Award Hotel Research Tool

Earning rewards and redeeming points to get free stuff might become quite addictive if you know what you are doing. Especially after you realize you’ve just bought a $1,500 worth business class ticket for $11. That’s when it strikes you that the game is definitely worth playing.

Those who’ve been earning and redeeming points for a long time are familiar with apps and websites that help us keep track of the rewards (such as AwardWallet, MaxRewards or TPG app). Not only do these apps manage the points we have, they also come up with new ways on how to save our money. AwardWallet has recently introduced several new tools to explore.

While it’s become clear now how to earn more points using Merchant Lookup Tool (where you just know which store will give you more points on your chosen cards), it hasn’t been pointed out how you can redeem points at the best value. The truth is that each program has its own redemption value, which is basically how much money you get for each point. Obviously, the more the better. So now AwardWallet developed a tool called ‘Award Hotel Research Tool’ that shows you where you get better value for your points.

Let’s have a look at this tool together. If you have an AwardWallet account, just open ‘Tools’ and the click on ‘Award Hotel Research Tool’. There you can type the name of the place you’re planning to visit. I chose Vermont, and here are the results:

You can see the names of the hotels and the chains they belong to. The redemption value shows how much money each point is worth. Basically you get this number if you divide the average cash price by the average point price. And the above average column shows you how much over the typical value you get for the particular hotel. For example, the average redemption rate for IHG Hotels & Resorts is 0.73, so the 1.4 is 91% above that. It seems like a good deal, and you can notice that the hotels are sorted according to the percentage above average. Of course, if you search different locations, you will get different results. Sometimes the redemption rate goes as high as 3.9 and I’ll leave you to explore more. The data is based on real life bookings and is subject to fluctuation, so make sure to use this tool on a regular basis to get the best option possible.