With the right hotel rewards membership you can save money in many ways. Earn free nights, get room upgrades, and get discounts at the hotel restaurants and spas, just to name a few.

If you are a member of a hotel rewards program, when you pay for hotel stay, you earn hotel points that you can redeem for free stay. Or, if you chose, instead of hotel points, you can earn airline miles, due to the fact that most of the well-known hotels have partnerships with airlines.

Signing up to be a member of a hotel rewards program it's free and simple. You can do it online, at the hotel website, and requires just your basic personal information like name, address, phone number and email address.

When booking a hotel room, always check the hotel cash rate first (hotel rates can vary greatly during the year). If you have flexible reward points in your Chase Ultimate Rewards account (and want to use them to book your hotel stay), determine the number of Chase Ultimate Rewards points needed to book your room, based on the hotel cash rate and the reward credit card you have (you need 10,000 Sapphire Reserve points for every $150, or 10,000 Sapphire Preferred points for every $125). Compare that to the option of booking your stay using hotel reward points.  Use the option that is more convenient for you, at that time.

Let's take the example below, at The Westin Bayshore, Vancouver; to book a king-bed room on July 11, 2018, will cost you 16,000 SPG (Starwood Preferred Guest) reward points/night, (plus $23 other charges/night). But the cash room, (with free cancellation) is around $600/night, which is equivalent to 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, when booking with points from Sapphire Reserve account, (or 48,000 when booking with points from Sapphire Preferred).  In this example, booking a room with SPG points it will save you a great deal versus paying cash or paying with Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Now, if you book the same hotel, The Westin Bayshore, Vancouver, during off-peak time, a double-bed room on December 29, 2017, costs 12,000 SPG reward points/night. But the cash room, with free cancellation is $212/night, which is equivalent to 14,133 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, when booking with points from Sapphire Reserve account, (or 16,960 when booking with points from Sapphire Preferred).  In this case (off-peak season), the cash rate or booking with Chase Ultimate Rewards points is much closer to booking with SPG points, and you can use either one depending on your priorities. 

When paying "cash" for a hotel room, use your Sapphire Reserve, Sapphire Preferred or Business Ink Preferred to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points, in top of the hotel or airline rewards earned for being a hotel rewards member. You earn 3 (Chase) points/ $1 spent with Reserve or Ink and 2 (Chase) points/ $1 spent with Preferred.

Plus, hotels usually don't charge room taxes when booking with award points, but you still have pay the occupancy or resort taxes and fees.

Also, if you don't have enough points, most hotel offer the option of combining points with cash to book. If you use a combination of points and cash to pay for booking, you will also have to pay room taxes on the cash portion.

We believe that the best hotel memberships are the ones that prioritize earning points redeemable for free nights and offer options of booking rooms with a low number of award points and/or offer airline miles.

Most Hotel Rewards Programs have partnered with banks and offer their own hotel rewards credit cards. Hotel rewards credit cards have a variety of benefits, from sign up bonus points to earning bonus hotel points every time you use the card to pay for hotel stay. But, unless they have a great sign up bonus and no annual fees, you are better if using your Chase Ultimate Rewards cards when booking hotel stay.

Here is a summary overview of our favorite hotel memberships: Marriott Rewards, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), Hilton Honors, and World of Hyatt.

1. Marriott Rewards

• Marriott has more than 5,000 properties worldwide with brands like: JW Marriott, Marriott Hotels, Renaissance Hotels, The Ritz Carlton, Courtyard by Marriott, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, SpringHill Suites by Marriott, Residence Inn by Marriott, TownePlace Suites by Marriott.
• There are 4 levels of memberships: Rewards Member (basic), Silver Elite (10 nights or more/year), Gold Elite (50 nights or more/year) and Platinum Elite (75 nights or more/year).
• All 4 membership levels receive reward points or flyer miles (Silver receive 20% more, Gold 25% more and Platinum 50% more), when paying for hotel stay.
• With Gold and Platinum, get lounge access and breakfast for 2, late checkout at 4pm, complimentary room upgrade, enhanced in-room internet. 
• Earn 10 hotel points/$1 spent at most Marriott Rewards hotels or 1 to 2 airline miles/$1 spent, (for a partner airline of your choice).
• Earn 5 hotel points/$1 spent at Residence Inn by Marriott and TownePlace Suites by Marriott or 1 airline mile/$1 spent, (for a partner airline of your choice).
• At Marriott you can get the 5th night free when booking with award points.
• The number of points needed to book a standard room is based on the following hotel category chart: Category 1 - 7,500 points/night, Category 2 - 10,000 points/night, Category 3 - 15,000 points/night, Category 4 - 20,000 points/night, Category 5 - 25,000 points/night, Category 6 - 30,000 points/night, Category 7 - 35,000 points/night, Category 8 - 40,000 points/night, and Category 9 - 45,000 points/night.
• To sort Marriott the hotels by category and destination:
  •  1. Go to Marriott.com
  • 2. In the main "MENU" (on the top left corner), go to "FIND AND RESERVE"
  • 3. Select "Browse by Destination", on the new page you can Filter the hotels by categories to find out the number of reward points needed to book a standard room.

2. Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG):

• SPG has over 1,500 hotels around the world, with brands like: Sheraton, Regis, aloft, Four Points, LeMeridien and W.
• There are 3 levels of memberships: Preferred (basic), Gold (10 stays or 25 nights/year) and Platinum (25 stays or 50 nights/year).
• All 3 membership levels receive reward points or flyer miles (Gold receive 50% more, and Platinum 50%-100% more), when paying for hotel stay.
• Earn 2 hotel points/$1 spent or 2 airline miles/$1 spent (for a partner airline of your choice).
• At SPG you can get the 5th night free when booking with award points.
• The number of points needed to book a standard room is based on the following hotel category chart: Category 1 - 3,000 (2,000on weekend) points/night, Category 2 - 4,000 (3,000 on weekend) points/night, Category 3 - 7,000 points/night, Category 4 - 10,000 points/night, Category 5 - 12,000 to 16,000points/night, Category 6 - 20,000 to 25,000 points/night and Category 7 - 30,000 to 35,000 points/night.

Due to Marriott and Starwood (SPG) merger, you can now transfer points from Starwood to Marriott at a 1:3 ratio. For instance, you can get 9,000 Marriott points for every 3,000 SPG points. 
Also, if you have both memberships (at Starwood and Marriott), you can link your accounts together. And, if you have elite status with one or both programs, both programs will recognize you at the higher level you have (with either of them). SPG elite level is easier to get, so if you achieve elite level with SPG, you will earn the same elite level with Marriott.

When you stay at Marriott hotels you can only earn Marriott reward points and when you stay at SPG, you can only earn SPG points, but you can transfer the points from one program to the other at anytime, free of charge.

3. World of Hyatt

• Hyatt has over 750 hotels in over 50 countries.
• Earn 5 hotel points/$1 spent or earn 500 award miles per stay (for a partner airline of your choice).
• There are 4 levels of memberships: Member (basic), Discoverist (10 nights or 25,000 base points/year), Explorist (30 nights or 50,000 base points/year) and Globalist (60 nights or 100,000 base points/year).
•  The number of points needed to book a standard room is based on the following category chart: Category 1 - 5,000 points/night, Cat. 2 - 8,000 points/night, Cat. 3 - 12,000 points/night, Cat. 4 - 15,000 points/night, Cat. 5 - 20,000 points/night, Cat. 6 - 25,000 points/night, and Cat. 7 - 30,000 points/night. 
• All 4 membership levels receive reward points or flyer miles, when paying for hotel stay.

4. Hilton Honors:

• Hilton has over 4,900 locations worldwide, with brands like: Hilton Hotels and Resorts, DoubleTree, Hampton by Hilton, Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites.
• There are 4 levels of memberships: Member (basic), Silver (4 stays or 10 nights/year), Gold (20 stays or 40 nights/year, or 75,000 Hilton base points/year) and Diamond (30 stays or 60 nights/year, or 120,000 Hilton base points/year).
• All 4  membership levels receive reward points or flyer miles (Silver receive 15% more, Gold 25% more and Diamond 50% more), when paying for hotel stay.
• With Hilton Honors Double Dip, you can earn hotel base points rewards and airline miles in the same time. 
• Earn 10 hotel base points/$1 spent, plus 5 hotel bonus points/$1 spent OR earn 10 hotel base points/$1 spent plus 1 airline mile/$1 spent (for a partner airline of your choice).
• If you have at least Silver status, you can get the 5th night free when booking with award points.

Connect to the hotel rewards membership site to find out more:

• Marriott Rewards
• Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG)
• World of Hyatt
• Hilton Honors