The Best Hotel Chain to Maximize Your Amex Points
Julie
I read terms and conditions for fun.
You work hard to rack up your American Express points, so when you redeem them, you want to be sure that you are getting as much value as you can. When you want to use your AMEX points for hotel stays, you have a lot of options. You could stay almost anywhere, but you want to stretch your points to get you more. You want to pick the right hotel chain to really maximize those rewards.
To do that, it seems that transferring your AMEX points into hotel points first will be the most effective; it seems you will get more value from these programs. That being said, it seems that staying at Hilton properties is the way to go. Starwood happens to come in at a close second when it comes to the best hotel chains for maximizing their points.
Hilton
Hilton is the winner because for every AMEX point, you get 1.5 points from Hilton, and you can get a free room for as little as 7,500 points. You get a free room for less points from Hilton, which is definitely a win! Also, AMEX occasionally runs bonuses for transfers of points to Hilton, which means you can get more for out of your points.
Starwood
Starwood Preferred Guest is the runner up. They are great because they have a system where you can redeem your points and also pay cash if you don’t have enough points, and it seems you can score three to seven cents per point in value. For every three AMEX points, you get one Starwood point, which is a bit more impressive sounding once you find out that free rooms can be as little as 2,000 points per night. As with Hilton, AMEX may run bonus offers for transferring their points to Starwood as well.
Photos: Amex Cards–American Express, Hotel Housekeeping–StockImages@Freedigitalphotos
