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I’m a huge advocate of using credit card transfer partners, and while it USUALLY means a far better value, it shouldn’t be your default position. Case in point. I’m looking to travel through Doha in the beginning of April, and am considering a variety of hotels from Marriott, Hyatt, and IHG. In checking my options I wanted to weight out the pros and cons of whether it would make more sense to pay outright and book with Virtuoso/Amex FHR benefits or transfer into one of the hotel loyalty programs.
Let’s look at Sharq Village, a Ritz Carlton hotel.
If I were to book via Marriott and use points…it would set me back 35k points. I could populate my Bonvoy account from either Chase or Amex.
However, Sharq Village is also part of the Amex FHR program. Only 31,460
Not only does this hotel represent a savings in points needed to book the room, but I will also enjoy all of the benefits of FHR. In fact, the FHR benefits provide $150 worth of value per room.
- Early Noon Check-in and 4pm late checkout
- Room Upgrade when available
- Daily Breakfast for two people ( I’m valuing at roughly $50 )
- $100 food and beverage credit per room
Will you get hotel loyalty points and elite nights as well? You should.
In the past FHR would earn you status nights and loyalty points in addition to Amex points for the stay. Then Amex introduced 5x points via FHR and a big question was raised. Would you still earn the hotel loyalty points and status nights? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the evidence I’ve seen and heard is that you do. If that’s the case, since using Amex points is buying the night, it serves us to believe that using points to pay for the room would also earn you hotel loyalty points and elite nights as well.
Analysis
Everyone values their points differently, and this certainly isn’t the best value for using Amex points by my standards. In fact, it’s only getting a penny a point, and it damn near kills me to get less than two cents. That said…if you’re sitting on an absolute grip of points, which a lot of small business owners are, and you’re looking to get the best value at specific properties, don’t overlook using your points to simply pay for the room instead of transferring into a partner program. In this scenario, it’ll not only save points, but provide incredible benefits during our stay.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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