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While the perks and benefits of elite tiers play a prominent role in loyalty programs, ultimately, what determines a program’s value is the different ways you can redeem points, and how difficult they are to accumulate. A significant part of that equation is the cent-per-point value of those rewards.
Here we'll focus on the value of points for luxury hotel redemptions, the aspirational hotels that drive and motivate a large portion of the points and miles community to pursue this hobby. Our intent is to put together a series showing the value of loyalty points across a range of redemption options and tiers.
Why Paris as the comparison city? Paris is one of the hubs of luxury travel, a destination for art, romance, fantastic food, and some of the best shopping on the planet. It also has a huge footprint of luxury hotels, spread fairly evenly across different brands.
To keep an even playing field:
- All hotels priced during peak season in Paris 3 months in advance
- Price comparison using the lowest flexible room rate, taking into account any loyalty program discount
- All prices converted to US dollars
Booking Luxury Hotels in Paris Using Points
Hilton
- Hilton Paris La Defense – $449 per night or 60,000 Honors points @ $0.0075 per point
- Hilton Paris Opera – $448 per night or 140,777 Honors points @ $0.0032 per point
Marriott
- Paris Marriott Champs Elysees Hotel – $817.59 per night or 60,000 Rewards points @ $0.0136 per point
- Renaissance Paris Vendôme Hotel – $663.22 per night or 50,000 Rewards points @ $0.00133 per point
IHG
- Intercontinental Paris, Le Grand – $676.61 per night or 70,000 IHG Rewards points @ $0.0097 per point
- Holiday Inn Paris, Elysées – $448.69 per night or 40,000 IHG Rewards points @ $0.0112 per point
Hyatt
- Park Hyatt Paris, Vendome – $991.00 per night or 30,000 WoH points @ $0.0332 per point
- Hôtel du Louvre – $771.00 per night or 20,000 WoH points @ $0.0385 per point
If you’re looking to book at the top end of town in Paris, Hyatt offers the best cent-per-point value for luxury hotels.
Taking these results at face value, the cent-per-point value of Hilton redemptions should be raising eyebrows. But what these numbers don’t factor in is how easy Hilton Honors points are to accumulate. Compared to Hyatt, Hilton offers a broader selection of co-branded credit cards, with higher welcome bonuses and comparatively high points earning capacity when using a card like The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card.
Booking Other Luxury Destinations Using Points
Moving out to other cities we consider luxury destinations showed similar results, with the exception being Tahiti and the famous bungalows of Bora Bora, where the value crown goes to IHG.
Sydney, Australia:
- Hilton – $0.0049 per point
- Marriott – $0.0092 per point
- Hyatt – $0.0241 per point
- IHG – $0.0045 per point
Bora Bora, Tahiti:
- Hilton – $0.0067 per point
- Marriott – N/A
- Hyatt – N/A
- IHG – $0.0186 per point
Venice, Italy:
- Hilton – $0.0038 per point
- Marriott – $0.0098 per point
- Hyatt – N/A
- IHG – N/A
Final Thoughts
After half a day searching through hotel listings, Hyatt offers top value for points across luxury and aspirational redemptions, however, the global reach of Hilton and Starwood mean their points have greater utility for global travelers.
If you factor in the value of co-brand cards like the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card, and top-tier elite benefits, it's hard to argue against the value of Marriott Rewards if you pursue luxury travel. With over 6,700 hotels spread across the best destinations around the world, there is almost always a high-end Marriott property to stay in offering a decent cent-per-point value for your Marriott points.
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umm with all due respect I think the lesson here is that Marriott stays are worth far more than Hilton because Marriott earns at same rate but points are worth 3x more. Also that you would be a fool to use your Marriott Hilton and IHG credit cards for anything after initial signup bonus because SPG and Hyatt earn at same rate but are worth far more on redemption. Hilton is a garbage program that only makes sense if you are forced to stay in hiltons and don’t mind redeeming at budget properties.
Thanks for your comment and take on the programs.
Not clear why you would use a non-standard redemption for Hilton Paris Opera. You are comparing a redemption that you cannot even get with most other programs. Very questionable methodology.
We wanted to keep consistent with the exact dates across the board. Yes, there is value with the fact that Hilton will let you get this redemption, however there are other programs that’ll allow premium/high-end redemptions when a standard award isn’t available as well.