on my American Express Platinum Card® and my wife's The Business Platinum Card® from American Express before the end of 2025.
However, I would likely have stayed at the Howard Johnson otherwise. 7,500 points is an excellent rate for a central location in a major city. Plus, it would've only cost me 6,750 points per night after the 10% discount I get as a Wyndham Rewards credit cardholder.
So, next time you need to book a hotel stay, consider checking the AwardWallet hotel research tool. It has become part of my hotel research process, and I've uncovered some interesting options with it in several destinations.
Have you used the AwardWallet hotel research tool? Let us know what you've discovered in the comments below.
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