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Introduction

You’ve saved up for that big trip. You haven’t only saved cash, but you’ve saved points, so you can finally get that “free” vacation from credit card points you’ve heard so many people talk about. The question now is what to use them on. Do you use your hard-earned points for hotels or airlines? Does that even matter?

When it Matters

If you’re looking at how many points something costs in your credit card’s travel portal, you’re almost always overpaying (with the exception of booking hotels with Chase Sapphire Reserve® [view all offers here] points at a 1.5 cent per point value in Chase Travel(SM)), and you’ll just get the standard 1 cent per point value that most of the portals offer.

If you want to get outsized value, you have to look at transferring your points from your credit card to the card’s airline or hotel transfer partners, and book your trip through them.

There are great tools out there to help you find transfer partner redemption availability, and you always want to check to make sure the booking you want is available before transferring your points over to any airline or hotel.

1. Higher Value Per Point: Generally, transferring points to airlines can offer a higher value per point compared to hotels. This is especially true when redeeming for premium cabins such as business or first class.

2. Global Reach: Airlines can take you almost anywhere in the world, making them a versatile option for international travelers.

3. Frequent Promotions: Airlines often have promotions that allow you to get even more value from your points, such as discounted award tickets or bonus miles on transfers.

So Should I Transfer to Hotels or Airlines?

Of course, the answer here is “it depends,” and it depends greatly on whether you’re new to the points game or highly experienced. Let’s start with the facts, and then we can compare that to your experience level and preferences to determine what you should do.

Here are the facts:

• On average, airline transfer partners are more value per point than hotel transfer partners

• Business and first class flights are worth more per point than economy flights

• Hyatt is more valuable per point than most airline and other hotel transfer partners

  • Only Chase and Bilt Rewards transfer to Hyatt

• Alaska and American Airlines are arguably “the Hyatt of Airlines” in terms of value per point, but not to the same extent.

  • Only Bilt Transfers to Alaska

  • No one transfers to American, but Citi offers cards that earn American Airlines miles directly

• For both airline and hotel point redemptions: the better value per point the reward is, the harder it is to find dates where it’s possible to book that redemption

Now that we’ve laid out the facts, here come my opinions, starting with people who are new to the points game:

I’m in the minority here, but I strongly believe that booking hotels with your points is a better use of points for many people trying to get their first taste of luxurious experiences for free with points. While it’s possible, or even probable, that looking for a business class flight can earn you more cents per point in terms of value, I still don’t think that’s worth it for your first or second points redemption for a few different reasons:

• Hotel stays last longer than a flight

The feeling of staying at a hotel that you got for free encapsulates the entirety of your stay. You feel good about it the entire time. You have time to take it in, enjoy the experience, and appreciate everything the hotel has to offer. Compare that to a business class flight: it might be cool, but it’s over in a few hours, and then the rest of your trip doesn’t have that same intense “free” feeling that inspires you to earn more points and continue in the credit card game.

• It’s easier for more people to appreciate

If you’re new to points and you’re traveling with a significant other, booking the high value business class flight redemptions can be prohibitively expensive points-wise, and it can be difficult to find 2 available seats on the same flight. Compare that to booking a single hotel room that you’re going to share anyway, and you both feel like you got something for free, and can revel in that feeling for a longer duration than the flight.

• Many people start by earning Chase and Bilt points

Chase and Bilt are two of the most popular points beginners earn, and they’re the only ones who transfer to Hyatt, which is the most valuable Hotel transfer partner. So in addition to my points above, if you’re a beginner, it’s much more likely you’ll have Chase and Bilt points than American Exress or Wells Fargo points, and Chase and Bilt points’ most valuable transfer partner is Hyatt.

The reason I’m telling you to maximize the “getting stuff for free feeling” by staying at hotels first is because that will give you the internal drive and motivation to excite you about this hobby in the long term, probably more than that economy class ticket for your 3 hour flight to Mexico that you found for 1.8 cents per points.

Switching to more experienced points travelers, the advice totally comes down to your specific trips, dates, and preferences. If great redemptions are available for your specific dates on airlines instead of hotels, go for it and transfer to airlines. If you value a business class flight more than a 5 star hotel, then go for it an transfer to airlines also. If you want to optimize for the most travel possible, but you like staying in nice places, than transfer to airlines to book economy flights, and transfer to hotels for great accommodations. But if you want to focus on getting the absolute maximum cent per point value for your points, then maybe you should book your economy flight with cash, and save all of your points for that 4 cent per point Hyatt redemption.

In Conclusion

For beginners, my opinion is you should optimize for what would stand out most to you as the coolest “I got this for free” experience. If you’re more experienced, articles like this matter way less, and the options available to you for your specific trip matter way more.

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Editors Note: The opinions expressed in this article are solely the author's and do not reflect the views of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by any of the organizations mentioned.