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Plenty of hotel credit cards offer bonuses with either free points or a free night certificate, enticing new applicants to apply. Some cards also offer a bonus each year for cardholders who keep their account open and pay the annual fee. Some of these annual perks are automatic, doled out whether you've spent $1 or $1 million on the card in the past 12 months. In comparison, other cards require a certain amount of spending to receive the free night award. Regardless, your additional cost to redeem your free annual night is zero.
Hotel Credit Cards With Free Night Awards
| Credit Card | Annual Bonus | Annual Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card | One Free Night Reward each year on your account anniversary, plus a second Free Night Reward when you spend $60,000 on eligible purchases on your card in a calendar year. While there are some exclusions, almost all of Hilton's massive global portfolio is available for redemption. | $450 |
| Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card | One Free Night Reward when you spend $15,000 on purchases on your card in a calendar year. While there are some exclusions, almost all of Hilton's massive global portfolio is available for redemption. (Terms Apply) | $95 |
| The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card | One Free Night Reward when you spend $15,000 on purchases on your card in a calendar year. While there are some exclusions, almost all of Hilton's massive global portfolio is available for redemption. (Terms Apply) | $95 (Rates & Fees) |
| IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card | One free night at any IHG property worldwide pricing at 40,000 points or less per night. As long as there is a standard room available, you can use this free night. The IHG Free Night Certificate must be booked and redeemed within 12 months from the date of issue. Cardholders can top up their Rewards Night Certificates with points from their account to redeem at properties cost more than 40,000 points. | $99 |
| IHG One Rewards Premier Business Credit Card | One free night at any IHG property worldwide pricing at 40,000 points or less per night. As long as there is a standard room available, you can use this free night. The IHG Free Night Certificate must be booked and redeemed within 12 months from the date of issue. Cardholders can top up their Rewards Night Certificates with points from their account to redeem at properties cost more than 40,000 points. | $99 |
| Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card | 1 Free Night Award (valued up to 35,000 points) every year after account anniversary. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $95 (no longer accepting applications) |
| Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card | Free Night Award up to 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points in value after making $15,000 in purchases per year. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $250 (Rates & Fees) |
| Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card | 1 Free Night Award (valued up to 35,000 points) every year after account anniversary. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $95 |
| Marriott Bonvoy Bountiful™ Card | Free Night Award up to 50,000 Marriott Bonvoy points in value after making $15,000 in purchases per year. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $250 |
| Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card | 1 Free Night Award (valued up to 85,000 points) every year after account renewal month. Cardholders can earn a second 85K free night after making $60K in purchases in a calendar year, thanks to the new Annual Earned Choice Award. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $650 (Rates & Fees) |
| Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card | 1 Free Night Award (valued up to 35,000 points) every year after account anniversary. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $125 - Rates & Fees |
| The Ritz-Carlton™ Credit Card | 1 Free Night Award (valued up to 85,000 points) every year after account anniversary. Cardholders can top up their award with up to 15,000 additional points to redeem at additional hotels. | $450 (no longer open to applications) |
| The World of Hyatt Credit Card | One free night at any Category 1–4 Hyatt hotel or resort every year after your cardmember anniversary, plus, an extra free night at any Category 1–4 Hyatt hotel or resort if you spend $15,000 during your cardmember anniversary year. Book any standard room at a Hyatt Category 1–4 property; certificates must be booked and redeemed within 12 months of being issued. | $95 |
How To Use These Free Annual Nights
The value of these free nights will depend on how you use them. The free night from the IHG One Rewards Premier Card is on par with those offered by Marriott's mid-tier cards and Hyatt's offering. The free night from the Hilton Aspire can be redeemed for much higher value, though, since it doesn't have a cap.
Hilton Honors Free Night Reward
Only the Hilton Aspire offers a free night certificate without a spending requirement. On any day of the week, it's redeemable for a standard room at nearly any Hilton property around the world. Thus, the biggest problem you're likely to face is the number of points required to extend your stay for a second or third night if you redeem this award at a high-end property.
The other Hilton free nights are acquired via different spending requirements, so the biggest barrier to entry is the out-of-pocket expense. Spend requirements start at $15,000 annually to qualify for the certificates. Given that these free nights do not come without some associated effort, we'd encourage you to think aspirational. Perhaps a Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, or high-end Hilton property in New York or San Francisco where rates would easily top $300 per night.
Related: How Does The Hilton Free Night Reward Work?
IHG One Rewards free night
This is a great free night to pair with a significant other or travel buddy to get away for a weekend. While the free night is limited to hotels costing less than 40,000 points per night, that leaves plenty of options within the IHG One Rewards portfolio. Plus, you can top up your Free Night Certificate with points from your account to redeem at properties costing more than 40K points. This feature makes the free nights much more valuable for IHG members.
IHG hotels use dynamic pricing, so the points price at a specific property can vary significantly. The free night certificate must be booked and redeemed within 12 months from the date of issue.
Related: How To Earn and Use IHG Award Night Certificates
Marriott Bonvoy free night
The 35,000-point limitation on the entry-level cards' free night award can make it a challenge if you want to stay in a large city. Our best advice for the 35K certificates is to cash them in at regional centers — or perhaps a high-end Marriott in Southeast Asia. Fortunately, you can add up to 15,000 points to Marriott free night awards, redeeming them for properties that cost more.
Marriott also has free night awards with 25,000 points (more difficult to use), 50,000 points, and up to 85,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. That's enough for a free night in a top Marriott property. The free night goes a long way towards mitigating the higher annual fee on luxury credit cards.
The Marriott Bonvoy Bevy Card and Marriott Bountiful cards both offer certificates redeemable for up to 50,000 points. This middle-of-the-road option is worth knowing about, but remember that you'll only earn these awards from spending on your card.
Related: The Top Hotels for Using Marriott Bonvoy Credit Card Free Nights
World of Hyatt free annual night
Hyatt has off-peak, standard, and peak pricing, so the number of points you'll pay for a hotel stay can vary. Luckily, this doesn't affect your World of Hyatt free night certificate, as you can redeem it for a Category 1–4 property as long as there's a standard room available. Thankfully, Hyatt has some amazing gems that make this free night valuable.
Category 1–4 free nights from Hyatt expire 12 months after you receive them. This is a “stay by” date, not “book by.”
Related: Best Category 1–4 Hotels to Redeem Your World of Hyatt Free Night Awards
Which Is Best?
Your goals will dictate which free night(s) work for you, but we see the free night certificate offered by the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card and the Hilton Aspire offering the most value, due to the types of hotels you can use them at. However, if you're looking for reliability in using your award nights, the World of Hyatt Card is probably your winner.
Which of these free night awards from credit cards is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.
For rates and fees of the cards mentioned in this post, please visit the following links: Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card (Rates & Fees), Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card (Rates & Fees), Marriott Bonvoy Bevy™ American Express® Card (Rates & Fees), and The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card (Rates & Fees)
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.
Well this is not a credit card promotion, I have found the free night you get at hotels.com after staying 10 nights to be a useful perk .
Even with all the changes to the Hyatt program this year, I still do love my Hyatt card and the free anniversary night!
I have had mt IHG Rewards card for a year, and it’s well worth the annual fee for the anniversary night. Pro tip – IHG’s survey for points site is generous and easy!
Honestly the IHG card is a no brainer… easy to get more than 49 dollars worth for that certificate. Most of these credit cards should be worth the AF imo
We used our Marriott free night at an Autograph collection hotel. It was very nice.
Which bank offers the Club Carlson card??
US Bank
Great post! Thanks for posting.
Considering the a IHG for the free night. Some good redemption opportunities
Hard to find decent Club Carlson hotels in the US. I am gifting my points to my husband and maybe we’ll use them near Disneyland. Also I’m finding the Hyatt and Marriott hotels I might want to stay at are above the free night category. I wish I could use points and the free night certificates to upgrade the category!
The IHG card’s free night benefit is definitely the star of the bunch.
I still have the 7 day Marriott pass and want to take my family somewhere great…any recommendations?
Carlson used to be great when they had the BOGO on awards stays, however, they have a big footprint in Europe. IHG is my go to in the US.
Free nights are a great incentive to keep annual fee cards.
Love when you do these blog posts comparing everything and letting us know and see which is best. It really helps to focus on what I’d liked to do for the year. I do track all my point accounts pretty well but with all my options it’s wonderful having someone help now and then to remind me.
I love my Hyatt card and its free night!
Will have to utilize the Marriot free night abroad in a lower category. Thanks for the info.
Aren’t the Citi Reserve applications no longer showing up online?
When this was posted they were still working. As of now, it looks like the app is gone. Hopefully, Citi is refreshing for an update before the end of the year, but who knows.
Hopefully without the 24 month language. I was waiting to apply for the Reserve next year
Citi was great, but it is disappearing unfortunately .
Like everyone else says, the IHG card is amazing. $49 annual fee is a no-brainer for a free night, Platinum status speeds up earning on IHG stays, and the sign-up bonus can easily get you two or there nights at a high (if not top) tier property. Plus spending min. is only $1k. A steal.
Hyatt and SPG are my favourites, although SPG doesn’t have free nights
We got the free IHG and used only 30,000 points for a $300 a night room in DC this weekend. Totally worth it.
IHG points/free nights are the best. Hotel’s from basic to rather lux all over and redemption is easy!
I’ve so far looked pretty skeptically at these one-night-free offers — I feel like I’d get tempted to stay two or three nights, eating away at the value by using that as justification to stay somewhere more expensive than I’d otherwise choose.
I generally combine the free night with a couple of nights using points. Benefit of the free night cert is that it does not get devalued when the program (inevitably) increases the redemption level for award nights.
While free nights certificates as an annual incentive to a card are nice, I wish it was annual points (that can be used toward a free night) instead. With an annual free night certificates, I always worry about being able to find time to get away and use it. And if I don’t use it, I feel like I’m missing out on the benefit, whereas if the points just get deposited into my account, I can use them at my leisure and I don’t feel crunched for time.
Oh well, I suppose the lesson here is that I need to work less 🙂 and obviously an annual benefit is better than no annual benefit.
the Hilton Honors Surpass card from AMEX earns you a Free Weekend night on your anniversary date of Card approval.
Harry, this is only for certain card applicants and is just for the first year. A great perk, but it is limited to who will actually receive it.
I’m glad that the Marriott one is now good for a year instead of expiring in 6 months.
They will extend the expiration if you ask nicely. 😉
This is great! If I can pair some of these cards with my AA miles, I can basically go on vacation for free or very cheap! Sounds great to me and a win win.
I often forget about the free night certificate at hotels. I’m booking at the Marriott right now to use it! Thanks!
Hyatt Card is the best deal going…Scored two free nights at the Andaz Tokyo and every year a category 4 hotel room for the $99 annual fee…get this card it is a no brainer
Can i use IHG® Rewards Club Select Credit Card for stay at high priced hotels in time square or vegas ?
Any IHG property.
I love the IHG Rewards Select Credit Card. Stayed in Moab, Utah this year using my free night certificate. The room was priced at over $200.
The IHG Rewards card is by far my favorite! It has def come on handy!
IHG far and away the best deal here.
My Wyndham Rewards Visa gives me 15,000 points on each account anniversary, which is good for a free night at any Wyndham brand hotel.
Nice! I think they’ve since changed it to only 6,000 points so good on you!