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Back in September, Bilt Rewards launched an in-app hotel award search tool. This tool lets Bilt members search for award space at IHG and Hyatt properties, displaying calendar search results with availability and individual award pricing.
Awayz powers this new function of the Bilt Rewards site. Now that we've had time to play around with this feature, it's worth highlighting how it works, its strengths and weaknesses, and the best way to use this Bilt Rewards tool for finding and booking hotel stays using points.
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What Is Awayz?
Awayz powers the Bilt Rewards hotel search functionality. If you are wondering what Awayz is, the answer is straightforward: It is one of the many websites that have sprung up over the last few years that aim to make searching for airline and hotel award space easier. However, in Awayz's case, it specializes in searching for hotel awards.
The site scrapes the hotel website to find available award space, which it then displays on its website. How long this will last is anyone's guess, as we've recently seen airlines pushing back against ExpertFlyer and even suing Seats.aero. If this trend continues, the pushback may extend to sites like Awayz that rely on scraping hotel websites.
Related: Bilt Rewards Adds In-App, Real-Time Flight Award Search Feature
How To Search for Hotel Award Space With Bilt Rewards
To search for award space with hotels that are Bilt transfer partners, log into your Bilt Rewards account via the website or mobile app. Once there, you will need to do the following:
- Click on the “Rewards” tab.
- Select the “Travel” option from the list, including rideshare, dining, and more.
- Now, you can select the “Hotels” option.
In the hotel section, you can choose either “Bilt Travel Portal” or the “Transfer Partners” tab. Select the partners tab. Bear in mind that you can only search for hotel awards at IHG One Rewards and World of Hyatt properties, as these are Bilt's only hotel transfer partners.
You can now select the property you want and your desired date of stay. Once the site returns the results, you can click on the property name, and it will display a calendar pop-up with the award availability close to your selected date.
Remember, when you conduct your search, you can select to search for IHG or Hyatt properties by clicking on the buttons in the top left corner.
Searching IHG award space
To start, we searched for a stay in London in January 2024. To do so, you select the location and your desired dates. Whether these are your travel dates or a placeholder, it makes no difference.
Our search yielded a list of available properties. At this point, you can click on the property on the left, and a calendar view will pop up, displaying the award availability and pricing over the next 12 months.
If you are after an aspirational redemption and are flexible with your travel times, this is when the tool is handy. While 97,000 points is a substantial amount, if you want to stay at the Intercontinental in London, you can do so on February 25, 2024 for just 71,000 points — massive savings.
The new Bilt hotel award search tool makes it easy to find the night with the lowest possible price.
Related: The Top 14 IHG Hotels Redemptions for Luxury Stays
Searching World of Hyatt award space
Searching for World of Hyatt award space on the Bilt Rewards website or app works exactly like the search for IHG. However, this time, we jumped across the Atlantic and looked for a stay in New York in January 2024.
Again, you get the map view of your destination and property list on the left-hand side. We selected the Park Hyatt New York. Once you click on the property, the calendar availability window will open, and you can scroll through the next several months of availability. Low prices are highlighted in green; high prices are in red.
You can scroll through future months to see when there is award availability or better pricing.
Searching for award space on the World of Hyatt site
The new Bilt tool makes searching the World of Hyatt site for award space a breeze. The main issue with searching the Hyatt site for award space is the lack of a calendar search. For instance, let's search the Hyatt site for a stay at the Park Hyatt New York in January 2024.
You may find availability on your desired date, but the problem arises if you are looking for a different date and want to see the “points calendar” view.
The calendar view does not display the actual award availability; it only shows whether a given day is peak or off-peak and expected pricing for awards — assuming they're available. You then have to select a specific date and click on the “Check Availability” button.
As you can imagine, searching day by day for award space is incredibly time-consuming and frustrating. Searching for the availability on the Bilt site and then heading over to Hyatt to complete your booking can save you a ton of time.
Related: Sweet Spots for World of Hyatt Award Redemptions
Our Take
This new functionality is great news and may even be worth signing up for a Bilt Rewards account to use it. Searching through award space at multiple hotel brands quickly is a powerful tool that can make your travel planning even more efficient and lucrative. If you are planning to visit a specific city, you can rapidly compare your cost and award availability, quickly working out which is the best deal for you.
Unfortunately, you can only see Bilt transfer partners (World of Hyatt and IHG One Rewards) when using the version of Awayz that's available for free through the Bilt website and app. If you want to also see results from other programs, you'll need to head to the Awayz website or try another tool such as MaxMyPoint.
What do you think of this search functionality with Bilt Rewards? Have you used it to book any stays? Let us know in the comments below.
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